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Across all grades from U8 to adult, Kilmacud Crokes has 51 football teams, 41 hurling teams, 29 ladies football teams and 11 camogie teams.

Are they the biggest club in Ireland? I think Clann Éireann in Lurgan are the biggest in Armagh with 3k members.

Fair comment deiseach.

Out of curiosity.. What is the standard procedure for flag flying at club level? My own club rarely has the tricolour up unless we are hosting a champ match. Other clubs fly it for all senior league games along with their own club colours (and sometimes the opposition colours). There is one club even played A na bhF over the pa before throw in which I thought was weird

I think a lot of it might have to do with the technical way in which a "club" is structured in gaa terms. AFAIK some dual "clubs" are actually technically two separate clubs whereas others are a single unit. For example, "St Paddy's, Ballybeg" which plays both hurling and football may well actually be two distinct clubs notwithstanding same name, same ground, same players. That might explain why Antrim seem to have a lot more clubs than is "right".

Aye, the like of Middletown and Keady in Armagh are clubs that have both football and hurling teams.  But I don't think they are technically the one club.

Keady are two different clubs Middletown is one afaik.

General lee they are perfectly welcome that's the thing. The people from the "pul" community who cry out for this are the people who wouldn't go near it.

It's not being small minded being against it. i am not overly political but i see no need to appease people who are nothing but bigots and that is what this feels like an exercise like this would be - appeasement to bigots.

I'm not saying they aren't welcome. Of course they are and I know for a fact plenty do play our games. But numbers are miniscule in the grand scheme of things and it is simply tunnel vision to view this debate as an appeasement exercise. There is scope for expanding our games while at the same time improving relations with our neighbours with imo a very small price to pay.

Who would it improve relations with? I don't see how it's tunnel vision. It would only be tunnel vision if it was in any way an uninclusive organisation at present which it is not.

Reasonable people will know what the GAA is about and know it is inclusive. Unreasonable bigots will always find some stick to beat them with.

I'd be interested in seeing the uptake in "integrated" schools etc. That kind of area is somewhere it could be improved upon. Even integrated schools competitions etc.

Well for a start it's tunnel vision by virtue of the fact that you can't see how the GAA might come across as non-inclusive. It's easy to say anyone with any reservations about the GAA is an unreasonable bigot.
Like I'm sure plenty of small rural clubs in Ulster, especially in county Armagh anyway, are in areas with a mixed if not largely Protestant population. These teams struggle, would it not be good for the association that their numbers be bolstered? Or are all those Protestants unreasonable for not joining? What's keeping them away? They can't all be bigots...

No chance Armagh has 56 clubs. Even including clubs that have folded.

42 senior men's football and 3 hurling only clubs

General lee they are perfectly welcome that's the thing. The people from the "pul" community who cry out for this are the people who wouldn't go near it.

It's not being small minded being against it. i am not overly political but i see no need to appease people who are nothing but bigots and that is what this feels like an exercise like this would be - appeasement to bigots.

I'm not saying they aren't welcome. Of course they are and I know for a fact plenty do play our games. But numbers are miniscule in the grand scheme of things and it is simply tunnel vision to view this debate as an appeasement exercise. There is scope for expanding our games while at the same time improving relations with our neighbours with imo a very small price to pay.

There are literally three things they can really ask the GAA to change. Anthem, flag and naming of clubs grounds/compititions. The latter I would imagine there are maybe a dozen or so "offensive" examples, confined to Ulster. Is it really so much for some people to even consider the merits of this? Ultimately it's for the people of those clubs to decide but try seeing it from a unionist perspective.

You mean airbrush history?

Why are people so worried about reaching out to unionists? Don't need them.

Lol. You're like a Catholic willie Frazer. How is that airbrushing anything?

I know, imagine reaching out to your neighbours, colleagues, business partners, friends etc 

Did you actually read what you wrote? You're the one who wants to airbrush the GAA to make it unionist friendly.

Bloody sunday - never happened. Let's all move on and forget about it.

We should have a competition to see what the better alternatives are - although from the other thread I do like the sound of the the Sam Maguire being renamed the Jedward Cup. Who doesn't love them?

Liam McCarthy isn't really a sexy name. The Bono cup would draw more tweets and generate more social media.

The Hogan Stand as well as the Magazine/Website named after needs to go. How about a minor tweak - the Wogan Stand after Sir Terry Wogan - everyones favourite irishman.

Croke Park will need a rebranding. That's named after a papist. A bit of corporate sponsorship will sort that out.
The Ashers Cake Bowl has a certain ring to it.

what glue are you sniffing?

Looks to be way off in some counties. 108 in Antrim?

There are literally three things they can really ask the GAA to change. Anthem, flag and naming of clubs grounds/compititions. The latter I would imagine there are maybe a dozen or so "offensive" examples, confined to Ulster. Is it really so much for some people to even consider the merits of this? Ultimately it's for the people of those clubs to decide but try seeing it from a unionist perspective.

You mean airbrush history?

Why are people so worried about reaching out to unionists? Don't need them.

Lol. You're like a Catholic willie Frazer. How is that airbrushing anything?

I know, imagine reaching out to your neighbours, colleagues, business partners, friends etc 

You take that away and they will just want more taken away.

The flags and anthems go then you'll have the people the grounds are named after.

There are literally three things they can really ask the GAA to change. Anthem, flag and naming of clubs grounds/compititions. The latter I would imagine there are maybe a dozen or so "offensive" examples, confined to Ulster. Is it really so much for some people to even consider the merits of this? Ultimately it's for the people of those clubs to decide but try seeing it from a unionist perspective.

[If we were to see those sort of numbers at senior level there might be some merit to it.]

So based on experiences at an exclusively middle class club in south Belfast (really breaking down the barriers there eh joe?), plus a handful in Ballymena (actually kinda impressed with that one) means the GAA outreach is working?

If we were to see those sort of numbers at senior level there might be some merit to it. The fact is there is a mountain of work to be done in this area, and before anyone jumps down my throat for wanting to appease the nutters, Tom Elliot and co can kindly F off if they go out of their way to despise every aspect of the GAA.

Ah c'mon - you won't see clubs recruiting senior players straight out.  Underage is where it starts.  You wouldn't see too many clubs with players from a nationalist background on their senior squads who had never played gaelic games before.

I mean are these young players being retained? do they stay? This is what I would judge "unionist outreach" on. Kids will pretty much do anything you tell them with things like this and they more than likely don't fully understand some of the trappings that come with the GAA. When Ballymena or any other club have 7 Protestants on their senior panel I'll be really impressed. Not to take away from them or St Brigids or the Derry club you have in mind (I could probably guess who), I think it's great, it shows that they have fostered good relations in the community and have gained respect of people from all sides. For most clubs though it wouldn't be that easy, in fact I'd say many would struggle, and a few might even have no interest. I wonder is there any actual protocol for clubs to follow in this regard?

I think it's too early to tell if they've been retained or not.  This is all relatively new - if you'd mentioned GAA outreach to Unionists 20 years ago you'd have been laughed out of it.  It's a slow process.  However, these young kids won't be doing anything without their parents' consent so the support of the parents is obviously there.

As far as official protocol, I don't think so. The nearest thing I know of are initiatives such as those below.

http://ulster.gaa.ie/community/community-outreach/

You'd still get laughed at from some quarters... I had that link in mind as I looked at it earlier this morning, the Cuchulainn experiment has been going from at least 2007 and it looks like the web page hasn't been updated much since. Imo the things listed there aren't enough. We can't just rely on a select few schools partnering up and being given a few months football/hurling exposure, nor can we just rely on a small number of clubs sporadically encouraging people from non-Nationalist backgrounds to play our games

[If we were to see those sort of numbers at senior level there might be some merit to it.]

So based on experiences at an exclusively middle class club in south Belfast (really breaking down the barriers there eh joe?), plus a handful in Ballymena (actually kinda impressed with that one) means the GAA outreach is working?

If we were to see those sort of numbers at senior level there might be some merit to it. The fact is there is a mountain of work to be done in this area, and before anyone jumps down my throat for wanting to appease the nutters, Tom Elliot and co can kindly F off if they go out of their way to despise every aspect of the GAA.

Ah c'mon - you won't see clubs recruiting senior players straight out.  Underage is where it starts.  You wouldn't see too many clubs with players from a nationalist background on their senior squads who had never played gaelic games before.

I mean are these young players being retained? do they stay? This is what I would judge "unionist outreach" on. Kids will pretty much do anything you tell them with things like this and they more than likely don't fully understand some of the trappings that come with the GAA. When Ballymena or any other club have 7 Protestants on their senior panel I'll be really impressed. Not to take away from them or St Brigids or the Derry club you have in mind (I could probably guess who), I think it's great, it shows that they have fostered good relations in the community and have gained respect of people from all sides. For most clubs though it wouldn't be that easy, in fact I'd say many would struggle, and a few might even have no interest. I wonder is there any actual protocol for clubs to follow in this regard?

So based on experiences at an exclusively middle class club in south Belfast (really breaking down the barriers there eh joe?), plus a handful in Ballymena (actually kinda impressed with that one) means the GAA outreach is working?

If we were to see those sort of numbers at senior level there might be some merit to it. The fact is there is a mountain of work to be done in this area, and before anyone jumps down my throat for wanting to appease the nutters, Tom Elliot and co can kindly F off if they go out of their way to despise every aspect of the GAA.

Clann Éireann and Tullysaran won Inter & Junior titles yesterday in Armagh.

Slaughtneil nothing special lol cheers needed a laugh this morning