Earlier this year, the announcement was made that more than 100 female players who had featured in rugby test matches between 1993 and 2006 would be presented with international caps.
Central to those efforts to secure recognition was Castlerea native Susan Carty, former World Rugby Women's Development Manager.
This week, she joined Cliona Foley on Off The Bench to discuss those efforts to honour the aforementioned players as well as her work promoting the women's game in countries like Iran and Laos.
"It's probably one of the most incredible rugby moments I've ever been involved in and that's by no means exaggerating it," she said of the initiative that led to players being recognised.
"So the very first international played by Irish women was played in 1993, 25 years ago, and it was against Scotland and that was the very first test match played by the Irish women's rugby union team.
"And if I skip on to 2006, we put together an integration working group in partnership with the IRFU. So at that time, the women's rugby in Ireland was run by a separate union - the Irish Women's Rugby Football Union. The IWRFU worked with the IRFU to integrate women's rugby fully into the IRFU and it was very much a focus from 2006 until 2008 to get that to happen.
"So the caps were awarded for Irish women's rugby from 2006 as part of that process. So the very first physical cap was only awarded in 2006."
Which left a challenge to get recognition for the players pre-2006! So how did she and others manage to make that happen?
You can listen to Cliona's full interview with Susan on the podcast player:
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