Dwyer signs on again with Wexford FC

Lauren Dwyer’s story over the past four years is nothing short of heartbreaking. Having been part of the Wexford Youths team that beat Shelbourne 3-1 to win the Women’s FAI Cup in 2021, she would find game time hard to come by throughout 2022 and 2023 due to injury worries. When she finally got herself right last season, she went back to the club, only to be told that she didn’t feature in the management’s plans for the upcoming season and was frozen out of the club that she had been part of since she was 16 years old. In 2025, she’s ready to finally make her return to the club.

Speaking to The Nationalist after agreeing to return to the club she grew up at for the coming season, she explained it was a tough couple of years with the injury.

“I hurt my hamstring a good while ago, I think it was before we won the cup final. I played the cup final with it, and it just never got right. It was a tendon injury. I had nearly a two year spell where I couldn’t get my injuries to settle. Playing on it probably made it worse, because I would have played on it even when I shouldn’t. As I’m getting older, I’m starting to realise I need to take that break. Wexford had said to me if I could get myself right, I could come back. I met with the management and let’s just say they didn’t see me in their plans for last year so I said I’ll just take time away. I’d done everything I could to be fit for the start of the season, and the physio said to me that I might miss the first game or two if I went back playing soccer, and I thought that would be fine, I’m after spending this long getting myself right. Unfortunately I just wasn’t given the opportunity. I was very hurt by it, having given my all to the club for the last ten years, and that’s the way I was treated. I was hurt, and I said I’d give it until the midseason break and see how I was feeling. I said I’d focus on myself and my rehab and just get running and doing my own bits and going to the gym. At the mid-season break, a few teams approached me about going back in but I was enjoying life, I was going on holiday, I was spending time with my nephews. You end up forgetting that there’s more to life than just soccer when you’re in it.” As one door closed, another opened in the form of her local GAA club, Bennekerry/Tinryland.

“I worked really closely with Nuala Mohan out in Star (Geoghegan’s), and she got me to a stage where I was able to go back playing GAA. Leah Mullins was the after-Physio. They had been onto me about going back playing GAA. So I said I’d give it a go and see what happened. They were the girls I grew up with from U12’s so it was special going back and achieving what we did. I’m so glad they persuaded me to come back. You get to play with your friends you grew up with, and to achieve what we did was unbelievable. It’s phenomenal. People still ask me about it, and I still don’t think it’s even registered with us that we’ve achieved this. You never in your wildest dreams think that you would achieve this. It’s unbelievable. I think it was about five years since I last played with them. I went back with no expectations, just to enjoy myself. It was like I never left, they welcomed me back with open arms. We won the county final which was a tough game, then we went into Leinster and it was like we’ll take it one game at a time, and we just kept winning. As the games went on, we just kept getting better and better, and we ended up in an All-Ireland final in Croke Park.” 

Lauren says she considered the option of going in to play for the Carlow Ladies Footballers before eventually settling on the idea of going back to Wexford.

“I had considered it. I thought a lot about either or. Unfortunately, I am getting older so I don’t think my body would let me do both. One of the men on the Wexford committee had been in constant contact with me throughout the years, just checking in. They obviously changed managers over the summer, and said we think you’ll really like who’s after coming in, would you mind coming down. So I had a conversation there around the new year with them, and I talked to a few of my friends in there, and they said the atmosphere has changed, it’s been unbelievable since the new management came in. So they said to me would you be interested in coming back. I really enjoyed playing the Gaelic and I had conversations with girls that were in the county team and one or two involved with management. It was definitely something I considered, but there was something niggling at me like I didn’t want to let my soccer career end that way. I’d thought about it and in my own head, I didn’t want my soccer career to be finished by what a manager had said to me. I wanted not to rectify things but finish on my own terms, just to end things my way. “ 

“I had other options, to go up to Dublin, and what not, but given the factor of my friends being in Wexford, being in around them again, that was the selling point for me. It wouldn’t have sat well with me going to another club. Even to just prove to myself and past managers that I can still play. I also have it handy that training is right on my doorstep too and I don’t have to travel because we train at the SETU. Hopefully it all goes well and I can manage my injury. So far, they’ve been very good to me, they understand I’ve just finished the GAA so they’re giving me the break so hopefully in the next few weeks, I’ll be back playing the Soccer. I don’t know how rusty I’ll be but I’m sure I’ll be fine. I just can’t use my hands, maybe I can go in goal or something. I might still end up doing both down the line but right now it’s not in my plans. I know if I did, I’d be training four or five nights a week which isn’t manageable.” 

Dealing with the rejection and the injury setbacks was difficult for Lauren and she said she relied on her support system and used techniques she’d learned in counselling to cope. 

“When not you’re playing week in, week out, it’s so frustrating. It’s tough mentally too. You’re standing there watching the girls train and you just want to train. It was extremely frustrating, even last year when they told me I wasn’t in their plans, I couldn’t control my injury, and that was the worst thing. I think I had a good support system around me. It was a shock to me and my friends. But they were there for me if I ever needed to talk to them. My family as well were great. You need an outlet and my outlet was going to the gym, and doing things on my own terms. It took me a while to deal with the fact I wouldn’t see my friends and that I wouldn’t travel to training with them. 

"I would have gone to counselling the year before for other stuff in my life, and I think those same tools I was given were able to help me manage my feelings towards not going back. It helped me realise the way I was feeling was ok, that it will pass, that other opportunities would come up. That opportunity was to go play GAA and win an All-Ireland with my friends. Everything happens for a reason and I think that was one of them. I think it was a blessing, as much as it hurt me that I wasn’t able to go back and I wasn’t able to get my body right. You do start to question why does this keep happening to me. When you have a good support system around you, it makes it easier as you’re able to talk about it.” 

She’s back at Wexford for 2025 and she says she’s been around the camp for the past couple of week and it feels enjoyable and says there seems to be good vibes around.