WICKLOW GAA HAS come under fire for an April Fool’s Day post which announced the approval of a €160 million redevelopment of Echelon Park in Aughrim and stated that the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) and Camogie Association would be sharing the grounds as “equal partners”.

The Facebook post, which read like an official announcement, has since been deleted. 

Senior women’s teams in Wicklow currently struggle to secure pitches, changing facilities and training times at Echelon Park, according to local Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore. 

The pitch, set in a valley in the Wicklow Mountains, serves as the county grounds for Gaelic Games in Wicklow. 

Whitmore, who is a TD for Wicklow, has said the joke was “extraordinarily offensive”.

She said there had been outrage amongst the local community and indeed club members, and that the comment about sharing the stadium as equal partners was “tone-deaf”

The Facebook post, she said, was “a complete slap in the face to the county ladies’ teams, who have anything but equal access to Wicklow GAA facilities as it stands”.

Chair of Wicklow Camogie, Leane Lifely, told Newstalk’s Claire Byrne she “didn’t find the post to be a joke, it was a mockery of women in sport”. 

“It would be different if there was some equality in women’s sport,” she added. 

The chairperson of Wicklow LGFA, Dominic Leech, has also taken to Facebook to express his dismay over the post.

“Let me be totally clear – whatever is said there is no way we can currently be considered as even close to equal partners – thus why the joke seems to have been made in the first place. We do not have equal access in any shape or form to GAA County facilities.”

Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn, chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Sport, last month called on the GAA to get “stuck in” and stick to its 2027 timeline for integration with the Camogie Association and LGFA.

Speaking on The 42FM podcast, the former sports broadcaster said it was “worrying” to hear reports that integration could be delayed until 2034 and added that an “enormous opportunity to grow” would be missed.

Wicklow GAA has been contacted for comment.