I was in a "Protestant" school in east Belfast today and I watched five 16 year olds pucking around. They were very good. Their Principal tod me that they belong to Belfast Cuchulainns and were playing in an inter continental tournament in Philadelphia this summer. The team is made up of cross community schools in Belfast. It was great to see and gives me hope for a decent future in the north.
Good news !
The times they are a changing.
On the same theme, Ards Borough Council has voted to support the Down Feile Na nGael (being held in Portaferry) with a substantial grant. The motion to award the grant was moved by an SDLP councillor from Portaferry and seconded by the DUP. The DUP Mayor has been invited to attend.
I am pretty sure that this initiative is the brain child of PJ O'Grady, principal of St.Pats, Bearnagheeha on the Antrim Rd. A good hurling man and one of the few principals who is actively promoting hurling in N.Belfast and further afield.
Wow, excellent news, exciting times!
this is great to hear!! maybe the guys from Ashfield can get some of their mates to take up the sport, and make their way to Holywood to help us out!! ;D
I have to say that the lads that I saw were good. One is a hockey player and must have the required coordination. Ashfield is a lovely school and with super students.
Fair play to them - a welcome move !
An interesting and welcome development.
No doubt readers will also be familiar with the thread in the Football Section about the GAA "reaching out" to Unionists. Whilst many posters felt the GAA could/should be doing more, there is also a strand of opinion which believes that regardless of what the GAA does, Unionists will never be receptive.
How do these latter posters react to events at Ashfield/BM and reconcile it with their somewhat hardline stance? Remember, Cllr. Rodgers is a prominent Official Unionist, ever under pressure from the DUP in East Belfast to take a hard line on everything. Moreover, he is also a Director of Glentoran FC.
(Note: I am not seeking to wind anyone up here; nor do I require a response. Rather, I am just being rhetorical, to try and provoke thought, not controversy)
Quote from: Evil Genius on April 17, 2008, 03:18:17 PM
An interesting and welcome development.
No doubt readers will also be familiar with the thread in the Football Section about the GAA "reaching out" to Unionists. Whilst many posters felt the GAA could/should be doing more, there is also a strand of opinion which believes that regardless of what the GAA does, Unionists will never be receptive.
How do these latter posters react to events at Ashfield/BM and reconcile it with their somewhat hardline stance? Remember, Cllr. Rodgers is a prominent Official Unionist, ever under pressure from the DUP in East Belfast to take a hard line on everything. Moreover, he is also a Director of Glentoran FC.
(Note: I am not seeking to wind anyone up here; nor do I require a response. Rather, I am just being rhetorical, to try and provoke thought, not controversy)
I was one of those and I called for schools to be doing more in teaching gaelic and hurling - so fair dues to them.
Thats great news. My village was a mixed comunity and everyone regardless always played Hurling together. However the Protestant kids never joined a team or club and usually when they were in there high teens sadly walked away. But that was quite a while ago 10-15 years ago.
Not related but a little connected. In Bushmills a few years ago a Unionist Politician fought hard to keep the name "Portcamanfold" in a housing estate. Some people didn't like the fact that Caman meant Hurling stick and wanted a name change. However he did win by majority vote and the name is still there. The fact that Caman was played years ago in the area with teams from Scotland is how the name came about.
i would say unionists would be more partial to hurling than bog football
seeing as it has a scottish connection and doesn't compete directly with soccer or rugby as a 'football' game
Have any of these lads playing at school been invited along to a club?
Good to hear. Keep it up those involved
Hurling is part of all our heritage and lets hope these lads are the beginning of something. Surely proof that reaching out can and will work, maybe not with everyone but sure we have plenty 'nationalists' who hate the GAA too!
Quote from: Baile an tuaigh on April 17, 2008, 09:07:22 PM
Thats great news. My village was a mixed comunity and everyone regardless always played Hurling together. However the Protestant kids never joined a team or club and usually when they were in there high teens sadly walked away. But that was quite a while ago 10-15 years ago.
Interesting. Did those Protestant players give up on all organised sport in their high teens, or just Hurling? And if it were the latter, does that indicate an unwillingness on their part to join in with the GAA club set-up and/or less than full interest in recruiting them by the local club? (Or maybe they were just a bit more precocious in exploring women and drink? :D)
Not stirring, btw, just genuinely curious.
P.S. Not speaking Irish, am I correct in assuming this is Ballintoy we're talking about?
Quote from: Guillem2 on April 18, 2008, 11:06:20 AM
Have any of these lads playing at school been invited along to a club?
Could Antrim Co Board not assist them in setting up their own club ??
the ashfield boys would fall under County Down's Board
Over to Coisde Contae an Dhúin so.
Quote from: Rossfan on April 18, 2008, 02:41:43 PM
Over to Coisde Contae an Dhúin so.
It's fucked for sure now!!
Quote from: Evil Genius on April 18, 2008, 01:57:38 PM
(Or maybe they were just a bit more precocious in exploring women and drink? :D)
........thats why I stopped playing in my teens hehe
Quote from: Evil Genius on April 18, 2008, 01:57:38 PM
Quote from: Baile an tuaigh on April 17, 2008, 09:07:22 PM
Thats great news. My village was a mixed comunity and everyone regardless always played Hurling together. However the Protestant kids never joined a team or club and usually when they were in there high teens sadly walked away. But that was quite a while ago 10-15 years ago.
Interesting. Did those Protestant players give up on all organised sport in their high teens, or just Hurling? And if it were the latter, does that indicate an unwillingness on their part to join in with the GAA club set-up and/or less than full interest in recruiting them by the local club? (Or maybe they were just a bit more precocious in exploring women and drink? :D)
Not stirring, btw, just genuinely curious.
P.S. Not speaking Irish, am I correct in assuming this is Ballintoy we're talking about?
Your a pretty sharp character Evil Genius I will give you that. Oh and your Irish isn't to bad either ;)
Yes its good old Ballintoy also known to truck drivers as dinky town. I would say though that drink ruined a lot of potential sporting carers around the Country in fairness. This lad is the start of a new era, Lord Edward Carson's GAA club ;D
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c69/BALLINTOY/553632886a573389897b66181336l.jpg)
There may be hurling in East Belfast, but there's gonna be no GAA in Limavady schools, by the looks of things.
Quote from: Baile an tuaigh on April 19, 2008, 11:48:58 PM
Quote from: Evil Genius on April 18, 2008, 01:57:38 PM
Quote from: Baile an tuaigh on April 17, 2008, 09:07:22 PM
Thats great news. My village was a mixed comunity and everyone regardless always played Hurling together. However the Protestant kids never joined a team or club and usually when they were in there high teens sadly walked away. But that was quite a while ago 10-15 years ago.
Interesting. Did those Protestant players give up on all organised sport in their high teens, or just Hurling? And if it were the latter, does that indicate an unwillingness on their part to join in with the GAA club set-up and/or less than full interest in recruiting them by the local club? (Or maybe they were just a bit more precocious in exploring women and drink? :D)
Not stirring, btw, just genuinely curious.
P.S. Not speaking Irish, am I correct in assuming this is Ballintoy we're talking about?
Your a pretty sharp character Evil Genius I will give you that. Oh and your Irish isn't to bad either ;)
Yes its good old Ballintoy also known to truck drivers as dinky town. I would say though that drink ruined a lot of potential sporting carers around the Country in fairness. This lad is the start of a new era, Lord Edward Carson's GAA club ;D
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c69/BALLINTOY/553632886a573389897b66181336l.jpg)
I bet he didn't puck the ball off the wall....
CROSS-COMMUNITY GAELIC GAMES TAKE TO THE ROAD
Billy Tate is one of the unsung heroes of cross-border and cross-community
cooperation in Northern Ireland. This Ulster Unionist Party member and
former soldier in the Royal Artillery is the principal of Belvoir Park
Primary School, on the edge of an overwhelmingly Protestant working class
housing estate in south-east Belfast. After trying hard - and failing - some
years ago to attract a local Catholic school to twin with his school, he
went south and forged a partnership with Scoil Mhuire National School in
Howth, County Dublin, through the ICT-based Dissolving Boundaries project.
Both schools have since been to Áras an Uachtaráin together to see President
McAleese.
But that was not enough for this extraordinarily outward looking school
principal. Belvoir Park has adopted an 'international policy', and has moved
since 2004 from being a 'single identity' school in an estate once perceived
as a 'no go' area for Catholics to one which boasts children from Nigeria,
Poland, Lithuania, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and South America.
Meanwhile Billy Tate's outreach to the island of Ireland and its culture has
continued. First he introduced Irish traditional music and dancing into the
school. Then some of the children asked if they could try their hand at
gaelic games. He turned for assistance to two visionary secondary
principals, P.J. O'Grady of St Patrick's College, Bearnageeha in Catholic
north Belfast and Andy McMorran of Ashfield Boys High School in Protestant
east Belfast, who had come together in a mould-breaking initiative to play
hurling and shinty together (see below). GAA coaches from Tyrone and the
Bredagh club in south Belfast coached the Belvoir Park children in gaelic
football and hurling, and in their first hurling tournament they won one
game and drew two.
"We see sport as a bridge-builder", says Tate. "There is something profound
about watching children in Rangers or Linfield shirts playing gaelic games,
and it points to a new future in Northern Ireland for everyone." He is
pretty sure this is the first time that gaelic games have been played in a
controlled (i.e. largely Protestant) primary school anywhere in Belfast, and
probably in Northern Ireland. His hope is that it will begin to make the GAA
"more accessible and welcoming to the Protestant community" and that
Catholic schools will start to embrace his beloved rugby in the same spirit.
The GAA is already responding. Two years ago the first sporting contacts had
been initiated between Ashfield High and St Patrick's Bearnageeha. Last year
this led, under the guidance of the Ulster Council's community development
manager, Ryan Feeney, to five boys from each school, plus five more from
Corpus Christi College in Ballymurphy in Catholic west Belfast and the Boys
Model School on the Protestant Crumlin Road, forming a squad which went to
Inverness in Scotland to play in an under-16 shinty tournament there (for
those not in the know, shinty is a close Scottish relation of hurling).
This month marked two more landmarks in this extraordinary experiment in
peacebuilding through sport. On 3rd July a Scottish under-16 shinty team
played a return match against the new cross-community team, Belfast
Cúchullains, in front of an invited audience (including senior officials
from the Ulster-Scots Agency and Ulster Unionist Party, SDLP and Sinn Fein
politicians) on the playing fields of Stormont. On the 18th the team crossed
the Atlantic to play challenge matches in New York and Washington, before
going to Philadelphia for the GAA's Intercontinental Youth Games, which
bring teams together from North America, Britain, Europe and Ireland every
year.
The Ulster Council has now started to formulate ambitious plans to have a
cross-community hurling team in every large town in Northern Ireland and the
three Southern border counties. Last autumn saw the then DUP Minister for
Culture, Arts and Leisure, Edwin Poots, visiting Newry for a McKenna Cup
football match between Down and Donegal, and one of the North's most senior
Orangemen in Croke Park for the all-Ireland hurling final, both as guests of
the GAA (I have been asked not to use the second man's name, since he has
been publicly vilified for his attendance - a remnant of the bad old
Northern Ireland!). One wonders how long it will be before a courageous
young man from the Shankill Road or the Newtownards Road (for the four
pioneering schools in this initiative draw most of their pupils from
Belfast's working class heartlands) joins him on the pitch there. Not too
long, I hope.
Andy Pollak
Centre for Cross Border Studies, QUB
Discuss this Note now on the BorderIreland Discussion Forum.
http://borderireland.info/discuss/?p=85 (http://borderireland.info/discuss/?p=85)
All I can say is keep up the good work and sod the begrudgers.
While wishing him all the best I think I should point out that there are large towns in ulster which are 100% nationalist and yet have no hurling team, Bellaghy springs to mind as does crossmaglen. If by some magic they can create a hurling team in every large town in ulster I will be delighted.
Slow Corner Back
this is more about areas of this city that would normally never even watched GAA as opposed to now playing the game. its a remarkable acheivement that Billy Tate has had the resolve to take this as far as he has, fair play to you Billy.
Good to hear, times really are changing.
From Hoganstand website -
Belfast Cúchulainns win Under 16 Hurling Championship at Youth Games
28 July 2008
Cross Community Under 16 Hurling Team, the Belfast Cúchulainns, have won the Intercontinental Youth Games Under 16 Hurling Championships defeating New York 3-12 to 1-5 in the final of the competition in Philadelphia.
The team return home on Tuesday after a 10 day American tour won every game of their section beating teams from San Francisco and Boston as well as a North American Combined team.
The hurling team, which is a cross-community inter-school hurling team of 20 Boys all of whom are under the age of 16, have five players from four schools namely Corpus Christi College, St. Patrick's College Beranagheeha, Belfast Boys Model School and Ashfield Boys School.
The tour led by Ulster GAA President Tom Daly and Director of Coaching and Games Dr. Eugene Young started in New York with a challenge match at Gaelic Park against a the New York Under 16 development team before moving on to Washington. The Washington stay of the tour included a training session with the Washington Gaels on the Mall followed by a reception at Capital Hill hosted by Congressman Joseph Crowley and Congressman Jim Walsh. The team were also guests of honour at a reception at the Irish Embassy hosted by Deputy Ambassador Tim O'Connor and a later reception with the Washington Gaels at the Northern Ireland Bureau Offices hosted by Deputy Director Aidan Cassidy.
The team completed the tour by participating in the North American GAA Continental Youth Games in Philadelphia.
Tom Daly President of Ulster GAA said: "I am delighted that Ulster GAA is involved in developing this flagship project which merges the two main cultural traditions of Ulster together embracing both respect and diversity."
Danny Murphy Director of Ulster GAA who established the project with school Principals Andy McMorran, PJ O'Gradey, Dan McGivern and Jim Keith highlighted that the Cúchulainns are the first of several cross community hurling teams, which the Ulster GAA plan to establish over the next year. "Already we have had great interest from other schools in urban areas that are willing to establish teams similar to the Cúchulainns and we envisage our first cross-community Hurling competition taking place in 2009. Additionally we hope to select an Ulster All-Star U-16 Hurling Team from this competition to play an international match against a Scottish Shinty select on an annual basis."
Andy McMorran Principal of Ashfield Boys School praised the project, "This has been an outstanding initiative which has given all the boys involved with the team the opportunity to see America and develop new friendships. All the lads and the adults involved in the project have developed a strong bond over the past year and it has been an excellent educational experience for all of us, I am thankful to Danny Murphy, Eugene Young and the GAA generally for their support in developing this project."
GAA President Nickey Brennan hailed the success of the initiative - "I am thankful to both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the First and deputy First Minister for supporting this important project, it is fantastic to see the a fully representative team from Belfast travel to the games and win their section, well done to everyone involved in the project."
The cross community hurling project has been in existence for just over two years and the schools playing under the Cuchulainns banner have participated in the range of events, which included travelling to Scotland in 2007 to play Scotland in an International Shinty match. The favour was repaid on 26th June when a Scottish under 16 Shinty select travelled to Stormont to play the Belfast team in an international challenge match hosted by the UIster Council. The children who are part of the Cuchulainns team, represent both religious dominations and live in North, West and East Belfast.
Brilliant news...
check this out
http://www.belvoirparkprimary.org/homedir/documents/ThisSportingLife.pdf
great to see and it just goes to show how a little organisation can go a long way to getting things done. i wish they could have organised a hurling team from the soccer loving secondary level schools of my city of Derry! Now that would be a bigger challenge than the cross community effort in Belfast