From one battle to the next: Donegal’s Katie Dowds looks ahead to the championship

By Daire Walsh

FOLLOWING the recent high of a Lidl National Football League Division Two final victory, Katie Dowds and Donegal have another huge game on the horizon at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds this weekend.

Just 15 days on from their NFL showpiece triumph against another provincial rival in the shape of Cavan, the O’Donnell County will make the trip to Armagh for an opening round clash in the TG4 Ulster senior football championship tomorrow afternoon (throw-in 2pm).

For the past two seasons, Donegal and their Orchard counterparts have been the only two teams in the competition and have therefore played just one game to determine the overall winner.

Yet that has changed this year with Tyrone’s success in the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship decider last August seeing them gaining promotion to the top-tier for 2026.

Donegal ladies raising ambitions after Division Two triumph

Donegal are set to face the Red Hand on home soil tomorrow week (May 3), but all eyes are on the challenge of defending champions Armagh for now.

“We’re away to Armagh on Sunday. We’ve only had, I think it was five training sessions, six training sessions between the league final and this game against Armagh. We’re straight into it and then we have Tyrone the next week,” Dowds explained.

“It’s quite busy at the minute, but I think it’s nice to be able to go into a hard week of training after obviously winning and everyone is on a positive note. We’re putting in a big shift now at training towards this championship game against Armagh.

“It will be the toughest game that we’ve had so far this year because Armagh are a brilliant team and we’ve met them every year. It’s always a really tough battle. Hopefully we can come out and play the football that we’d be hoping to play now in the championship.”

After finishing fourth in last year’s NFL Division Two and subsequently surviving a do-or-die relegation play-off in the All-Ireland SFC with just six points to spare over Leitrim, Donegal were hoping for a brighter 2026 season.

The signs have certainly been encouraging to date with five wins from seven games sealing promotion to Division One for 2027 heading into their league final showdown against Cavan at St Tiernach’s Park in Clones on April 11.

Although their principal objective for the campaign was already achieved, picking up some silverware is always something to be cherished. Despite being on the receiving end of a group stage defeat to Cavan, James Daly’s side overcame the Breffni women in Monaghan on a final score of 2-7 to 0-8.

Dowds helped herself to a personal tally of 1-3 in a player of the match display, though she is quick to divert praise to her team-mates for providing her with the platform in which to flourish.

“It is nice getting player of the match. I think where I got my scores from, it was other people. I kind of just got on the end of it and luckily it went well, but it is nice. It’s nice to get player of the match and it’s nice just to be able to reflect on your own performance in a big game like that. Just being happy with it as well.

Katie Dowds shoots for goal in Clones

“I think especially because we actually got relegated from Division One a couple of years ago. It was nice to get up within two years because I know when we got relegated, we were told that it was going to be extremely hard to get back up to Division One.

“So, it was nice actually to get to a league final and then obviously to top it off by winning it as well. It was just nice to end the league on that note.”

The fact Dowds is presently a first year pharmacy student at Queen’s University in Belfast highlights that she is one of the younger members of the Donegal panel. However, the Sean MacCumhaills club star actually has quite a bit of experience under her belt as she first joined the O’Donnell set-up at just 16 years of age for the beginning of the 2023 season.

A senior debutant when Donegal faced Galway in the opening round of that year’s Lidl NFL Division 1 on January 21, Dowds later scored a point from left half-forward as a side that was then managed by Maxi Curran defeated Armagh in a TG4 Ulster senior final four months later.

She featured alongside a number of inter-county stalwarts during this period, in advance of returning to the Donegal minor panel to help them win an All-Ireland ‘C’ championship title against Waterford on August 5, 2023.

“It was kind of unexpected I think coming into the panel that young. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into! Obviously, I knew that was something that I wanted to do whenever I was older. I was playing alongside Karen [Guthrie], now she’s on the management squad.

“I was playing with Karen and Niamh McLaughlin, Niamh Hegarty, Nicole McLaughlin, Emer Gallagher. There were loads of more experienced players and they’ve all moved on now. I suppose I didn’t really realise how lucky I was to be able to play with them at the time. It was great to play alongside them. They really eased me into it.”

Having tasted success with Donegal as both an adult and underage player at such an early stage, Dowds will be eager to continue challenging for top honours in the near and distant future.

It may have been a difficult campaign overall in the TG4 All-Ireland senior championship last year, but she is optimistic Donegal can make significant strides in the Brendan Martin Cup this summer.

“I think when you go into the All-Ireland championship, you’re against obviously all the really strong teams in Ireland. You can see where you are compared to where you think you are in Ulster. Then you go on into All-Ireland and it really just shows you where you are,” Dowds added.

“It wasn’t nice training for a relegation play-off come the end of the year, but hopefully it’s a different story now this year. We can push on and do better in the championship. It would just be a nice way to end the season as well.”