The 2016 Etihad GAA World Games will begin in just over two weeks’ time in Dublin and defending men’s world championship holders Argentina are eager to defend their title.

The Argentine’s went undefeated in Abu Dhabi last year but had to survive a roller-coaster extra-time final of the International World Cup (non-Irish teams) to overcome a determined Galicia. The team from a Buenos Aires rugby and field hockey club called ‘Hurling Club’ – we’ll get to the naming in a moment – had been a little more familiar with Hurling but they had just been playing Gaelic Football for one year, and so prospects were unknown ahead of the inaugural games.

"We prepare during a year approximately, we reach Abu Dhabi with expectations of doing our best, without knowing the level of our rivals,” said Argentina GAA official and player Bernardo Devereux.

“We win one, then the next one and so on until the end of the tournament where we finish unbeaten. It is a dream come true, the first GAA tournament won by an Argentinean team.”

While the Argentine connection to the GAA, particularly to Hurling, goes back to the mid 1800s before dying out after World War 11, the modern revival was spawned by GAA All Star Hurling tours to Hurling Club, Buenos Aires in 2002 and again in 2009. That last tour fired the imagination and in conjunction with the GAA, summer hurling camps were set up over the next two years. Then history arrived in 2013 when the club sent their first hurling team to Ireland to represent Argentina in an international Hurling Festival in Galway with the Argentine’s impressing to fill the runners-up spot in the second tier cup.

Devereux is proud of the club’s achievements and says the team – All Argentine team with one English born player with strong Irish roots – is now ready for battle in Dublin.

“We started many years ago with Gaelic sports, supported by GAA, got successful growth results, a second place in a Hurling tournament, and today a championship in Gaelic Football,” he stated, before continuing on the prospect of this year’s world games.

“It is where all the work of these last years must be shown. We are going to fight to keep the championship we won in Abu Dhabi.”

The Irish Famine of the 1840s saw emigrants arrive to Argentina from counties such as Longford, Westmeath, Offaly and Wexford. Many settled in the agriculturally rich Pampas region around Buenos Aires. Irish priests were sent out to Argentina and one Fr. Fahy, from County Kilkenny, became Chaplin of the Irish in Argentina in 1844. Churches and Catholic schools systems followed and were an important forerunner of hurling taking root with priests and students making up teams as well as Irish farm workers. At one time there were 16 hurling clubs throughout the country. One of those clubs in Buenos Aires was called ‘Hurling Club’, and though they eventually took up field hockey and rugby, the name stuck.

World War 11, shortage of hurls, and purported rough play unfortunately brought an end to the game before renewed interest with the recent visiting tours from Ireland.

One of the reasons the GAA World Games are taking place in Ireland this year is to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising and the Argentine side is keenly aware of such historical connections and their meanings. Offaly native, William Bulfin, credited as being the driving force behind hurling in the early 1900s became editor of the influential Southern Cross, Irish newspaper, and his son Eamon helped raised the Irish flag over the GPO in 1916.

Captain of the team heading to Dublin, Lucas Ruiz Cugat, is mindful of such ties.

“It’s a great honor and responsibility to be representing our country as player and captain. It is historic and with great relevance event for both nations because we are at the same time celebrating centenary and bi-centenary [200th anniversary of Argentina’s declaration of independence from Spain/> of our Independency revolutions,” he said.

“There is a remarkable thing that the first flag in the Republic of Ireland that said ‘Irish Republic’ was raised by an Argentinean-Irish called Eamon Bullfin on the Easter rise in 1916, thus we feel there is a big link between our two countries. This is a great event to strength our links and work on our common culture.”

The Kilkenny link will also be extended through English born Michael Connery. He won the title with the Argentine side last year, and though he has travelled far and wide, he is eager to retain the cup in the place he now calls home.

“It a pleasure and another dream come true for me to be participating in another world games,” he enthused.
“I was born in England but with my Irish roots – father from Kilkenny and mother from Dublin – it has always driven me to have a passion to play and be part of Gaelic Games in which ever country I've lived in: Australia, New Zealand, U.K. and now Argentina for the past 8 years, where I have two beautiful Argentinean baby girls. 
“I am proud to be part of the Argentinean team where I feel it's my home from home (Ireland). Hopefully we'll be bringing back the cup this time round!”

 

The team has been playing football for the past three years and their commitment to the sport Bernardo Devereux states is a very honest one.

“We are a group that regularly train and play during all the year round with no interruptions, no matter if it rains or if it is cold, this only happens because we are really enjoying to play.”
He said that everyone is looking forward to the games and despite sacrifices to make the long trip, the effort will be worth it. 

“There is a great expectation to see and play with other teams than the ones that participate in Abu Dhabi.
“We are a small group, and despite we have a big support from the Hurling Club, together with Pat Daly´s group of the GAA, we have to put lot of personal effort, but we enjoy a lot every time we put our shorts and get into a pitch to play, that pays all the effort.”