As Ireland's women's cricket squad get ready to take on India in Dublin today, twins Isobel and Cecelia Joyce, the youngest members of Ireland's foremost cricketing clan, explain their lifelong love of the sport to James Fitzgerald.
Few families in Ireland have made such an impact on one sport as the Joyces have on cricket. Over the past 10 years or so, there has hardly been an Irish or Leinster team, men's or women's, that hasn't included at least one Joyce. And their presence is increasing all the time.
Ed Joyce has played for Ireland more than 50 times and now plays full-time for Middlesex and England. Dominick has been a regular on the Irish side for five or six years, and is still only 25. Gus played a few times for his country in the 1990s before injury forced him to quit, while elder brothers Johnny and Damian played a good level of club cricket in Dublin and Wicklow, blazing the trail for their younger siblings. And that's just the boys.
The youngest members of the Joyce clan are 22-year-old twins, Isobel and Cecelia. They would tell you that they are the product of the Joyce family recipe for cricketing success, which was merely being perfected until they came along. And it is hard to argue. They have been in the senior Ireland women's squad since they were 14 and regulars in the first team from not long after that. They are precociously talented sportswomen, and their love for cricket was no accident.
As children they hardly remember a time when cricket balls weren't being sent in their direction at high velocity. With that many older brothers, all mad about the game, it seems they had little choice and the Joyce family's back garden became the finest nursery Irish cricket has known.
"We never liked dolls," says Isobel. "We were just little tomboys and spent the whole time playing cricket with our brothers in the back garden," adds Cecelia. At 10 years old, they decided they wanted to play with the boys' under-11 team in their home club of Merrion on Dublin's Anglesea Road.
When they had played in the first few matches (and more than held their own), opposing teams objected. The twins were banned from playing and missed out on the semi-final and final. The following year the powers-that-be changed the regulations to allow girls to play in the boys' teams, up to a certain age.
"We were the pioneers," says Cecelia. And they haven't stopped taking on the boys since - the Irish women's team now takes part in one of the men's leagues in Leinster, facing male opposition on a weekly basis.
When the twins' father, Jimmy Joyce, was growing up in Dublin's Liberties, cricket wasn't really on the agenda. Not many lads from Thomas Street or Lauderdale Terrace were getting dressed up in whites to go prancing around the fields of the Phoenix Park after a small, red leather ball. But Jimmy discovered the game almost by accident and developed a fascination for it that has lasted to this day.
He later moved to Co Wicklow and was one of the founding members of Bray Cricket Club, which later became North Wicklow Cricket Club, and while Jimmy was no cricketing superstar, he passed his love for the game to his children.
He later got involved in Merrion Cricket Club (he is a past club president) and is currently honorary treasurer of the Leinster Cricket Union (LCU). To complete the family obsession, his wife Maureen is very active in the game as first-team scorer at Merrion, fixtures secretary for both Merrion and Dublin University clubs, as well as chairwoman of the women's branch of the LCU.
Isobel and Cecelia are conscious of the fact that for many people in this country cricket is still regarded as an unwelcome legacy of our colonial past, and they seem to feel it is their duty to dispel some of the myths that surround it.
"Cricket is definitely getting cooler, but it still has a bit of an image problem," Cecelia says. "People think it's a sport for the upper class, but that just isn't true anymore," she said, pointing to the success of North County Cricket Club in Balrothery, north Co Dublin, arguably the best club in Ireland at present and about as far from the snobbish, Anglicised stereotype as is possible.
And at a time when all sports are struggling to keep girls playing beyond their mid-teens, the Joyces want women to see cricket as a fun and healthy way to spend their summers. "Cricket has an image of being boring, so we always try to make it fun and interesting, especially when we are fielding," says Isobel. "I think girls can be very self-conscious and part of the reason they give up playing sport is about self-image, so I think it's important for them to be in a friendly, fun environment and cricket really offers that.
"It's such a social sport, and there is a level for everyone. You don't have to train all the time or give a huge commitment to a team if you don't want to. You don't even have to know all the rules. It's just a fun way to spend some time, make friends and keep healthy. A lot of women are playing softball now because they see it as non-threatening. Cricket is like that, too," she says.
But for those girls who do well and want to play at a higher level, there are now some good opportunities. Last summer the Ireland men's team qualified for the first time to take part in the 2007 World Cup finals in the West Indies. The women's team, however, had beaten them to it. Sponsored by Bosch home appliances, they were able to take part in last year's Women's World Cup in Pretoria, South Africa and are hoping to get through to the next one in Australia, three years from now.
Last week, Ireland's women's team went on a tough tour of southern England and took on England A, Sussex, and top New Zealand side Canterbury. And today they will face the second-best team in the world, India, in the first of two one-day internationals in Dublin.
"This summer is all about giving the team some experience, with the World Cup qualifiers coming up next year," says national coach Miriam Grealey. "The average age of the team is only about 22 or 23, so they still have a lot to learn." Maybe, but for at least two of them, they come from what is surely the finest family-run cricketing academy in the country. Those hours spent in the back garden of a house in Bray are paying off. u
Today Ireland V India, Railway Union CC, Park Avenue, Sandymount, Dublin 4, 11am
Tomorrow Ireland V India, The Hills CC, Milverton, Skerries, Co Dublin, 11am