'If you give me a jersey to start, I’d be happier, but there is lots of talent coming through'
THERE ARE SOME non-negotiables when you want to pursue a career as a high performance athlete, and Katie Nolan fits that mould.
That said, the effervescent Coolcullen native does things her own way. A balanced outlook has Kilkenny’s two-time All-Ireland winner looking forward to tomorrow’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior camogie quarter-final against Waterford (1pm throw-in, live on RTÉ One) – part of a Croke Park double-header with the Cork-Galway hurling semi- final – even though her role has changed this term.
Someone who values playing highly – the future dual All-Star turned down a chance to be a senior panellist with Kilkenny in 2018 in preference to being in the thick of it with the intermediates – Nolan has now embraced the role of an impact sub with the Cats.
Current Kildare hurling boss, Brian Dowling once reported her to be among the most professional players in the panel during his term as manager, obsessed with camogie and the gym. On realising she needed to get fitter to be a factor at elite level, Nolan gave up alcohol and dedicated herself to being as highly conditioned as she could be.
So enthused did she become by her new lifestyle, that she became a qualified instructor and runs classes for James Bergin of JB Fitness a couple of mornings a week at Castlecomer Community School, including on a Thursday before going into work at the Presentation Convent Secondary School in Kilkenny city as an additional educational needs teacher.
And she plans to add a weights room/mini-gym similar to what she has in the family home, to the cottage 200m down the road that she bought and is currently renovating – her father, Séamas doing most of the labour by the sounds of things.
That said, after being named official player of the match with her five-point haul as Kilkenny won the All-Ireland in 2022 – “Nolan’s on fire, your defence is terrified,” rang out as she went to collect the award – all she wanted was to get back to ‘Comer for a burger and chips.
Having found it far easier to give up drink than some of the junkier foods available, Nolan quips that “a burger and chips is okay if you win an All-Ireland.”
She is tiny at 5’1’’ (“maybe 5’2” at a push”), but has flourished as camogie’s rules were tweaked to increase contact and physicality. Once upon a time, you would never equate teachers with tattoos, but Nolan has 12. Some with meaning, others for decorative purposes only. She acknowledges that they might not seem such a good idea in 40 years but so be it. She lives in the now.
Then there is the fact that she is a denizen of an almost exclusively small ball county, but still steered Muckalee to beat Kerry opposition, Cromane in the All-Ireland junior club ladies’ football final last December, kicking the winning point from a free at the death.
Muckalee, who also had ex-Kilkenny camogie winner and All-Star defender, Edwina Keane standing on the edge of the square next to Nolan, next were the first Kilkenny team to reach a ladies’ football club decider and the winner was the last of 10 points by the diminutive forward.
School may be out for the summer, but Nolan is busying herself with participating in the Summer Programme, colloquially known as the July Provision Camps, where primary school children with special educational needs to participate in camps to prevent a regression over the holidays.
“I love it,” Nolan enthuses. “There’s such variety. It’s just going into the classroom and opening up the books. There’s often days you go in, you might even get to the books.
“Some students need that hour in the day to just do a bit of movement or just do something that doesn’t feel like they’re learning at all. It depends. A day in one of those students’ lives, things change every 10 minutes for them. You might have a plan and more often than not, you won’t be going anywhere near that plan!”
She reckons the balance she has is just right, that being a full-time gym instructor would have reduced her desire to maintain her own peak fitness. Too much of a good thing, and all.
The football is another different rhythm she enjoys. She went to national school in Old Leighlin, over the Carlow border, and a Cork man who taught there, Shane O’Regan, was mad for the big ball.
“We used to have right craic down there,” Nolan recalls fondly. Delivering at Parnell Park at the end of 2025 will live long in the memory.
“The most we probably won at club in adult age was the 2014 senior league camogie, and all-county league. So to win something with the club was huge but to win something that big was crazy altogether.
“It’s mad when you’re going up these steps and lifting trophies and you’re looking out on your own (people), as opposed to sometimes with Kilkenny, you know people, but you don’t really know them, whereas you could probably name everyone out on the field that day. It was very special.”
You wonder about the pressure for that last kick.
“At the time it wasn’t too bad, because I was just like, ‘Well I may just get on with this now and just do it,’ whereas thinking about it afterwards, I was like, ‘Holy… ,’ and I had missed a real easy one over to the other side, maybe I’d say five minutes before that. I think you just have to get on with those things and try and just focus on what’s going on at that minute.”
Taking frees in All-Ireland senior camogie finals for Kilkenny had to have stood to her but in truth, the mindset switch was flicked by a different experience.
“I’ll never forget we played in the intermediate All-Ireland final (with Kilkenny) in 2016 and I started centre-back, and I dreaded every minute of it. I was so nervous, and I couldn’t wait for this match to be over, and I just said to myself after that, ‘Why are you bothering your hole playing if this is your biggest day and you’re meant to be here enjoying it and you’re not?’ So after that, I kind of said, ‘Feck it,’ and I have never ever been as nervous like that since.”
After winning that All-Ireland, Nolan and her colleagues were ineligible for the second team the following year and by her own admission, she was nowhere near fit enough for senior.
The following year, she had earned a call-up but wasn’t going to be getting game time. So she dropped down to the intermediates, believing that her development needed that at the time. They won nothing but she still looks back on that campaign fondly.
Interesting then that she has accepted how she is currently being used. She wants to start and is motivated to play well to force her way into the starting side. But then, coming on and scoring goals might be interpreted as her doing exactly what’s required down the stretch.
“I’m happy enough. Obviously, I’d love to be starting. I really sound old when you say you’re going on and happy to make an impact,” says Nolan, who was 29 in March.
“If you give me a jersey to start a match now, obviously I’d be happier, but at the same time, there is lots of talent coming through and I suppose if you can help the situation at all, or make an impact at all, you go with that as well. The last few months now I’m really enjoying it again.”
Growing up, being short was never an issue and so putting some muscle on the bones was never her motivation for walking into a gym that first time.
“It never kind of dawned on me from a height point of view, but more so a wide point of view, and not just being fit! Not restricting yourself for food is probably a big thing when you talk about teenagers and body image and when you train hard, you can eat properly and healthily.”
The most visible of the ink is on her left thigh.
“That’s love, life and family. I always say the lines are kind of… you know if you’re hooked up to a heart monitor, and you’d be going well when the lines are kind of at a slant? I always say, if that line was straight, you’re in bother.”
The philosophy according to Katie Nolan. Bestseller material.
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