Gaelic Sports

The Irish have always held a deep affinity with sport. The importance of horse racing, athletics and hurling can be traced back thousands of years. The establishment of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), known as Cumann Lúthchleas Gael in the Irish language, to promote native Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, Gaelic handball and rounders, was part of the great Gaelic cultural revival in the late 19th century.  Its success was phenomenal and within a few decades nearly every parish in the twenty six counties had a local GAA club and was strongly associated with the Catholic nationalist population in the six counties of Northern Ireland.