In the venerable surrounds of Ireland’s oldest sports club, women of all ages congregated for a leisurely spot of cricket in Phoenix Park on Saturday afternoon.
It sounds innocuous enough, and although some of the younger participants might not quite have appreciated the magnitude of the occasion, the women of Phoenix Cricket Club were in fact celebrating 40 years since the institution of the country's longest-standing women's cricket team.
What’s more, along with being banished to the sidelines, male members had to deal with the ignominy of donning the doylies and preparing afternoon tea for their counterparts- a duty which they embraced wholeheartedly in the spirit of the day.
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“That’s the best part, we usually do all that!” shouts first team captain Hannah McGuckin, parching from her exploits on the playing field.
It all seems good fun now, but Barbara Schmidt – who was part of Phoenix's inaugural 1975 ladies team – had to contend with an altogether more onerous task when she (successfully) vied to become the first female president of an Irish cricket club in 1989.
“For 145 years it was all men, no women were even allowed in the bar,” she says.
“When we were here first there wasn’t even a ladies’ toilet, and then we got a changing room, and then we agitated for full membership and we were the first club to have women as full and equal members in 1980.”
In 1977, her team went on to contest their first cup final competition.
However, on that particular day all attention was focused on the opposition from Clontarf, whose batswoman Mary Taaffe was at the centre of an uproarious scandal (for the time) when a precocious Irish Times photographer caught a snap of her "frilly knickers", as Schmidt puts it, which appeared on the front page after their semi-final against Rathmines.
Despite the letter-writing skirmish in the newspaper and moralising which ensued over the following weeks, almost four decades on the woman herself still doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.
“I remember getting phone calls from my hockey pals just roaring laughing on the phone. I know some people felt very strongly it was a slight against women’s cricket but I really didn’t feel anything at all. I only wish I had put my straps on straight!” quips Taaffe.
"Men wouldn't necessarily be photographed from behind and they wouldn't be on the front page of The Irish Times. On the other hand, she played in a short skirt and frilly knickers. It was a debate, but it got a lot of publicity for us," adds Schmidt, whose controversial election opened the floodgates for women presidents at various other clubs in the capital.
As one pithy observer commented, she pipped Mary Robinson to the post of first female president in the park by one year.
Looking onto the field where members of the 1975 team mingled with current senior players and youngsters from the club’s juvenile section, Schmidt is keen to emphasise the growth which has seen the club amass two adult women’s teams along with a bustling underage setup.
“Our under-11s won the cup a couple of weeks ago. We were in our mid 20s when we started, but now girls are out there at 8,9,10 and 11 playing cricket. That’s fantastic, that’s the future.”