USGAA National Finals to highlight growth of the game stateside 

By John Harrington

The rapid growth of Gaelic Games in the USA will be vividly illustrated this weekend at the 2025 USGAA Finals in Malvern, Philadelphia.

More than 2,000 players from close to 120 teams will play over 100 games over the course of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Founded in 1959, USGAA is the Governing body of Gaelic Games in the US outside of the area under the jurisdiction of the New York GAA Board.

The Finals are showpiece event of the year as teams compete for 22 National Titles across all 4 codes: Football, Ladies Football, Hurling, and Camogie.

“People almost have to come to an event like this to see the scale of it and go, 'My God!’, to just understand the scale of it and the effort that is put into it by so many volunteers, the local steering committee, and the national board,” says USGAA Head of Operations and Games Development, Rob Tierney.

“The planning for it is massive. Even the work the registrar has to do to get 2,800 wristbands ready is just a massive job in and of itself.

“The Philadelphia organising committee has been working on this for months and it's a massive volunteer effort on the ground. You have field marshals and people doing ticketing, helping with parking, et cetera.

“We have good support from the organisations in Ireland, the GAA, the LGFA, and the Camogie Association in terms of sending referees over to help with the refereeing but we're quite self-sustainable in that regard.

“While it is great to get the assistance from home and it's always welcomed, the county is also becoming more and more self-sustaining every year in terms of things like refereeing which is great to see.

“This is our flag-ship event and we're able to showcase that we have quality at all levels, both the playing quality and also the supports around the games as well which are of a high standard.”

What will stand out at the finals is the extent to which American accents will dominate.

In the not too distant past most USGAA clubs would have been made up largely of Irish migrants, but now two thirds of registered adult players are native born Americans.

“We're seeing more Americans than ever before playing the games and the teams are coming from all over. From Seattle to San Diego, Massachusetts to Florida.

“When Americans see the games they fall in love with them. They love the physicality of the games, they love the skill, they love how Gaelic games blend a number of American sports together.

“You have basketball type skills in Gaelic football and lacrosse type skills in hurling and they're seeing the connection between the sports they have and these sports in Ireland. They're physical, they're passionate.

"You have American kids travelling to Ireland who when they come back after being away bring back the idea of starting a club is now something very tangible that they can do and give back to their local community when they do return back.

“A lot of them have Irish heritage and they see this as a way of honouring that heritage, by starting a team in their local town.”

USGAA is now putting a lot of effort into providing those seeds in the wind some fertile soil to grow in.

“You have a lot of American students now in Ireland and we’re being proactive by trying to find them and tell them who we are and what we have waiting for them when they come back," says Tierney.

“We have had a number of meetings over the last few weeks with some of the Irish universities and will continue to build those partnerships.

“What traditionally happens is that we'll get a call from someone, like we did from a guy in Flagstaff who was just back from UCD and was saying, 'this is a great game, how can I start a club?'

“So, we're putting together a package of information that we can pass on to our university partners on the whole island of Ireland and say, 'we're here for you, this is your pathway to starting a club when you come back'. It's great that we've gotten to the point where we're being proactive rather than reactive and we're continuing to build up our homegrown players.

“We've had around 25 new clubs start in the last five years. That's just massive growth. We have to be ready for that growth and say, yeah, we're here, here's how you go about it, here's some grant and coaching resources you can avail of.

“You need referees? Ok, we have refereeing training. Munster area huge partner for us and come out and upskill our coach tutors and referee tutors.

“We're prepared for that growth which is great.”

Go HERE for more information on the 2025 USGAA National Finals.