While the GAA remains very much an Irish entity, the way in which the game has grown overseas in recent years has been a wonderful development.
You will now find Gaelic football and hurling clubs in a huge number of cities across Europe, North America, and Asia. Those teams are largely made up of Irish expats living abroad, there have also been plenty of cases of local people taking up Gaelic games.
One such example of that phenomena in Spain has now garnered local television attention.
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Local TV broadcast shows how GAA is thriving in Spain's Galicia
Galicia is a north-western Spanish region that has close links to Ireland, with both places having strong Celtic roots that carry through to the modern age.
Over the last century or so, quite a few people in Galicia developed a fondness for Ireland, comparing our fight for independence from Great Britain with their own identity struggles after becoming part of Castilian Spain.
Considering the shared history between the two places, it is perhaps not a surprise to see that the GAA has started to take a foothold in the region.
The Gaelico Escalos project has brought GAA to over 10,000 local schoolchildren in recent years, with many of them joining local clubs as a result.
At the minute, 11 GAA clubs are currently operating in Galicia. Their exploits were even the focus of a recent segment on local television, one which showed a huge number of Spanish children taking part in the sport.
The European edition of the Feile would take place in Vigo last month.
News report from Galician TV @TVGalicia with ENG subtitles for our international friends 💙🏐💙
Watch the full video here 👉🏽 https://t.co/OUs82VszcL@futgal@GAAworldgames@GaelicGamesEuro @LadiesFootball @punto_gal @officialgaa @ballsdotie @Global_GAA @RTEgaa @IrlEmbMadrid pic.twitter.com/Jr7X0pKZOQ— Gaélico Galego (@GaelicoGalego) May 14, 2024
News report here from Galician TV on last month's European Feile 2024 in Vigo.
Galician teens playing gaelic football, what a world.pic.twitter.com/Ov4gFpHhxJ— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) May 13, 2024
Gaelic Games Europe has 11 clubs on the books in Galicia, with the teams dotted around various locations in the region.
Some of them have wonderful names and crests, including 'Keltoi Vigo', a clever play on the name of local La Liga club Celta Vigo.
If GAA continues along its current trajectory in Galicia, the region is likely to become one of the biggest hubs for the sport outside of Ireland.
It is absolutely brilliant to see, with huge credit going to the volunteers on the ground who are ensuring that the games continue to thrive.
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