Emigration

[Eamonnca1]

When life gives you lemons you make lemonade.

This is a golden opportunity for the GAA to grow internationally and not repeat the mistakes of the past when the games were just seen as a bit of entertainment for emigrants and were kept to the Irish community. The influx of players into clubs outside of Ireland needs to be translated into a new effort to get the games out there beyond the Irish community where they can truly grow.

[seafoid]

Shane Dooley is a massive loss

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/21/irish-exodus-costs-gaelic-sports

Irish economic exodus costs Gaelic sports dear
Top hurling and Gaelic football stars are heading abroad to play Australian Rules football and work on New York building sites

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Henry McDonald in Dublin guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011

It was Dublin's Gaelic football and hurling dream club, with some of the most promising young sports starlets in the Irish capital. But now the Roundtower Gaelic club is watching its talent haemorrhage overseas, as the financial collapse and recession drives Irish youth to seek their futures elsewhere.

From the precocious under-19 side of 2004 which contained some of the most promising footballers and hurlers in the Irish capital, no fewer than eight of 15 original stars have emigrated over the last 18 months, most of them to Australia.

It's part of a wider trend in which Ireland is once again waving goodbye to a generation with little to keep it at home. The Republic's central statistics office has projected that 50,000 people will leave the state by the end of this year, seeking work abroad. Australia and the US are particularly popular destinations.

Many of the images on the walls of the Roundtower clubhouse are the human faces of this loss. The club has been in existence since 1884 – the same year the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded – and has 450 adult members and up to 800 youths on its books.

Staring at a framed photograph of the 2004 team, club chairman Tony Delaney points to some of the star players back then.

"There's Eoin Moran who played as a senior hurler for Dublin, and there's Mick Hallows who was a minor player for the county too. They are both in Australia now," Delaney says. "Those players, that minor team would have been in their prime now as senior hurlers and footballers."

He remembers the last recession of the 1980s but regards this one as worse in terms of losing players.

"Back in the 80s most of the lads emigrated to the UK and some were even able to come back in the summer to play games. Then Australia was out of bounds; it was too far away for most Irish people.

"These days it is much easier to emigrate to Australia and the lads can keep in touch instantly with family and friends. Lifestyle changes have made Australia more accessible."

Delaney who played at minor level in the 1980s for the current All Ireland champions Dublin says his lost players are also attracted by the thriving Gaelic sports scene in Australian cities like Melbourne and Canberra.

Alan Milton, who works at Croke Park, the Gaelic sports equivalent of Wembley stadium, says that for the first time in 30 years top-flight players are leaving the country because of the 14%-plus unemployment rate.

"You have one of the greatest hurlers of his generation like Shane Dooley who played for Offaly. He is now working on a building site in New York City. We are meeting up with him next month when the GAA All-Stars (a Gaelic sports touring team) arrive in San Francisco for their tour. The loss of a star like him epitomises how bad it is in Ireland at present."

Milton says that up to 15 senior county stars from across the Republic have signed up to play professional Australian Rules football.

But he stresses that the majority of lost Gaelic sports talent are young men who were earning high wages in the building trade during the boom. Despite inter-county GAA matches attracting crowds of up to 80,000 its sportsmen and women are dedicated amateurs, unlike the megastars of the English Premiership who can earn £100,000 plus per week.

"There are thousands leaving or getting ready to leave. I know Gaelic players who have gone to Perth to work in the mining industry. They are crying out for young Irish tradesmen and workers out there. The difference between now and the 1980s recession is that today urban clubs are suffering the haemorrhage of talent. In the 80s it was mainly rural clubs, which were ravaged by emigration. In this downturn everyone is getting a hit," Milton says.

As a consequence of the growing Gaelic sports diaspora there are now 32 new GAA clubs dotted across the planet. The latest has been set up in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia by Irish immigrants working on engineering projects.

[Captain Obvious]

Recessions in the past people couldn't afford the price of flights if they wanted to emigrate they had to endure long distance travel by boat, nowadays most can fork out big money for far fling flights with the option of returning within the year if things are not working out.

[Muck Savage]

When life gives you lemons you make lemonade.

This is a golden opportunity for the GAA to grow internationally and not repeat the mistakes of the past when the games were just seen as a bit of entertainment for emigrants and were kept to the Irish community. The influx of players into clubs outside of Ireland needs to be translated into a new effort to get the games out there beyond the Irish community where they can truly grow.

Well the carry on in San Francisco this year with the young lad in a coma for a few weeks won't encourage too many locals to join the GAA. Added to that the response of the local GAA authority where they showed no spin in trying to protect their own players and lay down a marker that it's unacceptable for that sort of carry on. Why would anyone want to let their son/daughter out to play a game that is run by a bunch of amadan's???