Earlier this summer the contest for the top spot in soccer brought the world to Soldier Field in Chicago.
In a tourney slightly less well-known, the championship of the North American League of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) will be decided more locally-at Gaelic Park in Oak Forest.
At that Irish cultural center, Gaelic football is the national pastime for players from May to September. During next weekend’s event, football teams from across the country will compete in categories and skill levels that include women; senior men, for advanced players; and junior men, for those not fast-moving or hardy enough to play the advanced game. Teams also will clash in hurling, another old Irish competition similar to Gaelic football though played with a stick.
Teams from Gaelic Park represent the Chicago area in the league and it’s one of the largest facilities for Gaelic football in the United States, according to Gaelic Park president John Griffin of Hickory Hills. He said that volunteers built the park during the winter of 1983 in part to create a place to play the Gaelic games. Before then, teams played at local parks and high school athletic fields, which often weren’t large enough, Griffin said.
Gaelic Park has “grown beyond that to become the cultural center it has,” he said. “Gaelic Park is the only center in the area with athletic events.”
While Chicago measured its take from the World Cup participation in the millions of dollars, the local economic benefit of the GAA championship is a little harder to calculate. According to Griffin, Gaelic Park will pocket the concessions for the weekend, and the GAA will take the gate receipts. Griffin added that approximately 265 hotel rooms are booked in the southwest suburbs (especially at the Hilton and Holiday Inn in Oak Lawn). “It should have a significant economic impact,” said Griffin, who declined to estimate how much the park will take in or say how much it took in in 1990 when it hosted the tournament.
Those rooms will be filled with players on 32 Gaelic football and hurling teams from 10 American cities besides Chicago, representing each of the league’s regional divisions. Entrants will arrive from Ft. Lauderdale, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia (“One hundred visitors from Philadelphia alone,” Griffin said), Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Boston.
The tourney is just part of the action at Gaelic Park, said Eamonn Kelly of Park Ridge, a native of Ireland who provides play-by-play announcing over the park’s public address system each Sunday during the regular season and for the tournament. Kelly also is the author of a weekly sports column for the Irish Echo, a New-York-based national newspaper for Irish-Americans.
During the sports season, Kelly arrives at the park at 10 a.m. and stays until 7 or 8 p.m.
“My wife (Pauline) tolerates my being here,” he said.
Geoff Butler of Riverdale is football chairman at Gaelic Park, a volunteer position that also brings him out early on Sunday mornings. The Irish-born Butler chalks the fields and prepares for the day’s games. Though he’s retired from playing, he joins hundreds of spectators in urging on the players.
“We’ve had an awful lot of interest,” he said. “People enjoy watching it, and newcomers can learn it very fast. It’s become a tradition.”
“Sports are an important part of life worldwide, and these games are unique to Ireland,” Griffin said. “They are part of the Irish culture, and Gaelic Park’s purpose is preserving Irish culture.”
According to Janet Nolan, associate professor of history at Loyola University in Chicago, Gaelic football played today derives from an 1884 revival of more ancient Irish games. In that year, the Gaelic Athletic Association was formed, she said, as “part of a general cultural revival. It was an attempt to revive a culture which was systematically wounded or murdered by British occupation.”
British sports such as cricket, rugby or soccer were considered anti-Irish, and schools began to emphasize Gaelic football and hurling, said Nolan, who teaches Irish studies at Loyola.
“The purpose of the revival was to separate the Irish from the English on all levels of people’s consciousness,” she said. “It was a general justification for saying this is a separate place.”
When Irish immigrants arrived in America, they carried with them their associations and affiliations, Nolan said. Many of the immigrants were members of the GAA, so they established branches here, and those branches are coming together in Oak Forest next weekend.
Nolan, who just returned from a trip to Ireland, added that the GAA is still popular there. Games are telecast over Irish television (and televised over closed circuit at Gaelic Park), and athletic fields scatter the countryside, she said.
So what are these games and how do they differ from better-known sports such as American football? To the uninitiated, Gaelic football might resemble a combination of soccer, American football and basketball. Points are scored by either kicking or punching a soccer-type ball into a net for three points or kicking it between goalposts for one point. Players move the ball by kicking it or punching it (called dribbling) with their closed fist. A player is allowed to keep possession of the ball for four seconds or four steps at a time.
Defensive players can intercept the ball or hit it out of an opposing player’s hand. They can block shoulder to shoulder but are not supposed to use their elbows or do full body tackles. The game is overseen by a referee and four umpires, Kelly said.
In hurling and Gaelic football, each half is 30 minutes long with a 10-minute halftime. In Ireland, however, halves are 35 minutes long.
“We had to restrict the time because of the heat here,” Kelly said. Unlike sultry Chicago, July temperatures in Ireland vary between 57 and 61 degrees, with a near-constant soft rainfall.
The playing field, 140 yards long and 100 yards wide, dwarfs the American football field, which is 120 yards long and 53 yards wide. And Gaelic football players number 13 on a team as opposed to 11 in the U.S.
The other sport in the tournament, hurling, is the oldest Irish game, Kelly said. “(Hurling) is known as the fastest and toughest game in the world,” he said. “It’s continuous action with good tackling and speed.”
The 2,000-year-old sport resembles field hockey. Players are equipped with broad-bladed hurley sticks, which resemble hockey sticks, with which they bat a small leather, cork-filled ball. Scoring is the same as Gaelic football.
The games draw a mixture of Irish immigrants, Irish-Americans and friends of both, and Irish brogues mix with Midwestern twangs throughout the park.
Teams are organized on a social basis as friends or family members band together, though one team, the Cuchulainn, was formed from other teams’ leftovers.
Sheila Lyons of Hometown, a member of Erin’s Rovers for the last eight years, has found Gaelic football to be educational as well as good exercise. For example, she learned that the term “great crack,” which might draw police attention in the United States, means “awesome” in Irish-speak.
Even though game day is devoted to playing football and hurling, Lyons said, there is more going on. Team members come early to cheer on other players or simply to socialize.
“It’s a whole day thing,” Lyons said. “You come out at 11:30 a.m. and there’s games until 6 p.m. It’s a real family atmosphere. You get hooked and never want to quit.”
On a recent Sunday, Jim Holden, a visitor from Cork, Irish Republic, sat in the stands watching the play. A football player back home, Holden found the American version of Gaelic football tamer than the original.
“There’s no tackling, here and the crowd’s smaller,” Holden said. He told of being whacked on the head with a hurley stick by a nun during a high school hurling game. “I wasn’t allowed to hit her back,” he added.
“But there’s still the same thrill of competition,” Holden allowed of the Gaelic Park action.
On the field in women’s competition, Erin’s Rovers had just defeated St. Brigid’s in fast and furious play. That win advanced the Rovers into the GAA championships, representing Gaelic Park. After cleaning up, team members returned to the stands to offer support to the men’s hurling team.
Christine Fetting of Orland Park, a member of the Erin Rovers, is completing her first year of women’s football, which she joined at the urging of friends.
“It’s tough, but anyone with any athletic ability can easily catch on,” she said, adding she is very aggressive and competitive by nature.
Sean Crean, 25, of Oak Lawn began playing football 10 years ago, at the urging of family friends who feared that unless American-born players took up the game, it would die out, he said. He’s a member of the Chicago Celtics junior football team.
“It’s a beautiful sport when it’s played properly,” he said. “But it’s a very tough sport to describe. You have to see it for yourself.”
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Sept. 2’s quarterfinal games start at 3 p.m. with women’s football, followed by junior football games. On Sept. 3, semifinal games are scheduled starting at 9:30 a.m. with women’s football and continuing until a 4:45 p.m. senior men’s game between Chicago and San Francisco. The finals are on Sept. 4, beginning with women’s football at noon through senior football at 5 p.m. All-day admission is $3 on Friday, $5 on Saturday and $8 on Sept. 4. Gaelic Park is at 6119 W. 147th St., Oak Forest. Call 708-687-9323 for more information.
