Chicago hosts successful Continental Youth Championships

By Cian O'Connell

The O'Neill's Continental Youth Championships proved to be another significant success story in 2025.

Gaelic Park in Chicago provided the ideal backdrop for the competition which continues to ensure underage players are afforded opportunities.

Caroleann Gallagher, who is heavily involved in of Chicago Celtics GFC and the Chicago Limerick Youth Hurling Club, was delighted with the response at the tournament. "It was huge, we had more than 1,400 players and about 2,500 people there in total," she says.

"So, it was great. It went really well. Everyone was really happy with how it went. In Chicago, we've an amazing facility here. When teams travel to Chicago, they're always super impressed with Gaelic Park because we can put up 12 fields. They're all within walking distance. Sometimes, when we go to other cities, the fields can be spread out, and you've to get buses to fields.

"It usually comes around to a city every four years. It is a big undertaking for the host city. As a host city, you've to raise a certain amount of money and there is so much work involved in the logistics. It is a massive undertaking that we were planning for nine or 10 months before the event."

These are encouraging times for underage development in Chicago. Giving young players a chance to develop is crucial. "It was an amazing success, a great tournament," Gallagher remarks.

"We'd very hot weather, which is always the case for CYC generally, wherever we go. It is always that last week in July. So, that was a challenge in terms of the kids playing in it. They play a lot of games, maybe eight or 10 games a day. It is a huge ask for them, but the kids performed really well.

"In general, our Chicago clubs had a really impressive tournament. We started going to CYC as a club only in 2018, we're relatively new. Our football club is only 25 years old and our hurling club is only five years old.

"We were going to CYCs and even last year we weren't even getting into the C or Shield level semi-finals. This year, we won several A Championships outright. As a Chicago club, we were thrilled with our performance because it shows you that it all pays off.

"All of the hard work, training, logistics. When you see the kids advancing up levels in a year, you see this is worth it and it's very impressive to see. The kids were really thrilled with themselves because they won. They'd never really come back from CYC with hardware, they were thrilled."

The range of clubs involved from so many places adds real excitement. "You've teams from all over North America and Canada," she says.

"We've San Francisco, Boston, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Detroit, and our Chicago teams. You'd have heavy numbers from Boston, San Francisco, and New York. In Chicago you've three youth teams, Boston you'd have 13, the same roughly in San Francisco, and in New York you'd probably have more than 20. They travelled in huge numbers.

"The standard for some of the Boston and New York teams would probably be on par with Ireland. The New York Féile team won in the Féile this year.

"So, the standard is up there with Irish kids. For them coming to CYC, it is a great opportunity for clubs like us, who're smaller, to play these teams, who're much more experienced than us, and beat them sometimes. It was a huge effort."

Ensuring emerging players have a decent games programme is vital for long term sustainability. "In Chicago, you've the city in the middle with north side suburbs and south side suburbs," Gallagher explains.

"We've two clubs on the north side and one club on the south side. For many years we were just playing the north side against the south side. It was fine, but we were seeing when we went to CYC we weren't getting enough competitive games.

"We started up with other clubs what is called the Great Lakes Tournament. It is going to be held this year in Detroit.

"It is Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, and Chicago, teams on the east coast. We don't have access to New York and San Francisco, they're so far away from us. We're doing this tournament with the four regions on September 19. We've found that to be so helpful in growing our competitiveness.

"We'll host a tournament in Chicago in the spring, Detroit, Cleveland, and Canada will come to us. Then, Toronto host it later in the summer, and we'll all travel for that."

"This is the fourth year of the Great Lakes Tournament and it has been really helpful. You can see it in the clubs too, Detroit had a team in CYC this year which I believe was their first time ever.

"They generally don't have the numbers, but this year they were able to pull one together which was great because they're developing their youth programme."

Chicago Celtics GFC is thriving at the moment which augurs well for the future. "We can field one or two teams at every level," Gallagher says.

"In fact, our U10s, we've three teams currently. Our U12s, we've two teams. Our numbers are great now. That has been through promoting it. We did a Fall League for four weeks to try to grab more of the American kids. We had a Spring League for four weeks. We find we've a lot of competition here with American sports.

"We've to compete with basketball, football, volleyball, and all of those things. We've found if we run shorter four or six week leagues that they come because it isn't a huge commitment.

"It might be a bit long for them to commit to an April to August season. We've found a lot of success in these shorter leagues, it grabs the kids. They get hooked once they're in, once the see the community."

Ultimately, that sense of belonging matters deeply. "We've amazing support in the community," she adds.

"It is just like every GAA parish at home. Here, as ex pats we miss that, and we're craving that bit of community we had in GAA clubs. When we introduce American parents to it, they're just blown away by it. They're blown away by the volunteerism involved. No other sport in America works like that.

"My kids play volleyball and basketball, the coaches are paid. So, they can't understand a CYC tournament with 1,400 players is volunteer from top to bottom.

"That is the nature of the GAA, and the parents really love that side of it, and they see the coaches and parents are just involved for the love and passion of it. They get into it and it is a little bit of draw for them."

The staging of the CYCs was another important part of the journey for those heavily involved in Chicago GAA.