50 Gaelic Football & Hurling Tournaments in Mainland Europe in 2010

Gaelic Football, Hurling and Camogie are today played by more than 40 men’s, women’s and juvenile & school/university GAA Clubs across Continental Europe.

The European GAA County Board, in existence under Croke Park for the past 10 years, has seen a growth in the games in Scandinavia – last year with teams from Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg Sweden, Oslo Norway and Copenhagen Denmark. The new Scandinavian Gaelic Football Championship 2010 begins its rounds in May.

Brittany in the West Coast of France has its own Regional championship – the Breton Gaelic Football Championship, played over 5 rounds from November through to May. The next round will be held in Nantes on the 20th March. A unique Beach Gaelic Football tournament with teams from Europe and Ireland also takes place in the region at the end of May.

Added to the Brittany clubs are clubs from the rest of France and the Channel Islands that combine to form a North West Europe Region – teams including Paris, Guernsey, Jersey, Lyon and Clermont.

Benelux has a vibrant Gaelic Football scene with teams from The Hague, Amsterdam, Maastricht (Netherlands), Luxembourg and Brussels (Belgium). Although the Men’s Benelux Championship begins in Amsterdam at the end of March, before then Den Haag hosts an invitational tournament for St Patrick’s weekend and Belgium also attends an invitational match on Clare island.

As you scan across Continental Europe – you also find Gaelic Football and Hurling clubs in Munich, Vienna, Prague, Zurich and Budapest. The first round of this region’s (East & Central Europe) Gaelic Football Championship is being held in Prague on the 10th April, the first ever tournament for this new Czech GAA team.

Maastricht in The Netherlands on the feast of Lughnasa- 31st July, hosts a Gaelic Football Nations Cup, where clubs combine to form National teams. Spain V Germany, Hungary V Holland, France V Sweden – in Gaelic Football is something to anticipate.
The 3rd quarter of the year sees 4 pan-European Gaelic Football Club Tournaments, with Championship (high standard) and Shield (developing clubs) rounds.

Juvenile, School or University GAA clubs play and train in Rennes. There are currently 20 schools/universities in the Gaelic program in Brittany – there is a long established juvenile club in Brussels, as well as schools training in Paris France and Zurich Switzerland.

Europe sends a team every year to Ireland’s Feile Peil na nÓg, being held in Derry this July.

European Ladies Gaelic Football Championship is played over seven rounds in Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, and the final in Maastricht Netherlands. There is also a separate Iberian Ladies Championship, played in Spain over 5 rounds.

Hurling and Camogie each has 4 tournaments making up the European Championship – beginning in May in The Hague, then onto Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Final rounds in Zurich in July.

This is only the tip of the iceberg as most clubs also play each other in ‘friendly’ challenges throughout the year, and invite clubs from Ireland & UK to compete.

The European GAA Fixtures list is now available as a downloadable PDF file and as a brows-able fixtures listing – both available at http://www.europeanirish.com/fixtures.php

Find the European GAA Clubs, Reports, Fixtures, Results, and the European County Board here: http://www.europeanirish.com/european_gaa.php