The grass ceiling by Eimear Ryan

What is it like to be a girl, or a woman, in a male-dominated sporting world? If you play on the boys’ team, more people pay attention – but you get treated like an alien. When you switch to playing with girls and women, you have to live with a smaller audience, diminished status, and – if you’re a professional – lower pay. And what if – as is the case for camogie player Eimear Ryan – the sport that you play has a different name for women than it does for men, despite identical rules? And what if you don’t even feel entirely comfortable in an all-female sporting environment because you’re shy, bookish, not really one of the girls? In ‘The Grass Ceiling’, acclaimed novelist Eimear Ryan digs deep into the confluence between gender and sport, and all the questions it throws up about identity, status, competition and self-expression.