FIRST CHINESE TEAM
IN CONVERSATION WITH COLM WALSH
DECEMBER 4, 2015
Our Interview this issue focuses on the first ever all native college Gaelic Football team from
Beijing in China. The Irish vice
principal of the Beijing Dublin
International College (BDIC)
encouraged by her Chinese colleagues to give the students a
sense of Irish culture, thought
of introducing Gaelic football
into the Physical Education curriculum. The local Beijing GAA
club and its chairman Colm
Walsh from Galway and former
Tipperary hurler Stephen Lillis
were asked to lead the initiative and we asked Colm about
the program and how it has gone
over the last 12 months.
Photo courtesy of Colm Walsh.
ABOUT HOW MANY STUDENTS AT BDIC AND
ARE THEY MOSTLY CHINESE?
There are over 600 students attending Beijing Dublin
International College which is a partnership between
Beijing University of Technology and University College Dublin. There must be altogether over 10,000 students on campus so we often have a large and curious
audience watching us put the students through their
paces!
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WHAT WAS YOUR INITIAL REACTION TO THE
COLLEGE’S VP’S IDEA TO INTRODUCE FOOTBALL FOR GYM PROGRAM?
We saw this as a huge opportunity. The Irish community
in Beijing is very transient and even though the population of China’s Capital is over 20 million, the Irish community is very small in comparison to other cities across
Asia, so we were actually looking at ways to increase the
number of Chinese people becoming involved with Bei-