Oneills.com World Games brings it all together for one magical week
Athletes from Asia participate in the parade during the opening ceremony of the GAA World Games 2023 in Derry. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.
By Paul Fitzpatrick
For months, the old advertising slogan has been fitting – tá síad ag teacht. They are coming, or they were at least. Now they’re here.
The players, the teams, the officials. The colour, the noise. The World Games, in many ways, are bringing it all back home, even for those who have never visited these shores before.
When something grows and builds sustained momentum, it begins to feel like a movement. When people truly are travelling – packing their boots and sticks, catching planes, all heading for the same destination – then the sense is bolstered.
In the brewing of an event of this magnitude, you could say that the sports themselves are the grain but the passion is the yeast, the thing that makes the process come alive. Witness just some of the people involved and how, by some magic, the games have brought them to this point.
Naoka Nakamura grew up in Tokyo, playing soccer, basketball and volleyball. Her first interaction with Gaelic games was to watch it on a YouTube video – now she’s here, playing, in Waterford, representing Germany.
In Zambia, Padraig Ó Fainín has been planning. His players are new to the game of Gaelic football and have adapted well but for them, this trip is much more than a football tournament. It has the potential to be transformative, life-changing. The Sables Shamrocks are here – a few days ago, they were guests of the President of Ireland and now, they take to the pitches of Waterford.
Pádraig Ó Fainín pictured with the Sables Shamrocks Gaelic football team.
In Cuenco Del Plata – the basin of the river of silver – an Irish-Argentine, Francisco Lynch, pulls things together, chipping in here and there, helping out where he can. The GAA way.
In North Carolina, Katrina Runkel – neé Flood – has been practising her camogie with her teammates in preparation for the journey across the water. She discovered the game when she found her Leitrim Dad’s hurley as a child, rummaging in the garage. And so, the stories go.
In Croke Park, Charlie Harrison has been fretting, organising, cajoling - Teams calls, meetings, launches and pitches. The GAA’s International Manager is overseeing a major event which it is hoped will drive standards.
This week in the Déise County, the tribes have descended from all corners of the globe for what will be a celebration of all that is great about Gaelic games. While the eyes of the GAA public were naturally focused on Croke Park yesterday (Sunday) with the meeting of Dublin v Kerry, reps were queuing up in beautiful conditions at SETU sports arena in Carriganore, just outside Waterford city, for registration.
The games throw in this morning (Monday), with the parade and opening ceremony taking place this evening, a sort of Gaelic-infused Mardi Gras marching through the city’s famous Apple Market.
The matches will be fiercely contested but previous renewals of the World Games have shown that this event is about more than just playing football, hurling, camogie, rounders and handball.
Sure, it’s competitive and everyone wants to win but this is a true celebration on a scale which promises much for the future direction of the organisation.
Pictured are, from left, Limerick hurler Dan Morrissey, O'Neills financial controller James Towell, Galway handball player Ciana Ní Churraoin, GAA World Games chairperson Ciarán McLoughlin, Uachtarán Cumann Peil Gael na mBan Trina Murray, Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Jarlath Burns, GAA Rounders president Paula Doherty, Cork camogie player Saoirse McCarthy, Uachtarán an Cumann Camógaíochta Brian Molloy, Tyrone ladies footballer Sarah Donnelly, and Galway footballer Shane Walsh, during the 2026 World GAA Games Launch in Waterford. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
The inaugural World GAA Business Connects Forum, which takes place on Thursday, is something new and exciting. On one level, the games are what draw the overseas diaspora in but the sense of community and friendship radiate from there and have a magnetic appeal.
That bond – community, sport, culture and volunteerism – creates a potent mix and it is only natural that the worlds of diplomacy and business should lean into it. Gaelic games’ global footprint has never been deeper and this business forum will strengthen it further.
It is hoped that the opening ceremony, featuring world-class musicians and a kaleidoscope of colour, draw in the local community here in Waterford and that the people of that great sporting city and county get behind the Games all week, from the moment Uachtarán Jarlath Burns officially opens the tournament on Monday, July 13 at the iconic Apple Market to when he closes it for another three years on Friday evening.
Everyone here – players, coaches, supporters, organisers – have their own story to tell. All have been swept along on the current of Gaelic games, of family and friendship and sporting contest, and now, on the banks of the River Suir, the tide is in. The big week is here.
At last, the World Games have arrived! Enjoy the ride.
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