Meet the women’s Sevens stars opening new frontiers for Irish rugby

Ireland’s Sevens rugby team had already helped themselves to a slice of history last year by becoming the first Irish women’s side to qualify for the Olympic Games.

And then, last weekend, they only went and added another chapter to their story when they beat Australia in Perth to become the first Irish team to win a World Series tournament.

How excited are we about their Olympic medal-winning prospects? Quite excited. Although we should probably chill a bit.

But who are these women? Here’s a rough guide.

The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times

---

Pete Wilkins disappointed and frustrated as Connacht’s playoff hopes fade away

---

John Cooney seals thrilling Ulster win over Leinster to secure URC playoff spot

---

Lucy Mulhall

From: Tinahely, Co Wicklow

Club: Wicklow RFC

Age: 30

Debut: 2015

The long-time captain of Ireland’s Sevens side, Mulhall is one of the squad’s many sporting all-rounders having played Gaelic football for Wicklow, like her mother before her, and tried her hand at camogie, athletics and soccer, amongst many others. She grew up on a farm in Tinahely and now divides her time between rugby and her work in business development with investment management company TritonLake. A towering force for the Sevens side down the years.

Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe

From: Tipperary Town

Club: Railway Union

Age: 29

Debut: 2014

A permanent fixture in the Sevens’ set up for the last decade, it comes as no surprise that the speedy winger was a more than useful 100m runner in her youth. She took up rugby when she was 15 with her local club Clanwilliam and while she has dabbled with the 15s game along the way, making her Test debut in 2021, Sevens has been her focus. She’s Ireland’s top try scorer in the code and was nominated for World Rugby’s Player of the Year in 2022. In other words, she’s handy.

Stacey Flood

From: Rathmines, Dublin

Club: Railway Union

Age: 27

Debut: 2015

Another of the squad to have her sporting roots in Gaelic football, having played underage for Dublin, Flood followed her older sister Kim, who played senior for Dublin and went on to become a rugby international herself (and was more than decent at soccer too) in to the sport. And she’s never looked back. When she finds the time, she works in business development with a financial solutions company.

Eve Higgins

From: Kilcock, Co Kildare

Club: Railway Union

Age: 24

Debut: 2018

There’s a risk of some angry emails from Lucan folk who would claim Higgins as their own, but it was after she moved from the west Dublin town to Kildare’s Kilcock that she commenced her rugby career with Barnhall, where she played with the boys up to under-13 level. After that, she switched to Railway Union, and ever since she’s become one of the cornerstones of this Sevens’ squad. Only Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe, Lucy Mulhall and Stacey Flood have won more caps than the History and Sociology graduate.

Béibhinn Parsons

From: Ballinasloe, Co Galway

Club: Blackrock College

Age: 22

Debut: 2019

One of the most gifted players to emerge in Irish rugby over the years, Parsons became Ireland’s youngest ever senior international in 2018 when she made her debut for the 15s at just 16 – and produced a couple of spectacular tries along the way to confirm her talent. She has since become one of the Sevens’ key players, the Biomedical Science graduate coming from impressive Connacht sporting stock – former Mayo Gaelic football star Tom Parsons is a cousin.

Megan Burns

From: Tullamore, Co Offaly

Club: Blackrock College

Age: 23

Debut: 2018

Tullamore has made a significant contribution to Irish women’s rugby down the years, not least in the shape of former Ireland 15s captain Nichola Fryday, and Burns has added to that roll of honour for the club since joining the Sevens set-up when she was just 18. The sport runs in the family, her father John coaching several of the club’s teams along the way. While studying to become a physiotherapist, Burns also coached at the town’s hockey club.

Alanna Fitzpatrick

From: Portarlington, Co Laois

Club: Blackrock College

Age: 19

Debut: 2023

At just 18, Fitzpatrick became one of the youngest players to represent Ireland in a senior international when she made her debut for the Sevens last summer, just a handful of weeks after finishing her Leaving Cert. She took up rugby with Portarlington RFC and was part of their successful under-16 team, soon after she was added to Ireland’s ‘National Talent Squad’.

Erin King

From: Sydney, Australia

Club: Old Belvedere

Age: 20

Debut: 2021

She’d barely hit her teenage years and she’d already seen a fair chunk of the world, Sydney-born King living for spells in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar when her parents’ work took them there, before the family returned to their roots in Wicklow. Another gifted Gaelic footballer who represented her county at minor level, she has focused since on the sport she first took up when she was living in the Middle East – which is where she made her Irish Sevens debut three years ago, in Dubai.

Lucinda Kinghan

From: Monaghan

Club: Railway Union

Age: 23

Debut: 2019

Kinghan made quite a leap to rugby from her first sporting passion: horse-riding. But once she followed her older sister Natalie in to the newly formed women’s set-up at Monaghan Rugby Club, she was hooked. Since being called in to the Sevens programme, she’s had her injury battles, not least with a stress fracture to her leg that kept her out for the best part of a year. But she’s back, and hell-bent on being part of that Olympics squad.

Vicky Elmes Kinlan

From: Rathnew, Co Wicklow

Club: Wicklow RFC

Age: 20

Debut: 2022

Another Wicklow representative in the squad, alongside captain Lucy Mulhall and Erin King, Elmes Kinlan earned her place in the senior set-up after impressing in the under-18 interprovincial series. “You’re one of the best tacklers I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mulhall told her after her introduction to the squad. “You belong here – and you’re staying here.” Some tribute, that.

Emily Lane

From: Mallow, Co Cork

Club: Blackrock College

Age: 25

Debut: 2018

The scrumhalf is another of this squad’s mainstays, only four players winning more caps for the Sevens. She learned her rugby at Mallow RFC, before joining Blackrock in 2020 when she moved to Dublin to study biochemistry at Trinity. By then, she had earned a Sevens contract with the Irish set-up, and has remained part of it ever since. A measure of her impact was her nomination for the Sevens’ 2023 Player of the Year award alongside team-mates Lucy Mulhall and Amee-Leigh Murphy.

Kate Farrell McCabe

From: Brackernagh, Co Wexford

Club: Suttonians

Age: 22

Debut: 2022

Dublin-born, but we’re going to grant Farrell McCabe Wexford citizenship because she moved there before her first birthday. Her dad was a coach with Gorey Rugby Club, so the sport was in the family blood – although it took a while for it to seep in, show jumping her first love, Gaelic football and camogie not far behind. But tag games in the back garden awakened her interest, and soon enough she was progressing in leaps and bounds with Gorey.

Aoibheann Reilly

From: Ballinasloe, Co Galway/Roscommon

Club: Blackrock College

Age: 23

Debut: 2021

There must be something in the water in Ballinasloe, not content with gifting Béibhinn Parsons to Ireland, they provided Reilly too. Mind you, we’re way too nervous about describing her as a Galway or Roscommon woman, both counties laying claim to her . . . although she’s a former Roscommon underage Gaelic footballer. The Creagh native, now a fully qualified sports scientist, went to the same national school as Parsons and Republic of Ireland football international Heather Payne. Yes, definitely something in the water.

Vikki Wall

From: Dunboyne, Co Meath

Club: Ireland Sevens

Age: 25

Debut: 2024

Well, this was some story. A double senior All-Ireland football winner with Meath, and the 2021 Player of the Year, Wall then headed to Australia where she played for North Melbourne in the 2022 AFL season. Not content with that sporting CV, she decided to give rugby Sevens a shot, a trip to this summer’s Olympics her target. She joined up with the squad last August and made her debut in Perth last month. She was a gifted soccer player too, so that might be next on the agenda. Eileen Gleeson, take note.

• Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
• Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
• Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here