GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 19 – February 7, 2015 | Page 11

ON SCHOOL’S CURRICULUM
Gaelic Football was introduced
into the school’s curriculum
at Grade 7 and Grade 8 levels
and the Ottawa schools became
the first in Canada to have the
sport as part of schools physical
education program, and along
with schools in Liffré in Brittany, France, and Perth in Australia, are some of the only GAA
schools worldwide outside of Ireland. The club’s members got behind the initiative and along with
Chaisson people such as Joe Diffey, Jarlath Connaughton, Noel
McGinnity, Mark Lanin, and
Dermot Guinnane led the effort.

Photo: Ottawa Gaels GAA

Each year there is a grand schools city-wide event, the
Mike Robinson Gaelic Football Tournament where you
have 300-500 children in the respective grades taking
part. This year Grades 5-6 were introduced to Gaelic Football with coaches visiting schools and running weeklong
training sessions through the cadet classes in school. The
youth initiative has been extended by the club beyond the
schools where students ages U6-U16 in four to five locations around the city.
The club has devised a FUNdamentals program in the
spring with a view to not only learning the basic but having
teams get game-time and experience and then going on to
represent the club at the annual big summer event, the Continental Youth GAA Championships in the US. The club
sent players to the event for the first time in 2011 to Boston
and last year sent an impressive 33 players to the CYC in
New York last July. Plans are this year to double those numbers when sending teams to CYC 2015 in San Francisco.

CHAIN REACTION AND SUSTAINABILITY
Since the youth program got underway back in 2000, Ottawa Gaels Chairperson, McLean, believes that those efforts
have been fruitful.
“When you see the youth program we have several adult players who came from our youth programs and who joined out
club from the schools tournament. So it’s just a chain reaction
from the schools to the youth development right into senior.
These people have actually grown up from school all the way
into the senior side,” noted McLean.
It’s a club wide effort to keep things going especially at youth
level says the chairperson where the Gaels have strong ties
also with Irish cultural organizations.
“All of our female and male players put a lot of effort into
the youth program. Many of us coach, volunteer and even vol-

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