Orang Éire hit new heights in Kuala Lumpur

By John Harrington

Orang Éire GAA club in Kuala Lumpur hit new heights last month when their players staged a series of exhibition games for men, women, and children in Malaysia’s 85,500 capacity Bukit Jalil National Stadium.

The iconic stadium is a real source of national pride in Malaysia, so getting the opportunity to showcase Gaelic games there was a great coup for Orang Eire.

‘Orang’ is the Malay Bahsa word for ‘people’, and the club’s ethos has always been one of inclusivity for all regardless of nationality, age, or background.

One of the most vibrant GAA clubs in Asia, Orang Éire have around 150 members from over 20 countries, and the hope is that the profile gained from their day in the Bukit Jalil Stadium will boost the club’s profile further and encourage more and more people to join.

“It's been a year in the making,” says club chairperson Cian Hulm of their day in the Bukit Jalil National Stadium.

“Myself and one of the lads were walking by Bukit Jadil Stadium. There's a running track outside of it. We had a little look inside and we saw there was a school doing a sports day.

“I turned around to the committee here and my wife as well and I said, ‘do you know what? I reckon we could get Gaelic football going in here’. Initially, everyone thought I was mad. It was a pipe dream at the start, but like a lot of things in Malaysia, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

“We're lucky we have a few local players here as well to help me out in terms of being able to speak the local language. When we first met with the Bukit Jadil Stadium team, it was just trying to convince them that Gaelic football is not rugby, because they're afraid of their pitch being completely ripped up.

“It took us about six, seven months to actually convince them what the sport was like and that was actually less of a risk than their usual soccer games. Finally, we got a date and we managed to get our men's, ladies, kids and our Refugee Academy players playing on it.

“It's an impressive stadium and we wanted to get in there to create a bit of noise around Gaelic football in Malaysia and in Asia in general and obviously, give the kids an opportunity that they've never, ever had before.

“We got the Irish Embassy involved and they got the Malaysian Ministry of Sport involved. Everything is connected to the end goal of trying to get more local players playing with the club, Malaysian-born players, because we want to make the club a little bit more sustainable that way. Obviously, non-Malaysians, expats, they come and go. We have a big turnover here within the club.

“We're competing with sports like soccer and badminton and we only have two or three big tournaments a year. So we are trying to increase the awareness of it and get more locals playing and if you show them the video and a few photos of you playing in the National Stadium then they have a look at you and they take you a little bit more seriously.”

Orang Éire’s experience has been that if you can introduce Gaelic games to the local Malaysians they quickly fall in love not just with the sport, but with the community ethos of it.

“We put a big emphasis on that social aspect of it and the kind of community feel,” says Hulm.

“We do a lot within the community in terms of helping out local charities as well. I think the main thing is our diverse nature. A lot of people have taken to Gaelic football who maybe wouldn't have been involved in other sports. Soccer and rugby are massive in Malaysia, as is badminton and all those other sports.

“I think people who are not natural to soccer or rugby have turned to Gaelic, they describe it as being a little bit more accessible.

“That's kind of led us to where we are now because if you look at our club now, we probably have 25 different nationalities. Our ladies team is the crown jewel of the club.

“In 2022 they made it to an Asian Games senior final against Singapore. Now, bear in mind Singapore A ladies would be all Irish ladies, so of whom have probably played county or played at fairly high club levels back home. We had a ladies team that had two Irish girls on the team and about six or seven different nationalities and they put it up to them. Since then our ladies have gone from strength to strength.

“The main thing is we base the club all around fun, culture, inclusivity and creating that kind of community spirit as well.”

The clubs ethos of giving back to their local community is vividly illustrated by the success of their Refugee Academy which has been running for the past six years.

“That all started when we started supporting a local school who had a soccer programme,” says Hulm. “The soccer programme was just an outlet for kids who don't get a whole lot unfortunately in Malaysia because refugees are quite limited to what support they can get.

“They're not officially recognised as refugees so it's quite a difficult position for them and sport is an outlet for them.

“We helped out with their soccer academy for a while in terms of equipment and coaches and that sort of stuff. One day we said how about we see if these kids like Gaelic football. So we did a couple of open Gaelic football sessions with them and some of the kids loved it.

"We went from having 20 kids at our first session to around 100 to 150 at one of our open sessions.”

“We then decided to call it a Refugee Gaelic Academy Programme and we identified a couple of the older kids that were really into it and were good at it and were taking a real shine to it.

“We then brought them up into our adults programme which went well. In 2022 we had seven of these kids mix in with our adult teams for the main Asian Gaelic games out here. Those kids were from places like Central Africa, Syria, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan. From that seven I'd say there were 3 lads in that team who if they were playing at home in Ireland people would really look at them for sure.”

Orang Éire’s Refugee Gaelic Academy Programme hasn’t just given those involved in it a valuable sporting outlet, it has opened all sort of other doors for them as well.

“Not only do they get to train with us twice a week and we give them a travel and meal allowance on a weekly basis so they can get a bit of food after training, but it's also allowed them to make connections within the club,” says Hulm.

“Obviously, within this club here, there's people from various backgrounds. Guys out here who run their own businesses, guys out here that are teachers, so it's opened them up to a lot of avenues. Within the club, they've managed to get support in terms of their own education.

“We've had a few guys who've given them private tuitions. We have another fellow who works in IT who managed to get them a load of free laptops. We have another guy who's managed to give them some career advice or whatever it might be, just small little things.

“The sport is one thing, but getting these kids properly ingrained in the club helps them connect with people that they probably wouldn't have connected with before and opened up a lot of avenues for them off the pitch as well.”

“That programme has been a massive success and the end goal for that is to have an all-academy team playing in one of our regional tournaments, the South Asian Gaelic Games or Asian Gaelic Games.”

The number of people playing Gaelic games outside of Ireland is growing all the time and Hulm is confident that Orang Éire will go from strength to strength in the coming years.

“The more exposure we can get from something like playing in the Bukit Jalil then the more we get the name of the sport out there and the more locals we get playing the more we can grow and grow.

“I think the main thing we need is more numbers to be able to have more teams.

“For ourselves in KL, we have a South Asian Gaelic Games in May and we have an Asian Gaelic Games in November. You might have one or two invitationals in Vietnam or Taiwan or wherever else and then that's kind of it.

“Other than that, during the week, you're constantly playing internal games amongst yourselves. Whereas locals can go play a soccer league that's playing against other clubs on a weekly basis

“For us to get non-Irish interested, we need to have a fuller fixture calendar to make it more appealing.

“People love coming down and having fun and enjoying training but we need a little bit more competition. To do that, we just need increased numbers. It's building the name of Gaelic football, building the clubs.

“Even if you take Vietnam, for example, they have gone from two clubs to three clubs. In Saigon, they have two clubs there as well. Even having two clubs in the same city makes a difference because at least you can play against another club two or three times throughout the year.

“There is a lot of scope for growth. I think in general, Asia is going in the right direction. We just need to keep building on and get more people involved so you can make it more competitive and have more leagues and tournaments.”