15/12/2025
Joe Rabbitte was involved with his daughters’ underage camogie teams with Athenry before taking over the seniors in 2022, which was one of the darkest years in the club’s history.
That April, Kate Moran, who had won two All-Ireland U-16 medals with Galway, died from a head injury sustained while playing a league game for Athenry.
After they defeated Sarsfields to end a 16-year famine for the Galway senior camogie title in October, Joe remembered her in his post-match interview.
“Those girls have suffered for the last three years. And in this time of joy, I want to remember the Moran family. I can assure you if we had Kate, she’d be out on the field today,” he said on Galway Bay FM.
Rabbitte knows the Moran family well, having hurled with Kate’s dad Cathal for many years – winning three All-Ireland club titles together in 1997, 2000 and 2001 as well as an All-Ireland U-21 crown for Galway in 1991.
They remain close friends off the field and their daughters grew up together.
“That year [2022] was the toughest year that any team can have when we lost our beautiful Kate. She was a fantastic camogie player. It’s tough to even talk about now,” he says.
“Myself and Cathal would be meeting and Kate would be meeting Olwen and Sabina. She was a beautiful girl, mighty craic. We miss her. For us, we try to bring her with us and we try to move on. We have a fantastic bunch of girls to come away from it and to get to where they’ve got to since. I’m so proud of them all. They never forget her, yet try to move on with their lives.”
Read more on the Irish Independent website.
