New York GAA - Gaelic Football

Gaelic Football

The New York GAA has a long history in Gaelic games starting at a time of the mass immigration to New York from Ireland. The first organized hurling and football club in New York was founded in 1857. Since then Gaelic football in New York has grown. At one point there were close to 40 football clubs in the New York GAA league. However, since the migration back to Ireland with that country's increasing economic prosperity (the Celtic Tiger), the number of clubs dwindled down to 31. In the past two years the NY GAA has brought in two new teams, one (Na Clairsigh) from Albany and another (Four Provinces) from Philadelphia. But with the Meath team dropping out of the league competition due to too few players and other teams combining together, participation has declined. However, the renovation of Gaelic Park and increased participation by underage teams are measures that have been taken to increase participation again without having to rely on players imported from Ireland.

New York has competed in the Connacht Senior Football Championship for a number of years, though without any success. In 2008, the opponent was Leitrim who defeated New York by 0-17 to 0-06. The 2009 opponent, Mayo, won 2-19 to 0-10 at Gaelic Park on 10 May. 2010 brought the visit of Galway to Gaelic Park and despite suffering the loss of two players to sendings off early in the second half, New York gave The Tribesmen a scare, though eventually capitulating by 2-13 to 0-12. New York took on 2010 Connacht Champions Roscommon at Gaelic Park on 1 May 2011.They lost on a scorline of Roscommon 3-21 New York 1-11

In 2010 New York took part in the Connacht Minor Football Championship for the first time. They played Galway in their first game but suffered a heavy defeat. The next year New York Minor football returned to Ireland to play in the Connacht Championship once again. Unfortunately history repeated itself with another heavy loss to Roscommon.