NEW YORK—Nestled in a charming corner of the Riverdale neighborhood in the Bronx sits Gaelic Park. Every few minutes the 1 train rolls past overhead; the subway still operates on a raised rickety wooden platform in this part of town. Really only the park’s sparkling turf playing field convinces one that this scene is taking place in 2018.
Gaelic Park, while officially owned by Manhattan College, has long served as the home to the New York Branch of the Gaelic Athletic Association, an Irish organization founded in 1884 that sanctions and promotes traditional Irish sports including Gaelic Football, hurling, camogie, Gaelic handball and rounders. While the league is technically an amateur one, it is akin to the four major US sports in terms of popularity in Ireland.
These sports, particularly Gaelic Football and hurling, found their way to New York and other US cities during waves of mass immigration from Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Simon Gillespie, the games development officer for the New York GAA, the official New York branch of the league was founded in 1914 by a name named William Snow.
It took a few years for the league to find a permanent home, but eventually Gaelic Park was constructed in 1926. In addition to hurling and Gaelic football matches, the stadium has also served as a social and cultural hub for Irish immigrants throughout its history, often hosting concerts and dances and even Easter mass.
“When I got here I came to appreciate what [the New York GAA] is as an institution,” said Larry McCarthy, a business professor at Seton Hall, as well as an expatriate from Ireland and former president of the New York GAA. “Many of the older people around Gaelic Park will tell you that they met their partners and reared families running around the the park over the years. There’s a huge untold social history.”
Nowadays, the New York GAA competes in the Connacht Senior Football Championship—one of the GAA’s four provincial tournaments Gaelic football tournaments—against counties from western Ireland. On May 6, they’ll take on County Leitrim at Gaelic Park.
The New York branch also consists of numerous individual football and hurling clubs clubs throughout the New York boroughs and surrounding areas like Rockland County, Hoboken and Long Island. There’s a senior side for players over the age of 21, as well as what’s known as the Minor Board, which provides an opportunity for boys and girls as young as six to participate in Gaelic sports.
Gillespie said that the youth movement is key for securing the future of the GAA in New York at this moment in history because the league doesn’t foresee a major period of immigration from Ireland in to New York for a long time to come. Thus, they can’t rely on a bevy of expats to fill the adult leagues.
“The future of our adult leagues depend on the development of our youth leagues,” he said.
Gillespie added that there’s been a gradual increase in youth participation since 2001. But McCarthy said that the challenge is to convince those kids to continue playing when they reach adulthood. According to McCarthy, there exists a very different cultural view of amateur adult athletics in the US and Ireland. While it’s quite common for Irish adults to play competitive team sports even as they age and begin their own professional work lives, most Americans give up sports after high school or college.
Rockland GAA is an example of a club that has invested a lot in trying to build for its future. In 2000, after some of its board members mortgaged their houses to secure the necessary payments, they became the first club outside of Ireland or England to purchase their own field and training facility (most clubs tend to lease their facilities). The grounds now include lights, a speaker system, a gym, locker rooms and a meeting room — stocked with a full bar — that hosts events, concerts and parties. The purpose in constructing a state-of-the-art facility, in addition to improving skills on the field, is to build a tight-knit local community, just like the one that grew up around the storied Gaelic Park.
“The money that the clubs put into their facilities and their development, it’s phenomenal,” Owen Mooney, the games development officer for Rockland who moved to Rockland from Ireland in October, said. “They’re putting it in because they’re hoping to get it back. (Rockland’s facility) is going to be here, hopefully, for another 50 years, at least. It’s wonderful to see. We’re very lucky that we have these sports and that we embrace these sports and that we embrace each other as a community.”
Well done Tim. Enjoyed and welcomed your piece. First went to Gaelic Park when I was a young teenage immigrant. Later played there for various teams. Worked on the Irish Press as a reporter when I also wrote a column for the Irish Echo. Keep up the good work.