Is Kansas City more Irish than the Cayman Islands?
About 480 miles south of Miami, Florida; 150 miles south of the country that doesn’t exist (Cuba); and 180 miles northwest of Jamaica, are three islands in the western Caribbean. Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman together make up a country called The Cayman Islands.
These three islands have a population of about 40,000 people. Over half of this population is Caymanian. The most recent figures of work permit distribution show a majority were granted to workers from West Indian and Central American countries, followed by the United States and Canada, and the United Kingdom. And then Ireland.
The Cayman Islands has a Gaelic Football League. It’s a seven-a-side competition - comparable to five-a-side in soccer or sevens in Rugby - but a league nonetheless. Well, it’s two leagues actually - one for men and another for women. And there’s also mixed sevens in January, and full challenge matches on St Patrick’s Day and ANZAC Day.
Well there used to be. This year on Paddy’s Day they played an Australian selection in the International Rules compromise code that Ireland’s Gaelic Footballers regularly use to play Australian Rules Footballers. ANZAC Day and League Finals Day have full challenge games. Mens and womens.
In 1987 the first game of Gaelic Football in the Cayman Islands was played. Their league has been going on since 1998. How does the Cayman Islands sustain this, when Kansas City can’t even get close?
Now I know that TJ has tried most of this for a couple of years with his Red Branch club, but you never saw a game - did you? - never mind play.
There was never the interest. I watched one of their first training sessions, a few years back. It was in Mill Creek Park. Three people showed up. A Gaelic Football team has fifteen players. Plus subsitutes. And ideally another team to play against. Coaching staff and a referee would be good. Umpires, probably an indulgence. And somebody to cuddle when you lose, a nice touch.
The entire population of the Cayman Islands is significantly less than what attends the Kansas City region’s biggest Irish Festival. Kansas City’s St Patrick’s Day Parade has three, four, five, (pick a number), times the population of that little Carribean country. All the time you can hear or read of people in the KC region who are Irish 365 days a year, not just one. But how many are there? Really?
When O’Dowd’s on the Plaza gamely brought the All-Ireland Gaelic Football final live to Kansas City a couple of years back, twelve people showed up. I’m not for a moment suggesting you’re not Irish if you weren’t there - because I know you don’t like sports, or you have kids, or you have your Irish tongue stuck in somebody’s Irish ear - but if there really are 200,000 people claiming to be Irish in the metro area, wouldn’t you think more than 12 people would watch Ireland’s premier sporting event?
Even if there’s only fifty thousand Irish people? In fact even if there’s just one thousand Irish people in the region, and only one place to watch the top Irish sporting event of the year, would you not think more than 12 people would turn up? Or has everybody now got subscriptions to Setanta’s webcast service?
Of course I’m only using Gaelic Football as an example. I could be talking of soccer and Ireland’s final qualifying game for the European Championships, or a play-off game for the World Cup Finals; or I could be talking of any Irish pub in the Kansas City area on a midweek night, or I could be talking about going out and listening to the best traditional Irish music for hundreds of miles in any direction. There’s never very many people. Now why do you think that is?
The finals of the Digicel Gaelic Football League will take place today, Saturday 24 June. In the Cayman Islands.
The best traditional Irish music for hundreds of miles in any direction is played by Eddie Delahunt, Brett Gibson, and Gabriel Reyes. Usually somewhere in the middle of a polka.
Update: 3 years after the writing of this post I am very happy to report that almost the entire contents of this post have been rendered inapplicable, irrelevant, incorrect even by the subsequent creation and growth of the Kansas City Gaelic Athletic Club.
See Also:
• The Beauty Queen of Leenane
• Irish author Frank Delaney
• Highlands in the Heartland
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Hey there, I know this is a fairly old entry but I was wondering if anyone there in KC might want to restart some Gaelic football? I’m originally from down the way in NW Arkansas and have been living in the Baltimore area for a few years and have taken up Gaelic football and hurling. I’m probably moving back to Little Rock in a month or so and plan on bringing the sports back with me and starting at least a football team. It would sure be nice to have to another “local” club besides St. Louis to play…..
Good Afternoon…or evening for you…
Just wanted to give you a follow up that a GAA in Little Rock is now in the works. We are pushing Gaelic football first over hurling since the learning curve is much easier. So far word of mouth recruiting is going about as well as one can expect here with about 5-6 men pledging to come out to give it a try. We will hold our first practice session in about 2 weeks. Thus far, we have only the horrid myspace page so feel free to drop by if you get the hankering and give us some love! http://www.myspace.com/littlerockgaa.
Little Rock GAA is doing splendidly. We have over 20 players ranging in age from 15 to 43. We’re looking to establish a small local league to help train our lads for travel matches with Austin and St. Louis and hopefully get up to Boston for the nationals. Come by and check out our progress at littlerock.arkansas.gaa.ie and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrgaa.
We need KC to get on board with a new club and help put some pressure on a few lads in Tulsa to get the ball rolling out there too!