When the new national sports policy was launched in Dublin, star athletes included Olympic sailing silver medallist Annalise Murphy, European championship bronze medal winning boxer Kellie Harrington - and nine-year-old Charlie Moore from Wexford.
The Enniscorthy schoolgirl was feted at the ceremony on Wednesday for her campaign Get It for Girls to encourage girls to take up sport and stay in sport as adults.
Her seat at the podium for the launch in Harrington's home area of Sherriff Street, Dublin city was prompted by a letter she wrote to Minister for Sport Shane Ross in which she said "I want you to help me to increase the number of girls playing sport.
“I want to help the GAA to get as much people to support women’s sport. I believe GIRLS CAN Do ANYTHING and GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING THAT BOYS CAN DO (sic).”
The camogie, karate (Kenpo), Gaelic football and soccer player, said in her letter that 50 per cent of girls will drop out of sport by the age of 13.
“I want more girls to try again if they have started it but gave it up. I believe they can start again and they should believed in themselves. They should believe that they can do anything.”
She told journalists at the policy launch: “That’s (not playing sport) bad for their mental health. I wanted to make them stay until they’re about 30, and keep on exercising and going to the gym and it’s not just girls but adults too.”
What prompted her to write the letter? “I saw how much there’s less girls playing sport and at the All Ireland there was less people at the girls’ All Ireland than the boys’.
“So I set up a campaign called Get It for Girls and I had a petition that I got most of my school (Rathnure National School) to sign and I got 159 signatures saying that Yes to girls, to get more girls doing sport.
“Every girl in our school definitely plays one sport but I want to make them play a bit more than one sport to help their mental health and everything and grow when they get older to be healthy.”
She said the Minister told her: “’You’re totally right that girls should get more into sport and everything’. I’m happy that he replied but it took a while to reply though.”
What can the Minister do? “We can have different clubs and more after-school kind of things. Stuff like that would help the girls in sport.”
Asked what playing sport does for her, she said “I like being in a team and working together to score a goal or put it over the bar or maybe help each other.
“Well when I get my next belt in karate (purple) I’m going to train six hours a week.”
Mr Ross described the nine-year-old as an “inspiration” and said it was part of the 2018-2027 policy that “we committed more money to encourage women to get into sport. We want to completely close the gender gap between men and women in sports.”
