it was a case of so near and yet so far for our Lady Milne (women’s home international championship) team over the weekend in Perth, Scotland. The team (Jeannie Fitzgerald, Joan Kenny, Rebecca Brown-O’Keeffe, Gilda Pender, Teresa Rigney, Siobhan Part, and NPC Paul Porteous) started with a win over their main challengers, England, and also won their next two matches to take a solid lead into the final day. A defeat to Wales in match four cut the lead to just 4 VPs going into the last match, but hopes were still high for a first Lady Milne victory. It was not to be, however, even though the team defeated Northern Ireland in their final match (winning 13.46 VPs), as England beat the SBU team by 18.76 to 1.24, to pip us for the trophy by a margin of just 1.95 VPs. Full details of the weekend competition may be found here.
Ireland Lady Milne Team 2023
The weekend also saw the finals of the National Teams Championships (for the Kelburne Cup, Bankers Trophy, and Tierney Trophy) at the Killeshin Hotel, Portlaoise. The numbers were not quite as good as for the Pairs equivalent a few weekends ago, but all three competitions were well-contested nonetheless, with the tightest being the Kelburne Cup, where the defending champions (Gay Keaveney, Enda Glynn, Paul Scannell, and David Walsh) saw off a spirited challenge from the North Munster team to retain their trophy. This completes a hat-trick for this quartet, which has won the Kelburne on the last three occasions (2019, 2022, and 2023), and represents a remarkable twelfth victory in total for Gay and Enda, with Paul Scannell on eleven of those teams. Our thanks to the TD crew of Fearghal O’Boyle, Mairead Basquille, Diarmuid Reddan, and Huey Daly for managing the weekend.
- Kelburne Cup (Open) – 1st Holders – Gay Keaveney, Enda Glynn, Paul Scannell, David Walsh; 2nd North Munster – Maureen & Bob Pattinson, John & Kelan O’Connor; 3rd Dublin South – Paul Delaney, David Dunne, Tomás Roche, Martin Brady Masterpointed Results
- Bankers Trophy (Intermediate A) – 1st Mid-Leinster 1 – Kevin McKevitt, Angela O’Neill, Helen Dredge, Ann Hogan; 2nd South Midland 1 – Pat Costello, Tom Reilly, Kevin Kennedy, Willie Redmond; 3rd Dublin South 3 – Max McNeill, Eddie Payne, Fiona McGoldrick, Brian McCann Masterpointed Results
- Tierney Trophy (Intermediate B) – 1st North Eastern – Melissa Brady, Kathleen McCabe, Mary Maguire, Bríd Campbell-McManus; 2nd Eastern – Jean Hennebry, Cora Ryan, Nell McDonnell, Liz Murphy; 3rd Dublin South – Gary Beirne, Colin Kelly, Niamh Boyle, Nessa Neilson Masterpointed Results
Kelburne Cup Winners 2023
Bankers Trophy Winners 2023
Tierney Trophy Winners 2023
The Marie Cummins Trophy for the best overall regional performance was won by Dublin South.