Official recognition by Sport England, Scotland, and Wales a 'game-changer' for Britain GAA
Pictured left to right are Britain GAA Head of Games Development & Operations, Stephen Lavery; Britain GAA Vice-Chairperson, Michael Collins; Britain GAA Children's Officer, Julie Duffy; GAA President, Jarlath Burns; Britain GAA Chairperson, Sean Hopkins; Britain GAA Secretary, Michael Walker; Britain GAA Treasurer, Frank Dillon; Britain GAA CC Delegate, Noel O'Sullivan.
By John Harrington
The recognition of Gaelic games as a sport by Sport England, Scotland, and Wales with the Gaelic Games Council of Britain as its national governing body has been hailed as “a game-changer”.
Official recognition is something that Britain GAA has been seeking for many years because it opens up the possibility of UK Government funding that would provide a huge boost for coaching and games development and various other projects.
“Going forward for the province it's going to be a game changer,” says Britain GAA Chairperson, Sean Hopkins.
“We've been trying to get this over the line for 20 years and in the future it will bring us to another level because it will help us significantly with staff, projects, and development.
“We're doing great things here and in a way we've become a victim of our own success in the financial sense and our workload as well.
“It's just like running a company - if you're developing, you need more investment and you need more staff and more volunteers. Everything goes hand-in-hand.
“It's something we're very conscious of here at the moment because we are moving very quickly so this is a huge lift for everyone involved with GAA in Britain. I was down at the London-Mayo game last week and all everyone was talking about was how great this news is.
“I really believe in the next five to ten years we’re going to see a really significant growth in Gaelic games here.”
Official recognition by Sport England, Scotland, and Wales comes at a great time for Britain GAA because it should further turbo-boost an already significant growth in participation numbers in recent years.
A list of clubs and university teams in Britain.
Since 2022 there has been a 34 per cent increase in youth registrations thanks in no small part to the positive impact of Community Development Administrators (CDAs).
“There's been a lot of people putting in a lot of work here for years,” says Britain GAA Head of Games Development & Operations, Stephen Lavery.
“We've only six full-time staff covering the whole of Britain with part-time staff underneath that and we're very lucky to have a really brilliant Britain GAA board here. They're really proactive and pushing everything we're doing.
“All the volunteers on the ground at grassroots level, they're putting in serious work and this gives everybody a bit of a boost. We'll be able to get more support and build capacity and help those volunteers on the ground.
“All of our national projects that we're doing, they're all growing, so we'll be able to get support in there too.
“What we need to do is align more with our county sports partnerships here. Each of them have school games organisers, they're called SGOs. They all run the school games in the counties.
“Our CDAs are making inroads there to work closer with them so we can get Gaelic Games as part of their competitions and they have access to all the schools. It could potentially become led by them with our support where we would offer teacher training and train up the teachers.
“All that stuff we're trying to work on, but, at the same time we're not forgetting our clubs. Everything goes back to our clubs.
Since 2022 there has been a 34 per cent increase in youth registrations in Britain GAA.
Britain GAA do incredible work promoting Gaelic games in England, Scotland, and Wales despite a small number of full-time employees.
It's hoped that with support from Sport England, Scotland, and Wales they'll be able expand their team and in doing so grow the grassroots of Gaelic games all the more.
“At the minute, our staff are covering huge, regional areas supported by county boards," says Lavery. "They probably just don't have enough time to get round all of that properly.
“We've already had a 34.4% growth in youth registrations in the last four years so we're doing something right, but we're still only scratching the surface.
“Now that we’ll be able to get more support through this recognition by Sport England, Scotland, and Wales, the sky's the limit for first, second, and third generation Irish, those people who have that connection to Ireland and want to play our games.
“More and more children willbe able to find us and play our games and that helps us to future-proof our clubs.
“We'll be able to get more support and do much more, so it's hugely exciting.”