Ireland Lights Up & Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge return for 2026
The challenge returns on January 7.
The GAA is delighted to announce that Ireland Lights Up and the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge will return on January 7th 2026, running over 5 weeks until 11th February, bringing communities across the country together once again in a shared commitment to health, fitness, and wellbeing.
How It Works
In partnership with Irish Life, the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge will run alongside Ireland Lights Up, facilitated on the MyLife app. The challenge encourages clubs to collectively track their steps and support one another in building healthy habits through the darker winter months, working towards a common goal. The challenge has become a major highlight of the Healthy Clubs calendar, with over 1,000 clubs tracking 7 million kilometres in just 5 weeks in 2025.
Ireland Lights Up has entered its ninth year, growing into an inclusive and successful community health initiative. Each winter, hundreds of GAA clubs open their gates and light up their walking tracks, pitches, and community spaces, offering safe, bright, and welcoming environments for people of all ages and abilities to get active.
Win a share of a €30,000 Irish Life Prize Fund for your GAA Club
Now in its seventh year, the annual Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge supports GAA clubs at a grassroots level, with a €30,000 prize fund provided by Irish Life in 2026.
The challenge is open to everyone, and you don’t even need to be an active participant of a club to join. All you need to do is select a club when joining the challenge on the MyLife app, and any steps you take during this period will be tracked and put towards the steps target for that club.
• All GAA clubs that register and surpass the 4,000-kilometre collective steps target will be entered into the prize draw.
• Three clubs per province will each win €2,500 in funding towards club development, facilities, and community initiatives.
Club Registration
Clubs are not obliged to partake in both initiatives and can decide to do one or the other or both together. The initiatives are open to all GAA, LGFA, and Camogie Associations and clubs are encouraged to get involved. Whether you’re walking for fitness, for company, or just for some fresh air on a winter evening, Ireland Lights Up and the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge provides the perfect opportunity.
Uachtarán CLG Jarlath Burns said: “It is a testament to the success and the positive impact of the Irish Life GAA Healthy Steps Challenge and Ireland Lights Up, that it is so well embedded into our calendar. Having the privilege as I do, of travelling to clubs all over Ireland I see first-hand the incredible work that more than 600 of our clubs to date have done at making walking tracks a part of their club grounds and facilitating a safe, floodlit walking facility for their members. They and many more besides use the Ireland Lights Up and the Irish Life GAA Healthy Steps Challenge as the perfect healthy start to their New Year and no doubt there will be more milestones reached in the early part of 2026.”
Irish Life CEO Declan Bolger added: “Irish Life is delighted to see the continued growth of the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Challenge and Ireland Lights Up. These initiatives are transforming how communities stay active and connected during the winter months - when motivation can often be hardest to find. By creating opportunities for people to walk together, connect, and feel part of something bigger, these programmes deliver measurable benefits for both physical and social wellbeing - true community health in action. Irish Life is proud to continue supporting initiatives like these, helping communities thrive and grow stronger together.
"This success is made possible by the dedication of Irish Life GAA Healthy Club volunteers, who create welcoming spaces where people of all ages can enjoy walking, build connections, and feel part of something special. Well done to everyone involved for making such a positive impact.”