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Gaelic Football

Sports

Hawks Gaelic Footballers Sink Their Talons into Boston College

(Photos by Gwyneth MacArthur)

Until recently, they seemed to be the Philadelphia-area Gaelic football club nobody had heard of. Except, possibly, for some local Gaelic footballers.

In any case, the St. Joe Hawks made a great impression on a crowd of Gaelic Athletic Association fans in a special game at Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote, Montgomery County. They notched a tight victory over a team from Boston College, 5-12 to 5-8.

With the victory, St. Joe’s earned the Daniel Sweeney Cup, honoring the Philadelphia firefighter of that name who died in the line of duty in April, 2012.

(Gaelic football explainer here, including scoring.)

The Hawk will never die.

The game was the centerpiece of a day dedicated to raising local awareness of Gaelic sports, sponsored by the Glenside Gaelic Club. Glenside is building a youth program, and showing early signs of success. Some of the kids showed their stuff at the half.

Our roving photographer Gwyneth MacArthur was there to record all the action. Check out her photo essay.

November 1, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Sports

On to the North American Finals!

Up in the air

It might be the first time I’ve heard anyone so excited about a trip to Cleveland.

But there they were, a disorderly pile of screaming, red-shirted Young Irelands stacked up at midfield, celebrating a shocking Division 1 football win on Sunday over the previously dominating Donegal St. Patricks. The Young Irelands earned the win by a razor-thin margin, 1-13 to 2-9. At the half, the St. Patricks enjoyed a 2-4 to 0-5 lead and seemed to be coasting, continuing to rack up points in the second half. But the Young Irelands chipped away at that lead, sealing the deal with a goal and a point in the final minutes, to exultant cheers from fans on the sidelines.

The win earned the Young Irelands a trip to the North American GAA Finals over the labor day weekend.

In an earlier Junior B matchup, the St. Pats notched a win over the Kevin Barrys, 4-13 to 1-6.

And in the first game of the afternoon, Philly’s Na Toraidhe hurling club won handily over a hard-working team from Allentown. The guys from the Lehigh Valley fought all the way, and never gave up. But in the end, Na Toraidhe’s Kieran Donahue said, superior conditioning won the day.

“Our fitness level wasn’t where it needed to be (last year),” Donahue said. But this year, he added, conditioning was a priority, and it showed as the game progressed. “In the second half, that’s where our fitness level really paid off.”

We have tons of photos. You can see the Young Irelands-St. Pats photo essay up top.

Here are the two others:

St. Pats-Kevin Barrys
Na Toraidhe-Allentown

August 23, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Sports

Two Rollicking GAA Games at Dougherty

In a hard-fought game at Cardinal Dougherty High School field on Sunday, the Young Irelands emerged victorious over the Kevin Barrys in the Junior B Semi Final. The final score was Young Irelands 3-10 to the Barrys 1-11.

It was an emotional match, handily illustrated by a dust-up between the two teams, with a clutch of players rolling around on the ground pounding away. It was broken up by the referee after a few minutes. And then it as back to play as the two sides continued to fight the good fight—this time with a football. The Barrys struggled valiantly, but the Young Irelands pulled away for the win.

In a ladies football game earlier in the afternoon, it was the Notre Dames over the team from DC in a rout: 3-19 to 1-3.

We have tons of photos of the day’s action. The Young Irelands/Kevin Barrys set is above.

August 16, 2013 by Jeff Meade

Sports

A Long, Bruising Afternoon of Hurling and Football

One of Sunday’s hard-fought games.

There came a moment toward the end of the matchup between St. Patricks and the Young Irelands when even the most casual bystander has to realize: These guys are deadly serious. That moment came when a St. Pat’s player hit the ground near the opposing goal face down, writhing in agony for what seemed like ages. The diagnosis, once he’d been hauled off the field, was a broken knee.

The St. Pats won 5-23 to 0-6, but at some cost. Gaelic football is no game for the delicate.

There were three other games at Cardinal Dougherty that afternoon, one additional football match, Kevin Barrys v. Tyrone, and two hard-fought games of hurling, Philly’s Na Toraidhe vs. the DC Gaels, won by the local boys, and the Allentown Hibernians against the Baltimore Bohemians, won by Allentown.

We have—would you believe it?—more than a hundred photos.

There’s one at the top of the page, but you can get to all four of them here:

August 9, 2013 by Jeff Meade