Decades before her Drogheda United team blazed a trail on the pitch, Bridie Kerr led the way for women in Irish football
In 1985, Bridie Kerr became the first woman to hold the title of President of a football club in Ireland.
In the week that Bridie Kerr became the Ireland’s first female football club President, she had to share the limelight.
‘Week two Drogheda women soared to the top’ read the headline in the Drogheda Independent in the summer of 1985. The story, written by Anne Kane, detailed both Bridie’s ascension and another tale of a local woman in the public eye.
Linda Farrell of Ballsgrove had been selected as the 1985 Dundalk Derryhale Maytime Festival Queen - thus supposedly becoming the first Boynesider to hold the illustrious title.
The Maytime Festival ran for decades and in its heyday was a hugely popular event in the local calendar. By those of a certain vintage, it is fondly remembered. But Festival Queens came and went on an annual basis. There were, with respect, tens of other Linda Farrells.
Bridie Kerr’s legacy, however, is considerably more substantial. When Joanna Byrne was named chairperson of Drogheda United in 2022 - first in an interim capacity and then more permanently - she became the first woman to hold such a position in the League of Ireland.
The Drogs have certainly been a club that has forged their own path in matters of equality. They have proved themselves a progressive outfit - they and St Patrick’s Athletic the only clubs in the Premier Division to boast at least two women on their board of directors.
At United Park, those roles are filled by Byrne and Niamh Leonard. Both cite Bridie Kerr’s involvement in the club as inspiration to them as women working in a man’s world.
Bridie - alongside her husband Dessie - volunteered for over 60 years for her beloved club, known to all as the woman who was responsible for providing hospitality for guests in the form of tea, sandwiches and her famous apple tart. In the early days, Bovril was popular too. Tens of thousands of dishes were washed by Bridie’s hands.
In 2019 - on the occasion of the club’s centenary - Bridie was made an Honorary Life President, alongside Gene McKenna. The story of how the club broke with tradition and decided to name the long-time club volunteer Irish football’s first woman President is one of legend.
She hadn’t seen it coming. Nor could she have. At the time, Bridie was a member of the management committee, the ladies’ committee and the supporters club. This was a decision taken an board level and as a mere committee member, Bridie wasn’t invited to the meeting.
When it came to electing a new club President, she was supported by Anthony Smith, Billy Byrne and club chairman Tom Munster. Later than evening, with the deed done, Bridie and Dessie were sitting in Keelaghan’s pub on Georges Street.
When her brother Eamon Kierans entered the bar, he is said to have handed her a Drogheda United letterhead with the brief message written on it: "Bridie, you are now president of the club. Best of luck. Tom.'
"I just could not believe it. I thought they were playing a joke on me," Bridie told the local newspaper. In 2019, she humbly stated of her role as President: “I didn’t make any difference to anything. I was just there and that was that.”
Her election as President had come just as United had been relegated to the second tier, an event that almost brought Bridie to tears. Regardless of what division the Drogs found themselves in however, her support never wavered.
Bridie was known to get so excited at some matches - roaring and cheering with barely pause for breath - that she sometimes hid away in a corner at half time just to allow her vocal chords to recover.
Never a sportswoman - “We did not have the money when we were young to buy such things as camogie sticks or tennis racquets” - Bridie was quickly bitten by the football bug. Following her beloved Drogheda first at Lourdes Stadium and then United Park was ritual. Her home at Liam Leech Terrace is a short walk from both.
"But although I liked looking at Gaelic football, I prefer the soccer. It is more exciting, more thrilling,” she once said, spoken like a true football fan. Husband Dessie had been a Louth minor footballer in his youth but he too was claret-and-blue through and through.
The couple had followed the Drogs across the country and then to London in 1984 when they played Tottenham Hotspur in White Hart Lane in the UEFA Cup. A result to forget aside, these were memories to treasure.
In the build-up to the FAI Cup Final last November, Byrne visited Bridie at home and although she was unable to attend the match at the Aviva Stadium, she watched on with delight from home as her club won the cup for the second time.
Of course, Bridie had been there in 2005, at the old Lansdowne Road for the very first triumph in the famous competition. There is a photo of her embracing goalscorer Gavin Whelan that day, as the player holds the cup aloft with his medal draped around his neck.
In 2019, RTE Radio 1 came to Drogheda United to interview figures from it’s past and present about the club on the occasion of it’s 100th anniversary celebrations. Those figures included Conor Hoey, groundsman Matt Kavanagh and club legend Gel Martin. And of course, Bridie and Dessie.
Reporter Pat Costello asked Bridie what it was like to move from Lourdes Stadium to United Park, 400 metres down the road, back in 1979. As the modern day Drogheda United seek to build a brand new stadium away from the Windmill Road home, her answer is just as relevant today.
“It was sad at times but however, everything changes. We got used it.”
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