While Michelle Carey was warming up to play in the SoftCo international challenge series against Japan in Belfield a week ago, her mum was also in action in an Irish tracksuit, less than 100 metres away.
As assistant coach to the Irish under-21s who had just beaten Ukraine in the parallel under-23 Five Nations tournament, Una McCarthy could be seen gathering her charges into a tight circle for a quick debrief before the senior action started.
She and her sister Maeve have produced multiple Irish hockey stars as top schools’ coaches in Muckross and Mount Anville respectively and Una is also currently coaching Railway Union’s seniors.
Michelle’s dad Kevin Carey also taught physical education in St Mark’s CS, Tallaght and her uncle Larry McCarthy (another PE teacher) is best known as the current GAA president.
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So those sporty genes are simply undeniable?
“Yeah, one of my grandfathers played golf for Ireland, my other one played football for Wicklow and granny was into camogie,” Carey expands.
The Careys may have played everything from camogie to golf in their teens but the philosophy in their household has always been fun first.
“Mum and dad have always encouraged us to do what we love. Obviously it’s hard to enjoy sport all the time but they’ve always emphasised that you have to love what you’re doing and to enjoy it.”
Not only are she and Niamh twins but their only siblings are also twin boys with just 18 months between them so when she says “we’re all very competitive” with a wry grin you sense it’s a whopping understatement.
The girls played U16 Gaelic football for Dublin and the hockey hiatus enforced by Covid allowed them win Dublin junior medals with Ballinteer-St John’s but, when county minor trials clashed with European U18s, hockey became their priority.
She accepts some element of familial nurture, as well as nature, has played a part in their success to date, having witnessed, first-hand, the continuing and alarming dropout rates of young teenage girls from sport.
“When we went from primary to secondary there was definitely a drop off. We would have had two [girls’] teams in St John’s but, by the time we were in secondary, there was only one,” she notes.
“Maybe boys are more naturally competitive? It’s like they think ‘I’m on the B team now but I will be on the A team!’ whereas girls think ‘maybe I can do something else I’m good at?’ if they’re not making the A team. I always wonder if you’re not good at something do you still enjoy it, even though I always have.”
Growing up in a competitive family definitely helps, she reckons.
“Look at the girls on this team. Lena [Tice] would always have been playing with her brothers. She says she was fighting with them all the time. It [competitiveness] probably has something to do with the environment you grow up in.”
The Carey twins’ progress was almost as identical as their appearance until last year when Niamh was injured and missed out on the Olympics.
The UCD science student is also missing the 2022 World Cup in the Netherlands next week as she’s currently in the United States on Erasmus studies.
Is that recent divergence difficult?
“We’re very different players in very different positions, we’re not in competition with each other so that makes it easier,” says Michelle, a biomedical student in Belfield.
“Niamh’s a lot fitter and faster, she’s a very good runner, a much better athlete than me. She’d always have made cross country teams and things like that. I couldn’t even compete.”
Four years ago they were enthralled teenage fans at a World Cup. Now she is set to play a key role in one.
“We went to London in 2018 with my mum and my cousin to watch the group games. I remember thinking I’d love to be on that team. What they were doing was amazing and it also looked so fun. They made it look easy and it’s not.”
Ireland haven’t quite hit the same heights since; sixth at the 2021 Europeans and 10th on their historic Olympic debut.
Sean Dancer’s transitional side return to a World Cup stage, in Amsterdam on Saturday, carrying expectations magnified by that remarkable and joyous silver-medal performance.
But they’re still part-timers with only two full training days together per week and just five of the 2018 squad remain.
The end of a unique five-year Olympic cycle, with an already ageing team, has contributed to massive changes in personnel.
Six of the 20 players, led by captain Katie Mullan’s 206, make up 805 of this squad’s 987 caps. Five have still to win their first.
Yet Carey, with 10, has already played in a European Championship, an Olympic Games and a World Cup qualifier before her 23rd birthday and is expected to lead the charge.
Ask co-captain Roisín Upton if she’s ever been schooled by the ‘next gen’ and she quips: “You should see Michelle Carey in training. Every single day!”
It’s not only the midfielder’s skills but her creative approach that distinguishes her.
Upton was recently explaining how planning and preparation was key to her own game when her young team-mate “said something like ‘I think it’s the better you are reactively’.
“She’ll have three [opponents] around her and we’re like ‘Michelle, that’s high risk!’ but she’ll already be gone through them and you’re like ‘Go! Go! Go on!’” Upton laughs. “I’ve never played with anyone like her before. She’s phenomenal.”
Carey made her senior debut in a 4-0 loss to Netherlands at last June’s Europeans so facing the Olympic and defending world champions again in Saturday’s opener doesn’t faze her.
“We played well against them in the Europeans and in the Olympics. It’s just like relentless pressure. There’s three of them around you at all times. That doesn’t happen against other teams.
“We understand the legacy, we know we’re playing in the shirts that all those girls wore before us but, because we’re a new team, I don’t’ find there’s as much pressure,” she insists.
Mentally she’s well used to it.
When UCD were trailing Railway Union 2-1 in a cup game last year the Carey twins produced a goal each for the college’s 3-2 win. That their mum was the opposition coach mattered little.
A beaded bracelet in Kenyan colours on her right wrist is her only apparent nod to sentiment.
“We were swapping ‘pins’ [national badges] in the Athletes’ Village and there was a group of three Kenyan athletes, two girls and a boy, dancing in the street so I went up and asked them to swap and one of them gave me this.”
Playing in the Olympics, at 22 years of age, surely that, at least, rattled this unflappable being?
“Oh yeah. Every morning I’d wake up and go: ‘Whaaat? What am I doing here?’ I thought it was just so cool.”
A bit like herself really.
2022 Hockey World Cup (Wagener Stadium, Amsterdam, Irish times)
Group A
July 2nd: Netherlands v Ireland, 6.30pm.
July 5th: Ireland v Chile, 1pm
July 6th: Ireland v Germany, 3.30pm
