'I've bought her dolls, but she just goes around with the ball in her hand all day long'... RTE's Marie Crowe on what her toddler daughter has learned from her three soccer-mad older brothers

Published: 15:53, 14 July 2026 | Updated: 15:58, 14 July 2026 TV presenter Marie Crowe says she has finally earned some ‘street cred’ from her sports-mad sons thanks to her involvement with RTÉ’s World Cup coverage – and their 15-month-old baby sister is already ‘obsessed’ with the beautiful game. The sports journalist and her husband, Billy Sheehan, have three boys under 14, and then a nine-year age gap to their daughter Jessie, who was born early last year. Late nights presenting World Cup coverage have ‘definitely been tricky’, but Crowe said she is used to not getting ‘a huge amount of consistent sleep’ with a young child in the house. And her Dublin home has been even more lively during the tournament, with sleepovers involving more than 10 children common and with football being played on their floodlit astroturf back garden until after midnight. Crowe told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I’m finally getting a bit of street cred now off my kids, because of the World Cup, which is brilliant.  'There’s obviously a lot of people watching, so people must be saying it to them – “Oh, I saw your mom”.  'And they’ll probably tune in a little bit more because it’s the World Cup, and it’s such a big deal to them.’ The three boys have been ‘softened’ by the arrival of their baby sister, whom they and their friends are all ‘mad about’ The Co. Clare native said her boys are ‘finally understanding that that’s my job’ – beyond being their mother. She said with a laugh: ‘One night I was saying I wasn’t going to be home till four or half four in the morning, and the question I get back is, “And what time do you think you’ll be getting up at?”’ The three boys have been ‘softened’ by the arrival of their baby sister, whom they and their friends are all ‘mad about’.  'And the toddler is already ‘obsessed with football’, Crowe said. ‘All she says all day long is “ball, ball, ball, ball”.  'I’ve bought her dolls and all the rest, and she just goes around with the ball in her hand all day long.’ Little Jessie has already been to ‘almost every schoolboy soccer ground in Dublin’, to GAA pitches ‘all around the country’, and to youth soccer tournaments in Spain and Portugal (her brother plays for Shelbourne U14s). ‘She’s the most well-travelled child to sporting events,’ Crowe said.  ‘Billy’s from Kerry, I’m from Clare.  'None of our siblings are up here, so we just have to put her in the car and bring her along.’ And the baby of the house now ‘thinks everyone’s her brother’ from being around groups of boys so often.  ‘She toddles up to little groups of boys all the time looking for her brothers.  ‘If we’re on a pitch at a match and there’s little seven-year-old boys sitting down in a group, she’ll go over and try and sit on their laps or put her hand on their legs or take their ball, all that sort of stuff.’ Crowe’s World Cup highlight so far has been the fairytale around Cape Verde’s Dubliner centre-back Pico Lopes, and particularly the night he video-called his club manager Stephen Bradley live on air after the draw with Saudi Arabia which brought his side to the round of 32. ‘That was pretty epic,’ Crowe said.  ‘That was an amazing moment to be there for and to be part of, and it was such an organic moment as well. ‘We were having the craic in an ad break, and we [she and Alan Cawley] were saying, “Would you give him a ring? He might answer”.  He didn’t answer, and I said, “Look, leave the phone on the desk.  ‘We didn’t actually think he would ring back in the timeframe of the programme and then he did, so it was pretty special, I have to say. ‘It was lovely that we got insight from Stephen Bradley into him and how he’s achieved his success, and then to actually hear from him in the direct aftermath was pretty amazing.’ Asked who needs the most coffee refills during the late-night broadcasts, Crowe laughed that former Ireland and Wolves striker Kevin Doyle ‘probably likes his sleep a lot as well.  'He has three kids, so he’s busy with that too.’ The tense exchange between hurling legends Joe Canning and Dónal Óg Cusack that went viral last weekend was ‘great television’ worthy of repeated viewing, RTÉ sports presenter Marie Crowe has said. The two pundits were discussing Cork’s semi-final defeat to Galway last Saturday when Canning – who is Galway’s highest-ever scorer – suggested that Cork fans getting ahead of themselves by booking out the train for All-Ireland Final day ‘seeps into the mentality’ of the team. Former Rebels keeper Cusack responded that Canning should be ‘bigger than that’, rubbished his take as ‘bull’, and asked: ‘How many All-Ireland medals did you win yourself?’ Canning has one senior All-Ireland inter-county medal, compared to Cusack’s three. Ms Crowe, who was watching from her sofa, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I thought it was great television. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say that, but as somebody who was sitting at home watching it in the family sitting room, we rewound it back to watch it again, and then we rewound it back to watch it again.’ Asked about the mood when the cameras stopped rolling, Ms Crowe said: ‘I wasn’t there, so I don’t know, but I don’t think there was any animosity at the end of it. ‘I was on the radio with Joe the next day and he just said you just get on with it. ‘You have to be able to debate and have robust conversations with people and then be fine, because if you can’t do that, you’re not going to get on in life anyway.’ The presenter also said there is little difference between the GAA pundits who liven up the summer in RTÉ and the soccer guys who are a daily presence at the moment, covering the World Cup. She said: ‘Shay Given is from Donegal, Kevin Doyle is Wexford, Alan Cawley is Sligo, so they [and GAA pundits] would have all had the same upbringing and love for sport, and they generally have a love for all sports. ‘So they’re not just talking about the soccer on the telly – they’re talking about the Gaelic at the weekend, or Kevin’s talking about the horses, and Alan Cawley loves the hurling. So there’s a lot of similarities. ‘Generally sports people who’ve reached the pinnacle of their careers and become pundits have a lot of similar traits in terms of their adaptability and their resilience and their commitment and their passion for sports, so most sports people are quite similar in that way,’ she said. And she revealed the banter off air is ‘like they’re in a dressing room’. Ms Crowe said covering Cape Verde’s defeat to Argentina last weekend with Doyle, Given and Cawley was ‘hilarious’ – adding: ‘They were just slagging each other all the time. It’s actually about everything that you expect it would be – what they’re eating, how they’re sitting, what they’re wearing, socks or no socks. ‘It’s just a constant slag. They’re watching the games, but they’re having the craic. So they keep it lively.’ Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.