ITV last night ran one of the best news stories of 2016.
It told the story of 11-year-old Ahmed Sosa, a Syrian refugee who's family came to Belfast from Aleppo last December. To help integrate within the community, Ahmed took up Gaelic football and hurling with the Patrick Sarsfields club in West Belfast.
He took to the rules remarkably quickly, and Ahmed helped the club secure a first Under 12 hurling title in years last June.
More important than the winning, however, has been the experience, as Ahmed told ITV:
It’s just like everyone has been good and it’s like a family.
Fantastic. The broadcaster also spoke to his coaches, who admitted they went to considerable lengths to help Ahmed feel involved when he first took up Gaelic football:
The first session we had, unfortunately I was trying to give out orders to Ahmed, he was understanding some here and there.
Unfortunately sometimes he was going backwards and kicking balls backwards so we had to have a translator in. It was something the players had never seen before, or the opposition teams and it worked in our favour.
Hopefully he’s a future Antrim star. I believe with his determination and his big heart he'll go far no matter what he does.
Lovely words.
Rarely will you see a better illustration of the power of perhaps the greatest idea in Ireland: the GAA club. With ceaseless headlines of intolerance plaguing the media these days, this story is just the tonic. The world could learn a lot from the GAA club.
We recommend you watch the full report on the ITV website, and we challenge you to watch it without a smile. You won't be able to.
And if not for that, it's worth watching for the line "Ahmed [is] probably the first Syrian national to win a hurling title in Antrim".
Watch it here.
You can follow Patrick Sarsfields on twitter.
