Every year thousands of Irish men and women leave these shores for pastures new.
The one thing that makes it easier for people to emigrate is the fact that the GAA travels with you. Any country you go to now will inevitably have a club for people to join, whether it’s football, hurling or camogie.
The games have been growing right across Asia for a number of years, and there are currently 20+ clubs spread across 13 countries, thanks to the tireless work going on within the Asian County Board.
The Asian Gaelic Games is the county board’s major adult tournament. It is a festival of Irish culture which takes place every year involving around 65 teams and 900 playing members.
Video Source: Jerome Quinn
The success of the games led to more kids in these countries wanting to play, so an exhibition involving Singapore Gaelic Lions and Orang Eire Kuala Lumpur (two clubs with exisiting kids programmes) was set-up at the AGG tournament.
Due to the success of these exhibition games Joe Trolan, chairperson of the Asian County Board set out to create a stand alone tournament and as a result, the Asian Youth Championships were born.
“In 2015 I started planning to have a stand alone tournament for the kids (boys and girls) and in 2016 we had our first Asian Youth Championships in Hanoi, Vietnam with over 160 kids and many local Vietnamese. We had teams from Shanghai (all Chinese) and Seoul (all Korean). The teams in Asia really embraced the idea, with Singapore and Kuala Lumpur already having big numbers training”.
“The Viet Celts, Shanghai and Seoul did a fantastic job in integrating into the local schools and have several camps a year where they have 60+ local kids playing. In 2017, we were in Kuala Lumpur for our 2nd Asian Youth Championship and had teams from Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Malaysia, and many local teams. This year we have added Beijing GAA and hope that the Viet Celts in Hanoi can join us. We have had around 150+ kids play at the games, predominantly local nationals and it is expanding” said Trolan.
Due to the adult population being very transient, the Asian County Board rely on a strong and dynamic youth set-up so that the games can become sustainable across the continent.
The county board have done fantastic work getting the games into the local schools, and are very close to having GAA placed on the PE curriculum in Singapore. They even had five Singapore teachers come over to the Connacht centre of excellence to get an idea of what GAA is.
Alongside Joe Trolan, Conor Melvin (Seoul Gaels), Adrian Donoghue (Shanghai GAA) and Jim Kiernan (Viet Celts) have done an outstanding job in bringing the local kids into the GAA community and have been a big part of the growth of the Asian Youth Championships.
This years Asian Youth Championship will once again take place in Kuala Lumpur on October 6.
One of the tournaments main sponsors is The DFA/GAA Global Games Development Fund.
Video Source: Jerome Quinn
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