Julie-Ann Russell has a match tonight. With the basketball season over, the local Gaelic football team has her full attention – once her work for Microsoft is done, her daughter Rosie is fed and her husband Kieran is home.
Home being a house they built in Moycullen, a serene part of the world on the way out of Galway city towards Connemara.
Soccer did not build this life for Julie-Ann, Kieran and Rosie, because professionalism is still not a possibility for female players living in Ireland. Not when Russell won the first of her 66 caps in 2009, nor when she won the last against Wales in the Euro 2025 playoff defeat at the Aviva Stadium.
So much was on the line that December day, including Russell’s entire career.
“If we won that game, Eileen Gleeson would be running for president,” she said. “We would all have really good sponsors. It is mad how a result changes everything. What Eileen did was unbelievable. We lose a game and she is gone.”
How does a mother, following a four-year hiatus, play such a vital role for the Republic of Ireland?
Four months after Rosie was born, Russell ran the 2023 New York marathon in 3 hours, 48 minutes. In Barcelona last March, she clocked 3:25.
This suggests that the Russell household was athletics-mad? “I still have a laugh with my dad (Wally Russell): ‘I can’t believe you didn’t let me do running’. ‘There was no time!’ he says.
“Every evening I was being brought somewhere. I also did Irish dancing, horse riding, tin whistle. Not just sport. I won cross-country in school and was asked to join the club. But I wasn’t let!”
John Russell, her big brother, is the Sligo Rovers manager, having made over 300 appearances in the League of Ireland despite being an “injury-riddled” midfielder.
“I always played soccer with John and I loved it. I could see you could get on an Ireland team and travel. I didn’t even know there was an Ireland team in basketball.”
The loss to Wales meant that her career ambition to feature at a major tournament in Switzerland this summer fell agonisingly short. But goals against England at Carrow Road last year and victory over France in Páirc Uí Chaoimh made her return an enormous success, despite the lingering pain from how it all ended.
“Oh it was our own fault,” said Russell of Wales’ 3-2 victory over two legs. “We should have put it to bed in the first half at the Aviva. I had a chance - ‘keeper made a good save. I probably could have done better. Denise (O’Sullivan) hit the crossbar. If one went in, in the first half, we would have cruised it.
“Going in at half-time I was thinking, ‘we are going to do this’. And then, stupid f**king VAR. It wasn’t in any other game. It was a handball (by Anna Patten) but nobody saw it.” Wales scored the ensuing penalty.
Russell’s return to the Ireland squad, all the while furthering her actual career in Microsoft and raising Rosie, borders on the impossible. It was made possible by her outstanding form for Galway United and the “safe” environment created by Gleeson.
“Eileen rang to check if I was still interested in playing for Ireland, because obviously my whole life had changed,” she recalls. “I said I would, but in the back of my head I was thinking, ‘will Rosie be able to come with me?’. I’d never been away from her for longer than a day, so I asked if there would be time for Rosie and Kieran to call up.
“Eileen said ‘Rosie is coming into camp, no ifs or buts’. I was still sh***ing it going in after four years, but the moment I walked into the hotel, I felt so safe.
I just feel that it was handled very poorly
— Julie-Ann Russell
“Rosie and Kieran were allowed to bop around the hotel, in for meals, just not at training or team meetings. We had a room to ourselves.”
The FAI tend to bring criticism on themselves but that was a progressive move.
“You couldn’t ask for more. It brought so much good energy.”
In one sense, Russell has paved the way for mothers to play international football but in reality it is unsustainable.
“How did I do it? If I didn’t have a full-time job and I was professional while being a mum, that would be totally fine. But I had just started a new role in Microsoft as well.”
Two days after returning from maternity leave on July 1st, she sought a two-week break to play international football.
“I was mortified. But they were so supportive. And then I was plastered all over Microsoft!”
That’s what happens when you score a brilliant goal to beat France in the Páirc.
“It was definitely the best game I’ve ever played. [My dad] is from Cork so we had lots of family there. All my Galway United team came down. So it was extra special. I remember the roar of the crowd when the goal went in.”
Failure to qualify for Euro 2025 ended the international careers of Louise Quinn, Niamh Fahey, Diane Caldwell and Russell. In one fell swoop, 404 caps’ worth of experience was gone.
Gleeson and her assistant coach Colin Healy were subsequently replaced by Carla Ward and Alan Mahon. Marc Canham, the FAI’s outgoing chief football officer, acted swiftly and the views of senior players, such Russell and Katie McCabe, were not sought.
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“It is a very good idea to ask older, experienced players to know what can be improved or done differently,” said Russell.
Asked about how she viewed the decision to replace Gleeson and Healy, she said: “If I step back, I probably think it was a bit unfair but sport can be cruel and it is a results game. If I was the FAI, I would have kept them because I thought the environment they built was so good.”
Russell remains unimpressed by the association’s subsequent treatment of Healy and Gleeson.
“Personally, I think it is a mess. It is sad what has happened. They are two great human beings who are very good at their jobs. I just feel that it was handled very poorly.”
Ward tried to convince her to come back for a tilt at reaching the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.
“No, I am done. I want to have more children. I have just turned 34. That was a massive factor in it. I’d be 36, 37 so it isn’t realistic as the talent coming through is class.”
Ellen is phenomenal. She should be in the Ireland team
— Julie-Ann Russell
By farming out this talent to foreign clubs, without a central academy system in place, the FAI may risk making the same short-sighted mistakes with the women’s game in the 2020s that it made with the men’s game in the 1990s.
“If I was 18 or in my early 20s now, I’d go professional because they can train full-time,” said Russell. “Realistically, that is only abroad. Back in UL, I focused on my career as number one with football second. You had to do that. Long-term it was not sustainable to go football, football, football. One bad injury at 24 and you have no education.”
The solution remains the same.
“It is sad but I do think it comes down to money. The standard in Ireland is definitely improving but the standard abroad is as well.”
Could the FAI have done more for women’s football since the 2023 World Cup? “I do think that the home-based training sessions should have cracked on. Some girls at under-19s to about 22 have not developed properly and they are in limboland – not yet ready for senior football, but they will be. Those sessions were perfect for them.”
The FAI discontinued the sessions, with chief executive David Courell citing costs. Limboland has become the norm; Izzy Atkinson (23) and Abbie Larkin (20) have not kicked on since the World Cup, despite moves to Crystal Place, while the rare talent that is Ellen Molloy returned home from Sheffield United.
“Ellen is phenomenal,” said Russell. “She should be in the Ireland team. There is a star quality about her. That [knee] injury put her back. If she got really, really fit she’d be unstoppable. I’d have her in any team. 100 per cent.”
Ward disagrees.
Anyway, Russell has a match tonight. Quietly, during her second coming with Ireland, she returned to the hardwood for Moycullen.
“I love basketball. It is such a class sport. I took a little break before the Wales game. Told them I couldn’t make training. But I played the whole time. Basketball is finished but I am still playing Gaelic. I went back a few weeks ago.”
It appears that she is not even remotely retired.
“I can’t sit down. I compartmentalised [retirement from soccer] and moved on. Life is so busy. I haven’t thought about it. Maybe I will in the future if Rosie plays football. I won’t push her – I see kids hating sport when their parents push them.”
Did Wally push her and John?
“Not a bit,” she said. “My mum was like, ‘you are doing too much, you’ll burn out, look at all the bruises!’.”
Soccer had its time with Julie-Ann Russell but her sporting life has many miles to run.
