It caused a bit of a stir at the time. In a 2012 speech to a dinner in New York, then GAA president Liam O’Neill expressed the ambition that there would one day be a greater number of association members outside Ireland than at home.
At that stage, it appeared fairly fanciful even to carousing members of the press, who were in town for that year’s All Stars trip. The idea of it, however, was sufficiently offbeat to tickle the jaded appetites of sports desks back at home and so, we followed it up with the president a day later.
Fourteen years ago, the numbers were forbidding for the aspiration, a rough ratio of 16:1 or 250,000 home members to 16,000.
O’Neill was quite earnest about what appeared an outlandish ambition. He reeled off a number of examples of developments in New York and the huge numbers of juveniles involved, before referencing the growing interest of those born in the US in Gaelic games.
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“It’s no longer about the emigrant going abroad and growing up in the GAA. It’s about the emigrant who has gone abroad whose child is now playing games. That’s where the growth is going to be.”
Now, a decade and a half later, the ratio hasn’t particularly improved, but the numbers on either side of the equation have shown phenomenal growth: just over 500,000 at home and about 28,000 abroad. There are 2,200 clubs in Ireland and 500 registered internationally.
Director general Tom Ryan made specific mention of it in his annual report to last month’s congress.
“The strength of the GAA is not confined to these shores. World GAA continues to experience steady evolution in both participation and organisational maturity as we move further into the 2023–2026 strategic cycle [the first for which World GAA had produced a strategic three-year plan].”
It was a phenomenon picked up on by one of Ryan’s predecessors, Liam Mulvihill, who earlier this century wondered if such cultural accessories as the flag and anthem might be reconsidered in light of the numbers of non-Irish embracing Gaelic games around the world.
The global footprint has become a two-way process. What started as a desire to organise the games for a young – and often, involuntary – diaspora in traditional destinations such as Britain and North America has become more of an opportunity to celebrate Irish culture among communities for whom emigration is a career choice rather than an economic necessity.
These modern experiences have enabled those involved in the GAA abroad to bring back valuable perspectives in organising the games in modern environments.
Remember the razor-thin defeat of the 2001 Roscommon motion to open up Croke Park to other sports.
Among the contributors was Leitrim’s Cathal Lynch, a delegate from Brussels, who spoke about the activities of the European board. “We will be playing our competitions on a cricket pitch in Guernsey, a soccer ground in Luxembourg and at a rugby club in The Hague.
“If this motion is defeated today, will we follow the logic and not avail of these venues? The world is changing, becoming multicultural. We should have the self-confidence to go ahead as the biggest sports organisation in the country.”
Those words were prophetic about the direction the GAA eventually explored. In his 2024 annual report, Ryan suggested the European, municipal system as a way forward for sports.
“We are in an era where the construction of new grounds, the refurbishment of existing ones, and even the running costs of either pose an even greater challenge. Our future lies with new models of ownership, municipal facilities and shared grounds.”
A book, shortly to be launched, Wandering Gaels – Sporting and Cultural Journeys with a GAA Club Across Europe, 1998-2020, by James McGovern gives an insight into the European GAA (or, officially since 2016, Gaelic Games Europe).
McGovern, a former Longford footballer but long-time resident of Wexford, has written a part-travelogue, part-cultural snapshot of the continental destinations (the tours, which he chiefly organises, still take place) visited by his adopted club Glynn-Barntown during the years in question.
Of significant relevance are the redefined options of GAA membership, for example recreational – a template that Croke Park has in recent years become more interested in providing as a playing alternative to cut-throat championships, whose ferocity is undiminished all the way to junior F status.
The weekend tournaments in Europe are primarily social occasions and attract Irish people, including those with no experience of the GAA at home. Reading McGovern’s book, you are struck by the scale of the involvement of women in establishing the GAA in various locations.
Anne Donnelly, from Paris by way of Meath, was the first secretary of the European board when it was launched by the late Joe McDonagh in 1999. Anna-Marie O’Rourke (from Wicklow and Brittany) is now coaching officer for Gaelic Games Europe.
Europe was also first to identify the appeal of women’s football as a key attraction for Gaelic games. Back in 2012, O’Neill said that it was this game, rather than the men’s, which had the greatest potential to attract overseas communities to participate in GAA activities.
At a time when the obvious progression of integration between the GAA and the women’s Gaelic games organisations is causing such angst, Europe – and other overseas units – showcases the essential strength of women’s involvement in the organisation.
O’Neill’s ambition of international membership outstripping that at home may not be actually closer to fulfilment but the vision of Gaelic games in a modern society, created abroad, is illuminating for the entire GAA.
