Sionainn is All-Ireland champion

She became the club’s first female All-Ireland champion when she won the under 17 singles title at the GAA Handball Juvenile final at Abbeylara, County Longford.

Sionainn, who has been playing competitive handball for five years, faced Carlow’s Melanie Byrne in the final.

Although beginning nervously, Sionainn started to settle down and take control of the first game, concentrating her serve on her opponent’s weaker right hand side. The Carlow girl could find little weakness in Sionainn’s game and the Armagh girl ran out the first game impressively 21 – 13.

Buoyed on by the large Armagh support, Sionainn pushed ahead in the second game to take an early, and what seemed a commanding lead. However, disaster almost struck when Sionainn sustained an injury to her foot and was forced to play on in some pain.

The Carlow girl took advantage of this fact and pulled back a number of points and it appeared that a tie-break game may be on the cards. Sionainn showed the fighting spirit that had got her to the final and gritted her teeth to play through the pain. She played the winning shot off the back wall down the back left where the left-handed Carlow girl was unable to return the ball – to the rapturous applause of friends, family and club supporters.

Her sister, Aoife, was in the under 14 final where she took on Galway’s Cianna NiChurraini who is the current World 1 wall and 4 wall Champion, United States 15 and under Champion, and Irish Nationals Champion.

This was always going to be a tough challenge for Aoife, against a fantastically skilled and experienced player who is in a different class to anyone of her age.

However Aoife battled gallantly and forced the Galway girl to play to her best to clinch the title in two straight games.

Although beaten in the final Aoife had a fantastic championship the whole way through Ulster and the All-Ireland semi-final and should have lots of successes in the years to come.