BEADS of sweat have been mopped from her brow but Jane Adams is still in recovery mode half an hour after finishing up an early morning gym session with Mark and Ray Ginley.
The one-time boxing brothers take no prisoners no matter what the hour of day - she wouldn’t have it any other way. And that nod to the noble art? It resonates with her. Always has.
Dad Dougie was an Ulster and Irish champion who boxed internationally, his father Cecil co-founder and coach at the Corpus Christi club where Dougie’s career began. On the other side Terry, Anthony and Gerard Hanna – brothers of Jane’s mother Bernadette – all made their name with the Mac, collecting a stack of titles along the way.
She never laced up gloves but that fighting spirit took her to the very top in another warrior code, Jane Adams’s place in the pantheon of camogie greats long since secured.
Sitting here just weeks after turning 40, the same wiry, whippet-thin frame that tormented full-back lines the length and breadth of the country leaves her looking ready for another 60 minutes the second the call comes.
Yet the pull has never been there. Not really.
Barring a brief return to mark O’Donovan Rossa’s centenary in 2016, she hasn’t looked back since the hurl was hung up almost eight years ago. Life moved on and, as her world evolved, priorities quickly changed.
Firstly there’s the business empire she and sister Laura have created.
The three Manny’s fish and chip shops – in Glengormley, on the Antrim Road and at Chapel Lane in the city centre - haven’t been untouched by the pandemic. Far from it. Yet they have come out the other side despite the toughest of times.
Sylvester’s café has relocated but is still going strong while Pizza Guyz, opened at the beginning of the second lockdown last year, has got off to a flying start.
Harnessing the entrepreneurial approach handed down from Dougie - who started as a painter and decorator before branching out into bars, owning three across Belfast, and eventually the domiciliary care service through company Connected Health – the key to the sisters’ success is simple.
“We’re best friends, we live right beside each other,” she smiles.
“Anything I don’t like to do, Laura does. Anything she doesn’t like to do, I’ll do. That’s how it works.”
Then there is the wedding. Right now, it trumps all else.
On Friday, July 2 Jane Adams will marry Niki McKnight at the Merchant Hotel. This is the fourth date the couple have set since same sex marriage was finally legalised in the north in January 2020.
It will also be the final one.
“It was meant to be the 27th of June last year, then we moved it to August, then November… eventually we decided to move it to July, hoping that everything would be okay by then. No matter what though, that was going to be it. Even if it was just the two of us there, that was the date.
“I had a dress fitting yesterday – I’ve had my dress for two years now. I still can’t believe it’s so close, to be honest…”
That’s because it’s a day she never imagined could happen. Not to her.
Camogie was the only thing that mattered; the game defined her, and she was happy for it to do so. Yet it was only when that love affair ended that the light of a new life began to creep through the cracks.
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JIM Nelson knew the score. The man who led Antrim to the All-Ireland hurling final in 1989 is a revered figure within the county for that achievement and so much more.
The forensic approach to training and preparation, the quiet calm on the line, the inter-personal skills that would forge a collective from city and country, all those traits marked out a man way ahead of his time.
Seven years after taking the Saffrons to Croke Park on the first Sunday in September, Nelson was working out a way to deliver the Antrim camogs to the same stage.
He had experienced campaigners like Grace, Mary and Sinead McMullan still leading by example, but a new crew was emerging – spearheaded by Rossa’s All-Ireland winning Féile team of 1994.
A central figure on that side, Jane Adams was first drafted into the county panel at 15, her exploits never likely to escape Nelson’s notice.
After coming off the bench and scoring a point as Antrim advanced to the All-Ireland junior final the following year, tingles shot straight through her.
That buzz, sharing the same jersey as some of her heroes, it was even better than she could have imagined.
“These were all the people I looked up to. I knew I wasn’t getting on the team because it was just so good, but I thought I might have a chance of coming on in the final [against Cork] - then I broke my hand before it.
“I actually got my daddy to cut the plaster off, begged him to do it or I wouldn’t get named on the panel. I told Jim I went back to the hospital and they said it wasn’t broke and he was like ‘aye, okay Jane’.
“He knew I was chancing it, but I got to go to Croke Park and got to see Antrim winning there. By that stage in my life, everything was geared towards camogie. Everything.
“I would have played soccer with the boys on the street when I was younger, I was a decent runner at school, good at cross-country. But as soon as I got that hurl in my hand… I just loved it. Couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“I had no real interest in university but went to Jordanstown to play camogie. My life, and everything in it, it all revolved around playing camogie.”
There was a price to pay for the pursuit of her passion, though, the relentless migraines that dogged her from the age of 10 taking a particular toll in the aftermath of matches.
Whether it was a consequence of associated stress, the pressure she put on herself to perform, Adams still isn’t sure. But the impact was often extreme.
“I still get them now, 30 years later. I’ve tried everything and been on medication the last year or so... I would’ve come off the pitch busted. So many times my head would be really sore straight after.
“My mummy would have to bring me home right away then it was straight into a dark room in the house. I could’ve lay there for the guts of a day or two, feeling rough as anything.”
Still, those frequent episodes would not deter her.
Success at county level continued, with Adams named player of the match as the Saffrons swept to the 2001 All-Ireland intermediate crown, repeating the dose again two years later.
And, under Nelson, Rossa would become a powerhouse at county and Ulster level in the mid-Noughties, breaking through the provincial glass ceiling in 2004 – the first of a remarkable four in-a-row.
It wasn’t long before the gaze turned towards maximising their potential on the All-Ireland senior stage. The breakthrough, though, proved elusive.
Defeat to Kilkenny’s St Lachtáin’s in 2006 was a bitter pill to swallow, but nothing like the shellacking that came their way against Cashel in the last four the following year.
Ten points was the difference in Newry but it might as well have been 100.
Nelson decided it was time for a fresh voice and stepped away, so too did some of the older heads. Adams was 26, at the peak of her powers, but hope wasn’t just fading. It was gone.
“That one haunted me. For the few years before I’d thought I was as good as them - I’m obviously not. Our team is not as good as we thought.
“I didn’t even go home on the bus, I was that gutted. Some of the younger kids probably weren’t too worried about it, they thought we’d be getting there every year, but for the older ones like me it was far harder to take. It felt like the end.”
Yet 12 months later she was hoisting aloft the Bill Carroll Cup for the first time in the club’s history. And Nelson was right, for all the great work he had done, the group needed something new.
The problem was finding somebody to fill his shoes. Adams estimates “close to 40” people were approached about the post, but all decided against it.
“Probably because they knew how psycho we were in terms of how committed we were.”
Eventually, Mickey McCullough accepted the challenge. That was in April 2008. By mid-November the Holy Grail had been reached.
So what changed?
“It was just a different style and everybody enjoyed it.
“Mickey trained us so hard those first three months then we won Antrim, won Ulster, but there was bit of fun mixed in with it.
“He took us to Dublin one day, put numbers in a hat and whatever you picked out that was your position. I ended up full-back, Teresa McGowan - who did nets - was in midfield, our Theresa was corner-forward… it was all mixed up, and it was a bit of a laugh.
“When we were going home on the bus we all painted our nails bright pink, including Mickey’s. It didn’t feel just as serious, just as full on.”
Adams bagged an unforgettable 2-11 in the semi-final win over Ballyboden at Casement Park, helping her towards an Allstar a few weeks out from the decider.
The timing was awkward, and McCullough seized the opportunity to deliver a few home truths in case minds were on the drift.
“A couple of girls had come down to the Citywest for the awards but we had a friendly the next day in Magherafelt. Everybody got up and drove back but we were half an hour late and Mickey absolutely flipped - threw his phone and everything.
“He was shouting at them all ‘why are you hanging off her coat-tails?’ then turning round and saying to me ‘and who do you think you are?’ Nobody was going to get carried away after that.”
And they didn’t – Tipperary queens Drom & Inch were no match for the Rossa machine that day, Adams ending up with 2-9. There was no migraine this time around, nothing but pure, unadulterated joy.
“My wee sister Claire was pregnant and she had gone to the hospital the night before, so she was on my mind. Theresa was corner-back, Laura was sub... I get a wee bit emotional looking back at it because I think they stuck out camogie because of me.
“They knew how much it meant to me and they wanted me to win what I had dreamed about; the thing I’d wanted from I first picked up a hurl.
“My granda Cecil was there, my uncle Anthony, Pat Mac Manus, a lifelong Rossa man who has since passed. I just flung my hurl away, walked around with my helmet on trying to take it in.
“Straight after we wanted to go up and see Claire, her wee son Jack was only a couple of hours old, then when we got back to the club, everybody who was anybody was there.
“That’s really what made it what it was… it’s still the best memory; the best day of my life.”
******************
THAT should have sparked a period of blue and gold domination. At least that’s what she thought. After a busy work schedule, McCullough begged her to sit out the season opener against Cushendall. Adams wouldn’t hear of it. Going for the first ball, her cruciate snapped.
Sidelined for a year, the first time major injury had struck, she sunk into a depression. Why me? Why does nobody care? She shakes her head now, looking back.
“I’m ashamed to say that’s what I was thinking. Because people were having children, going to university, just getting on with their lives. What did I want them to do?
“But you feel sorry for yourself, you feel isolated. You recognise there’s something wrong with you but you don’t recognise what it is. Honestly, it kicked the complete crap out of me.
“I was so frustrated, not being able to play. When I got that down, it was then I started thinking I still love camogie but as soon as I stop loving it, I’m stopping. I began to realise at some stage I was going to have to focus on something else.
“This is supposed to be a fun part of your life - you’re not a professional camogie player. I’m not happy I tore my cruciate, but I’m happy it changed my perspective on things then, because I needed it.”
By 2013, despite more success with club and county, she had decided enough was enough. Losing the All-Ireland semi-final that year, just a couple of weeks after losing granda Cecil, Adams knew the time had come.
“I could easily have played on but I didn’t want to ruin all the love I had for it,” she says, before smiling, “plus I would always want to be the best.
“I don’t miss it because I was so obsessive about it, and you only really see that when you step back. Once I let it go, that was it really.”
Laura had largely manned the business end of things since opening Manny’s in 2003; now Jane wanted to make up for lost time. Yet while her life had a new focus, other matters remained unresolved.
Among family, friends, team-mates, she would never have denied being gay. But accepting her sexuality was, for a long time, a struggle.
“I wouldn’t have been going about as if I was very happy about it because I wasn’t. My mummy and daddy were brilliant - they knew. I went out with a couple of fellas when I was younger but mummy and daddy knew, and they knew I didn’t want to talk about it.
“There might have been rumours I didn’t know about or maybe closed my ears to, but my family, my team-mates, they’ve never given me anything other than love for who I am. It was my issue.
“I just didn’t want to be gay. I wasn’t okay about it.”
And then, almost four years ago, she got to know Niki. From then until now, everything has changed.
“I didn’t think there would be somebody I would love the way I love Niki. Even the way I love camogie, I just didn’t think that would ever happen to me that way. But she helped me accept myself because she showed me love I didn’t think existed.
“Niki has a daughter, Jada’s 18 now, and if she hadn’t been okay about it, no matter what, this couldn’t have worked. She plays for Rossa so she knew me from camogie, and she was fine about it. Accepted it from the start.
“Ever since then it’s been us three. Our wee team.”
Unable to tie the knot in their home city, the couple took their vows during a 2018 trip to Las Vegas - though July 2 feels, finally, how they always wanted it to be.
“Because Niki’s so close to her family and I’m so close to my family we felt a bit bad about getting dressed up so we didn’t – we went like two tramps. We felt bad not including anybody else.
“I look at this one as a proper celebration. We’re married, but it wasn’t recognised here. Now it will be. I used to say I’d never get married, I’ll never walk up the aisle with a girl but my daddy will walk me down the aisle, Niki’s daddy will walk her down the aisle… it’ll be as close to a traditional wedding as you can get.
“I can’t wait. Whenever I say the best day in my life was winning the All-Ireland, it was. But that was then. See for what I have now? I’d give that all away in a second.”
