Former Ireland international Jackie McCarthy O’Brien: ‘When he tried it, there were two things in my head at that moment. ‘If I kick him in the balls, that’s me gone. If I allow him to kiss me, how fa

Former Ireland international Jackie McCarthy O’Brien: ‘When he tried it, there were two things in my head at that moment. ‘If I kick him in the balls, that’s me gone. If I allow him to kiss me, how far would that go?’’

Limerick’s Jackie McCarthy O’Brien was the first woman of colour to play for both Ireland’s international football and rugby teams. Here, she talks about being taken from her mother as a baby and spending five years in an industrial school, coming to terms with being gay and the sexual harassment that tainted football for her

About 10 years ago, Jackie McCarthy O’Brien found herself in Limerick’s Chicken Hut (“the best hangover food you could ever have – you could stand on the gravy”). By then, Jackie had bashed through several glass ceilings: she became the first woman of