KAY O’LOUGHLIN

 

Kay O’Loughlin was elected in March of 2022 as the first ever Female President of Golf Ireland.

As part of the merger between the Golfing Union of Ireland and the Irish Ladies Golf Union, the presidency of the new body was agreed to rotate between male and female, a structure that was hardly believable perhaps only a decade ago but is now a shining beacon of how gender equality can be brought to life in reality.

O’Loughlin, originally from Clifden in County Galway, has lived in Castlerea for 30 years and after being introduced to the sport became a member of Castlerea Golf Club in 1994.

She worked locally for the HSE, became Club Secretary in 2011, and in 2020 was elected to the first Golf Ireland Connacht Regional Executive Committee, from which she was then nominated as the first Woman to step up into the role of President.

See who else has joined Kay on the 2022 list by clicking on the image below.

 

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This is the tenth edition of our Sport for Business listing of 50 Women of Influence in Irish Sport.

Read more about the list and nominate who you think should be a part of it in 2022.

We are proud to do so again this year with AIG, an organisation that has pledged its commitment to equality in its partnerships with Gaelic Games, Tennis, Golf and more, for whom “Effort is Equal” and with whom we have ambitious plans to extend the reach of this annual celebration of the Women who are making a difference.

This year’s list will be drawn as before from the worlds of leadership, partnership, storytelling, and performance.

We began this journey in 2013 when challenged that we would never be able to produce a list of twenty Influential Women in Irish Sport. The 20 stretched to 30, then 40 and 50 and it still does not do justice to the talent that is out there.

This year once more, to keep things fresh we will introduce at least 30 percent of fresh names from last year. That will be the hardest part to have some names replaced but if it was too easy it would be of less value.

The list we will continue to build over the coming weeks is a snapshot of those women who are making a mark on how sport is played, consumed, grown and delivered.

They are part of making the role of women in sport unexceptional by being exceptional in what they do.