During the 1920/30’s friendly games were organised within Sydney and matches between played between NSW and Victoria.
In 1974 a meeting in Sydney with other states got together to form the GAA of Australia, this named formed the core movement towards the Central Council of GAA of Australia.
Having formed this executive committee they all sanctioned to have a festival of Gaelic Games on a yearly basis which is known as the All-Australian State Games. Each year a different state would get a chance to host the games. The winners would be presented with medals and All-Stars would be selected from a number of games based on a criteria set out by the Central Council Committee. These games are planned for late September or early October.
Although Gaelic Games in the early days was played predominately by Irish people it was starting to become a more popular attraction among the sporting Australian culture and second generation Irish.
Since its early origination the GAA of Australia has changed name twice, the second name changed to GAA of Australasia which included Auckland, New Zealand who joined the ranks of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales. The official name now is “Gaelic Football & Hurling Association of Australasia”
NSW is steeped in history but a big mention must go to Kerry Murphy who was able to document this information and was involved in every level in developing Gaelic Games in NSW and Australia. Kerry Murphy created such a impact within Irish Society in Sydney, the NSW GAA was blessed to have such an inspirational character from playing football, on Club & Executive committees just to name a few areas he was involved in.
There have been 26 clubs formed within NSW since the 1900’s to the present day. There are currently 6 Men's Football teams, 4 Ladies Football teams, 4 Hurling teams and 5 Camogie teams. Matches are played every Sunday at Auburn during the winter season in both League and Championship |
