By Cian O’Connell

In recent years an interesting Gaelic Football tournament for international students has been staged at UL, but last month’s event brought particular joy and satisfaction.

The UL team featured a number of people living in direct provision centres in Limerick ensuring it was a worthwhile and uplifting experience for all involved.

“It was great, the birth of it, I suppose, was that for the last four years with the International Office in UL we put on a workshop for newly arrived international students,” explains John Hogan, one of the chief organisers of the competition.

“It was to give them an introduction into Gaelic Games which is put on by the lads from Clare, Go Gaelic. So we had that for four years and for the previous two years, this would have been the third year where we put on a tournament.

“Our international students took on students from other third level institutions all around the country in Gaelic Football. This year I had the notion that it might be nice to try to include some people who are living in the Direct Provision centres closest to Limerick city - Knockalisheen and Hanrattys Hotel.

“So I got in touch with them with the help of Doras Luimni, an organisation helping people living in Limerick.

Hogan was delighted by the response and the blitz assisted by UL’s International Education Division was another huge success. “I was able to recruit maybe 10 people between the two centres who came to take part in it,” Hogan adds.

“That was very in keeping with an initiative in UL, the University of Sanctuary which facilitated the provision of scholarships to a number of people living in direct provision. It enabled them to come to study in UL and some of the people who participated from the two centres were recipients of those scholarships. It was great and we didn't field a direct provision team and a UL team.

“We had a Limerick team with people from UL and the direct provision centres. They really loved it. I even had some of them get in touch, that they wanted to continue playing Gaelic Football now that they have had a taste of it.

“We have put them in touch with a club from Limerick. So it is great and is something we would love to see grow in the future.”

Munster and Limerick GAA contributed massively according to Hogan. “The Go Gaelic lads put on a workshop for the Direct Provision people and for the international students, but after that point forward everything was done together,” Hogan states.

“So we had training sessions once a week for a month in the build up to the tournament. We actually got help from the Munster Council, who helped us get a coach in Noel Hartigan. He coached the team for us, we had great turnouts for it and they were fierce enthusiastic about it.

“We had somewhere in the region of 10 teams from around the country, who came to partake in the tournament. They would have been doing their own training themselves in their own colleges in the weeks building up to the tournament also.”

Students from other countries have thoroughly enjoyed being exposed to Gaelic Football. “Some would be here for a semester, some would be here for a year, and some would be here for a full degree so they could be here for four years,” Hogan says.

“So there would be quite a mix. Some would be just studying abroad for one semester, but others come for a year. Somewhere in the region of half of them might be here for the full four years if they are doing an undergraduate degree.”

That those in direct provision were integrated alongside the international UL students meant the 2018 staging will be fondly recalled.

“It was lovely,” Hogan admits. “On the day they were all wearing UL jerseys. There was no division, it wasn't a case of having the people from Direct Provision in their own group or anything.

“It was all just one big team and one of my most treasured things from the day is a team photo we have of everyone in the UL jerseys underneath the goalposts. It was fantastic and it really goes to show the integrative power of sport really.”