Nearly 40 years old and still going strong.
Only a handful of countries in Europe are smaller in size than Luxembourg, yet it is a testament to the power of the GAA that it has managed to have an impact in a place about the size of Roscommon.
And it has been doing so for nearly four decades, as Gaelic Sports Club in Luxembourg is one of the oldest GAA clubs in the European Union and is rightly proud of it too.
Nowadays, they have about 60 members and their men’s and ladies’ teams regularly trawl the continent to participate in various competitions, while players from as far afield as Australia, America, South Africa and Donegal have worn the red and blue over the years.
Club stalwart Peter Sullivan gave us the lowdown on the club and all of its characters, including a tale of how a dodgy sat-nav once led to a big and entirely unintentional adventure.
Peter also wanted to mention Gaelic Sports Club Luxembourg’s hosting of the first round of the European Hurling and Camogie Championship from 9am at Stade Jos Becker, Football Club Hostert U.S., Rameldange on April 16.
All are welcome to attend and entrance is free. Men’s and women’s teams from across Europe will be competing and there will be a buvette and bar in action on the day.
For more information on the tournament or GSLC please contact [email protected] or visit or website www.luxgaa.lu.
Focus on Gaelic Sports Club
Club: Gaelic Sports Club Luxembourg
Year established: 1978
Number of members: 60
Biggest rivals: Belgium GAA/Den Haag GAA/Amsterdam GAA
Biggest representation from a club/county in Ireland: Over the years it’s always been a split between the Cork and Dublin lads and ladies. We have smatterings from other counties like Kerry, Galway, Mayo, Limerick, Derry, Kildare, Donegal, Down, Clare, Meath, Waterford, Tipperary and Carlow, but Cork and Dublin have always led the way in terms of numbers.
Most famous ever member: Anna Geary played camogie and won a European Championship with Luxembourg in 2008. I imagine the medal holds a special place amongst all of her county, Munster and All-Ireland medals at home.
Player who makes the longest commute to training: We have had some who have come from the border towns of Arlon in Belgium (two-hour round trip) or Trier in Germany (two-hour round trip) but the majority of the current squads for all codes are based in Luxembourg, where the longest round trips are about 40 minutes depending on bus times and who’s giving lifts.
Most dedicated club person: We’ve had a lot of dedicated people helping out with the club since its inception and given the nature of the community aspect at the club, everyone is always willing to lend a helping hand when required.
The longest-serving current member of the club is Eoghan O Hanrachan, who is the Honorary Club President, while other members – too many to mention – have really laid the foundations for where the club is currently today.
Player who could have made it big if love/career/drink didn’t get in the way: We have had a few who could be included here, including Cathal Davey, who always thought he could play full-forward for Kildare if he wasn’t starting full-back for Luxembourg.
There’s also Eoin “Sully” Sullivan who tore up pitches when the hammer was going strong and the Dunne brothers (aka the twin towers) who surely could still do a job for Cork in midfield.
For the women, Rachael Glynn would have been bossing the Galway camogie team from full-back if she hadn’t followed a Cork man to Luxembourg.
Biggest character: There are too many to mention from over the years and from all of the codes we play.
We’ve been lucky to have some immense leaders on and off the pitch, some brilliant and innovative coaches who have given their time to train and develop each of the teams and others in the club who make it such an enjoyable experience to be part of.
However, if we were to pick from the current bunch of lads and ladies, it would be rude not to mention Brendan “Brendy” Sullivan, who spends most of his time trying to rip the shirt off the lads he marks, only to rip his own off at every opportunity at the end of every game, training session and, come to think of it, every available photo opportunity.
Not to mention Christine Callaghan, a Donegal native who’s very good at uniting the team and bringing everyone together for the women’s team.
Loudest in the dressing room: Shane O’Donovan was always good for a song before games before he ended his exile from Cork and Fiona Byrne is always good for geeing up the girls with her voice crackling at the end of many tournaments over the years.
Currently, the loudest tag would have to go to Tadhg Dunne and Cathal McGrath for the men and, for the women, Emma Quaid and Sharon Duffy, who were involved with Luxembourg from UL last year.
Duck to water award – Best new player who had never played GAA before: We’ve had a number of different nationalities involved with the club over the years with Hungarian, French, Finnish, Australian, South African, English and American people togging out for various codes.
Hat-tip goes to Christelle Bon (France) and Heidi Pulkas (Finland), who have been with the club for a number of years playing both ladies football and camogie. For the men, special mention to Adrien Calmont (France), who mixes his rugby training schedule with putting the ball into the back of the net for the men’s football team.
Best story involving a club member that’s fit for print: A few years ago Luxembourg were travelling to Den Haag for a hurling tournament and the decision was made to leave early that morning at around 5am.
So most cars travelled up without any issue, except for one, which took off an hour later due to an alarm not going off so they were already off to a rocky start. To keep in line with the overall scheme of things, they also had the ladies’ camogie gear in the back of the car.
After stopping outside Brussels, the car stopped for breakfast before heading off again. As pretty much everyone but the driver fell asleep, most woke up about two hours later to realise that the signs on the road were still in French rather than Dutch and that they were in fact 25 KM outside of Calais.
To the horror of everyone in the car, the sat-nav they were using had been turned off in Brussels and reprogrammed accidently to an address in Ireland. Needless to say, the coach of the camogie team wasn’t too impressed and the women had to borrow a training kit until the car from Calais turned up three hours later.
In the end, the camogie team won the 3rd/4th place play-off and everyone made it back to Luxembourg in one piece.
If you’re a member of a GAA club abroad and would like to be featured on the site, feel free to send a mail to [email protected] or find us on Facebook or Twitter.
