Monthly Archives: March 2018

The Club Jersey. This weekend the famous old colours will get their day in the sun. Club players stepping on to Croke Park, the latest in line, the first in line, maybe god forbid the last in the line. It showcases all that is great about our club game. Thankfully too the junior and intermediate footballers and hurlers have the same opportunity.

The Club Jersey. Players have worn it since before the current squad can remember. Who can remember the first time, pulling it on, oversized, overstretched. Maybe with a number on the back in the high twenties as a young lad waited impatiently for a bit of game time.

The Club Jersey. Running down the years watching dads, brothers, uncles, mums, sisters, and friends pulling on the jersey on a big day. All they wanted was one day to be part of it. A winter’s slog and hard work boils down to one afternoon in Croke Park. Win, lose or draw, memories to last a lifetime. Disappointment

The only place for real handball fans this weekend is to spend Saturday at Kingscourt handball club in Cavan where the 2018 O'Neills All-Ireland Singles Finals Festival takes place.

A feast of handball is guaranteed at the three court venue with a series of silverware up for grabs.

One highlight of the weekend is the meeting in the Men's Senior Singles Final of Armagh’s Charly Shanks against Martin Mulkerrins of Galway.

Speaking to handball.ie defending champion Shanks is all too aware of the threat posed by the Galwayman:

“Martin is a very strong, very talented player. He plays a very high tempo game so he’s going to put his foot on the pedal and he’s going to go hard. He has a great serve with hook, he can flatten the ball from anywhere in the court and he does it with such power and strength. He’s a complete player.”

Charly knows himself that playing the

The Ulster Gaelic Club is one of the best-known GAA clubs in North America. It was established in 1987 and since then has grown its base rapidly to provide gaelic games for the Irish community as well as immigrants and locals interested in our games.

In 2017 All Ireland winning captains Peter Canavan and Dara Ó Cinnéide travelled to San Francisco to help celebrate 30 years and were mightily impressed with the work being done there with underage players. Since 2012 the club has enjoyed a period of success culminating in a remarkable double in 2016 with senior and junior B successes.

The club colours are Black and Amber, reflecting the colours of Ulster representing the club’s name and reflecting the founders’ interests. Along with O’Neills the club recently updated the crest to celebrate our

The Toronto Gaels arose from the ashes of the old Garryowen club in 1987, with men such as Billy Millar, Billy Gilroy and Joe Matthews to the forefront of the new club. Other former Garryowen men, such as the legendary and sorely missed Tommy White (RIP), and Paddy Callan also played crucial roles in the establishment and growth of the Toronto Gaels over the years.

The club has faced some tough times, struggling for numbers in recent years, and came very close to folding in the 2010 season. Thanks in no small part to the dedication of backroom committee staff including Shane Watters, Sean O’Molloy, Paul Deeney, Greg Callan, and Keith Barry the club battled back and has seen a strong resurgence in the subsequent years. As a result, the squad of

Brooklyn Shamrocks were founded in 1955 and as the only GAA club at the time in the NYC borough, the founders wanted to express their strong Irish identity and connection. To reflect this, Shamrocks was chosen as the name. Initially the club featured a strong Kerry influence but recently there has been an increasing Ulster influence in the club.

Origins

A New York Times edition of January 1, 1902, included an account of a Gaelic football game at Madison Square Gardens between the Kickhams of New York and the Emmets of Brooklyn. This is thought to be the earliest documented recording of Gaelic games being played in Brooklyn.

The modern day Shamrocks club however was founded in 1955 in the Bayridge / Sunset Park area which contained a very large Irish immigrant population at the time. The earliest chairmen of the club mostly hailed from County Kerry but the seat of power has shifted through the years around various counties in Ireland which

The Continental Youth Championships (CYC) is a United States Gaelic Games Tournament that takes place on an annual basis. Such is its popularity that a CYC jersey is like a badge of honour and rite of passage among young US Gaels!

The CYC is the biggest tournament of Gaelic Sports Outside of Ireland! And every year the CYC jersey is a real collectors’ item. In 2018 a combined colleges team from New York took part in the Corn na Mac Léinn as part of the Sigerson weekend, many of the players have progressed through participation in the CYC competition over recent years.

To seasoned followers of Gaelic Games in North America this is no surprise, for each year up to 2,500 children aged U6 to U18 participate in the CYC

Connemara Gaels GFC are based in Dorchester just outside Boston and have been providing Gaelic Games to the Irish community in the Boston area since 1961. They are a well-known club in the American GAA community.

The Connemara Gaels have strong links with County Galway in Ireland, with the majority of members coming from the Connemara region and the link with Galway GAA is obvious.

Beginnings

The Connemara Gaels club was set up in 1961. The first meeting was held in Doggin’s Pub on Columbia Road in South Boston. The elected chairman was Collie Conneelly from Carraroe in Galway. Pat Lydon from Carna in Galway was the team’s first manager and Collie Folan, from Carraroe in Meath, was the captain.

Colours and Crest

As is the case with any GAA club jersey, the Gaels take great pride in their white and green colours, and the

Behind every fence, outside the wire and behind every hurler, camog and footballer male or female is the GAA mother. The Mother of all Players. She deserves a jersey of her own. As we celebrate mother’s day let’s remember the mothers of the GAA world, without them let’s be honest, most of us wouldn’t function. Things just wouldn’t get done.

Who gets you up for those early morning starts for matches and sets you on your way with a mega breakfast? It mightn’t be the team nutritionist’s idea of the best packing but it’s your mum’s, and mums know best.

Who has a quiet word and a consolation hug after a bad defeat when you’ve had a bad day and the oul fella’s post mortem just isn’t helping?

Who can you hear outside the wire, the same voice you heard when you were a youngster right through to senior, the unflinching support and total loyalty. In who’s eyes are you always a star. Your biggest fan?

That was a strange weekend. Stuck in the house. No game to go to. O’Neills jacket hanging by the door.

Longing for the smell of onions and burgers. Halftime homemade soup. The road trip to away games. The allure of Topaz, Applegreen, coffee scalding hot and sweet in cardboard cups, muffins, panini, the 7pc fry ups. Or maybe you prefer the squished taste of sandwiches in tinfoil, accompanied by Tayto and a drink of Club Orange. Saturday night lights and Super Sundays on the road.

The Beast from the east. Have jersey, will travel but there’s nothing on and nowhere to go. Cabin fever. No football or hurling on the television either. Felt like a poor terrestrial viewer when all the games are only satellite. Except they weren’t even on satellite. They weren’t anywhere. They say you only truly miss something when you can’t have it. It was like

In 2017 O’Neills launched the new NYPD GAA Ground Zero Commemoration jersey. The NYPD club has a proud history dating back almost forty years since it was established by a small group of dedicated Gaels. They were also serving officers in New York’s Finest. The Ground Zero Commemoration Jersey commemorates the 23 NYPD officers who tragically lost their lives on 11 September 2001.

NYPD GAA Beginnings

The NYPD Gaelic Football Club was started in 1969 by a few Bronx policemen who were actively playing for their county teams in New York City. Mike Moloney from Clare, Dan Kiely from Cork, Galway native Mike Burke and Cavan‘s Mike Cassidy were the founders of what is now one of the NYPD’s largest fraternal sports teams. It is