It has been some time since any Ulster player has had such an immediate impact on the inter-county camogie scene as Éobha McAllister.
The Dunloy teenager scored on her debut as a second half substitute in the opening Division 1A game against Tipperary and contributed handsomely in every other game of Antrim's season that delivered a first win over Cork in 70 years, a third successive Ulster title and an All-Ireland intermediate crown in August.
Just 11 days after the Croke Park showdown with Laois when she scored five points, Antrim’s new kid on the block registered a last quarter hat-trick as well as six earlier points to take Dunloy from two points down at the break against visitors Ballycastle to a comfortable win in the opening round of the Antrim senior championship.
After the round robin group stages of the club title-race, McAllister is well ahead of the chasing pack in the race to become the championship’s top-scorer.
This is semi-finals weekend and Dunloy will again face Ballycastle while Loughgiel, chasing a 13th successive crown, take on Cushendall.
Everyone is talking about the youngster who this week, was named as one of three nominees for the PwC Camogie All-Ireland intermediate Player of the Year award. Her inclusion in the Soaring Stars team was a given.
And yet she started 2026 with her Cross & Passion Ballycastle school team preparing to halt St Patrick’s Maghera’s four in a row bid.
The team captain hit 4-02 in the second half to eke out a shock 6-06 to 2-17 victory that was orchestrated by the management team of Barry Kelly (father of Antrim team-mate Maeve Kelly) and Antrim manager Elaine Dowds, who doubled as her Applied Science teacher.
"We talked at half-time about tagging on a few points to get us going. I got two or three from frees and then got this free not too far out. I saw there were just two players on the Maghera line. So, I went for the goal and got it. That brought us back into the game and everyone just fought so hard from then until the end.
Semi-final defeat to Ursulines from Thurles was their lot, but just a week later, McAllister was on the Antrim bench for the first round of the league in a home tie against Tipperary.
"Dowdsie wanted me to play county," she sayd. "She told me that I was good enough to play senior. When you hear that, it gives you a huge boost. I hadn’t been training much with the county team because of the school training and games.
"I never expected to get game time right away, but I was told to warm up at half-time and then I came on. If you come on as a sub, the next thing you want is to get a starting jersey.
"Our next game was in Cork and we won it. I could feel what it meant to the team. It gave us all so much confidence. We knew coming home that day that we were good enough to play at that level and we just took it from there for the rest of year."
The youngster still can’t believe the atmosphere in the Antrim changing room from the start of the season.
"It really felt like a club team, it’s a great atmosphere. It was the most welcoming thing coming into that changing room. If someone had told me a year ago I would be such friends with girls from other clubs, some of them 10 or 12 years older than me, I just wouldn’t have believed it."
McAllister was a key part of the Saffron U23 team that captured the All-Ireland title despite losing the opening two games in the group stages. The Dunloy ace hit 1-04 in the final against Wexford for clubmate, Katie Molloy to raise the cup in Drogheda.
She fired home a goal and two points in the Ulster senior final and then emerged top scorer from play in the All-Ireland intermediate series, contributing 2-02 in the semi-final win over Meath and five points on her Croke Park debut.
Four days after the All-Ireland, she collected her A Level results and just last week began her degree course in Sports and Exercise at the University of Ulster. Not surprisingly, McAllister is part of the university’s Talented Athlete Scheme.
"I’m just getting to know Belfast at the minute," she says. "I haven’t found out much about the camogie team yet. That will come soon, I expect. Like the rest of the Dunloy team, I am totally focused on the club championship.
"After the All-Ireland, I was buzzing to get back playing with the club because I hadn’t really played with them this year and that was strange. We came close to beating Loughgiel in last year’s final (4-11 to 1-17) and have lost four of the last five finals to them.
"We feel we are getting closer every year. We won a game each against each other in the league this year and then last month, Dunloy came from behind to beat them in the championship."
McAllister hit 1-09 in that game as Dunloy won by 3-17 to 2-12 after trailing 2-05 to 0-09 at half-time. However, in the last round of games a fortnight ago, Cushendall held Dunloy to a low-scoring draw, 0-10 to 1-07, with McAllister scoring the equaliser from a 50m free.
"We had won the other games easily. So it was a good warning to get, ahead of the semi-finals. My underage teams would have had some battles with Cushendall. We took a few hammerings alright but could spring a championship shock now and again.
Are there more medals, more titles to lift for a young star who started 2026 with a scoring masterclass in a provincial schools’ final and hasn’t stopped finding the posts since?
Given her annus mirabilis, you wouldn’t rule it out.
