Murtagh proud to fly the flag for growing Kildare presence in Leinster squad

As she aims to break into the match day 23 in the coming weeks, Eadaoin Murtagh is thrilled to be part of a healthy Kildare contingent in the Leinster rugby squad for their ongoing Women’s Interprovincial Championship.

Including team skipper Sarah Delaney (who hails from Rathangan) the number of Lilywhites in the eastern province set-up at the moment is into double figures. There is of course also a strong cohort of players from the county in the Leinster men’s programme with six in total in the present senior squad – if you include the returning Joey Carbery of Athy.

A native of Kildare Town, Murtagh has known a number of those in the current Leinster group since her early days with an oval ball. While she missed out on selection for last weekend’s opening round loss to defending champions Munster, Murtagh will be hoping to feature against Connacht in the Blues’ sole home Interpro game of 2026 at Energia Park this Saturday (kick-off 4.30pm).

“Even across the other provinces, there’s so many Kildare girls. I know Alanna Fitzpatrick is in Connacht and different things like that. I’ve played with Sarah [Delaney] since we were both U12 in Cill Dara. The same with Hannah [Wilson] and Emma Jane [Wilson] as well,” Murtagh remarked at a Leinster women’s media day at Wanderers FC in Dublin recently.

“It’s so funny, these little pods of talent come up. None of us really, maybe Emma Jane did play rugby in the school system. Now we’ve come to this age and we can look back at these young girls and they are incredible. It’s amazing to watch.

“All of the stadiums are incredible. Any day in Energia Park, I just feel like that place is so electric. Any time I’ve gotten to play a game there or watched a game there. Be it AIL or Leinster or anything, it’s just such a special place. Because we train there as well, all you can do is picture yourself there. You can’t help but picture that experience. It’ll be great.” 

 As Murtagh references above, her rugby journey originally began at Cill Dara Rugby Club – located a short distance from Kildare Town in Dunmurry East. Later on in her teenage years, she found herself lining out for PortDara, which serves as a joint women’s and girls’ rugby initiative formed by combining Portarlington RFC with Cill Dara.

“It was quite a small cohort of us in Cill Dara. We won some underage stuff, but it just gets to that age when you’re 15, 16 and those girls start dropping off,” Murtagh said of her underage introduction to rugby.

‘It just made the most sense and at the moment, the underage there [PortDara] is still flying. To be able to look at kids yay high running around, it’s incredible.” 

From there, the next step on the ladder was also going to be the Women’s All-Ireland League and the past few months saw Murtagh completing her fourth season in the colours of south Dublin outfit Old Belvedere.

She has established herself as such a key figure within their set-up, that she was called upon to captain the team when regular skipper Lesley Ring sustained a serious injury. With the help of head coach Fiona Hayes (a former Grand Slam-winning Ireland international), the recent UCD graduate was able to settle into this pivotal role and help Belvo to reach the semi-final stage of last season’s AIL.

“That was mad! That kind of happened all very quickly. Because our captain Lesley Ring had an awful knee injury. It was a very quick turnaround, it was a very different position and I’ve spoken to the girls in Belvo about this. I never really saw myself as a leader on that team.

“I guess I’m still in that 18-year old-mindset of ‘I’m still learning and I’m still the young one on the team’. It was a really cool experience. I had the help of Emma Kelly and obviously Fi [Fiona Hayes] helped me through that as well. It was great.” Although gaining a foothold in the Leinster team as well as Old Belvedere will be her focus for now, Murtagh will – like all players – have ambitions of breaking into the Ireland senior squad at some point in the future. She previously represented the Ireland U20s at an inaugural Six Nations Summer Series held at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, Parma in 2024 and this proved to be an unforgettable experience for the back turned forward.

“That was insane. That was such a dream come true. That was two years ago and at the time I decided I just really, really wanted to do that. It was absolutely invaluable. My whole family came to see me, my uncle and a lot of the girls here were there as well. They’re just some of my best friends now. It was a really, really cool opportunity,” Murtagh added.