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GAA clubs booming across Europe

There are around 106 GAA clubs throughout Europe and the number is growing at an unprecedented rate, writes Paul Keane

Berlin Gaels is just one of some 106 GAA clubs across mainland Europe. Photograph: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Fri Jan 27 2023 - 00:00

They’re trying to make a camogie player of Maeve Killen in Berlin but she is not sure how that will pan out.

“It’s difficult for a Dub with a passion for football,” smiles the Berlin-based Department of Foreign Affairs official whose love of the big ball game was inculcated at the St Sylvesters club in Malahide. She has played with both Berlin GAA and Stockholm Gaels.

Truth be told, they will probably twist her arm just enough to relent because while the sport itself is important, it’s all about the connection and the camaraderie when playing so far from home.

There are around 5,000 others beyond Ireland and Great Britain, scattered throughout Europe and playing Gaelic football, hurling and camogie. There are even five rounders clubs.

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Gaelic Games Europe, an official arm of the GAA, caters for 106 clubs in all with around 95 of those located in the EU proper. From Oulu in Finland, about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle, to Bucharest Gaels in Romania, to the Azur Gaels club on the French Riviera to the Portugal club in Lisbon, there is hardly a corner of the continent that the GAA hasn’t taken up some form of residence in.

What began initially when five clubs got together in 1999 to form the European county board is now expanding at a rate of eight new clubs per year.

“There wouldn’t be any other GAA unit in the world experiencing that sort of growth,” says Tony Bass, another Dubliner from the Cuala club who moved to Holland almost 20 years ago.

In that period, he has been European secretary for a decade and chairman for three. He has refereed games in around 70 different cities too and understands what is driving the growth – free movement.

“First of all, there’s a lot more Irish people finding their way to more diverse parts of Europe, primarily through the free movement within the EU,” says Bass, one of the founders of Maastricht Gaels who have a full size all-weather GAA pitch.

“The other thing which has been very significant for us over the years is the Erasmus programme in universities which has actually been one of the most successful things in the European Union.”

A more recent phenomenon, linked to the cost of living crisis in Ireland, is that many students now choose to complete full degree courses in cheaper areas of Europe.

“We have three or four here in Maastricht doing full bachelor’s degree programmes,” says Bass. “Then we’d have clubs in Warsaw and Budapest, and there’s a new one just coming onstream in Bydgoszcz, and those would be almost 100 per cent comprised of Irish students. A big pile are doing veterinary studies in Warsaw, there are a lot of physiotherapy students in Groningen, and so on.

“EU rules mean that when they go to these countries, they have to be treated the same as any local, so they pay the same fees, which are obviously a lot cheaper in the likes of Poland and Hungary. It’s cheaper to live there too, so many students are taking up this option.”

The continent was regionalised for GAA purposes in 2006 into Benelux, East and Central, Iberia, North West and Nordic, vastly reducing the amount of travel required to the various tournaments which gather teams together each season. A competitive game could still involve crossing a number of international borders though.

Last Autumn, for example, Killen and her Berlin GAA colleagues jumped on a train for a tournament in Zurich, about 850kms away.

Perhaps surprisingly, around half of those playing Gaelic Games across Europe are non-Irish. Darmstadt GAA in Germany is a case in point, founded in 2014 by Jakob Feldmann who fell in love with hurling while on a secondary school placement in Carlow.

Former GAA President Sean Kelly, a member of the European Parliament for Ireland South, has a similar story.

“I had a girl working for me, Jelena Radakovic, she’s from Serbia but she came to Brussels and got involved in camogie and football and became very, very good at them,” says Kelly, who is honorary president of Belgium GAA.

“She actually became secretary of the club and got very involved in it all.”

Many games in Europe are played on an 11-a-side basis, on soccer or rugby pitches, though 10 clubs entered last season’s 15-a-side men’s football championship. Amsterdam won it and qualified for the AIB Leinster club junior football championship, losing out narrowly to Laragh of Wicklow in a cracking encounter in October.

“In the ladies, we play off against Britain for an All-Ireland junior quarter-final spot,” adds Bass.

Youth sections are popping up all the time and Killen reports a thriving one at the nearby Setanta Berlin GAA.

“A full European championship, country versus country, is something I think that should be a long-term project,” suggests Kelly. “It could have many fantastic benefits.”

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