Shooting like soccer, punting like football and occasionally dribbling like basketball – Gaelic football shares plenty with modern Americans sports.
It’s a game that hails from the Emerald Isles and for a few hours, spectators could see it play out in a slice of the Pioneer Valley – all part of a cultural learning opportunity.
It’s not been a great football year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Quarterback injuries, a struggling defense and other issues meant an 0-12 record by season’s end.
But as that season was ending in late-November, another kind of UMass football team took to a field in Chicopee – playing a match against a familiar school rival, the University of Connecticut.
They weren’t athletic programs per say, but student clubs from both universities, which met for a match of Gaelic football at Our Lady of the Elms College.
Dribbling by hand or foot every few steps to avoid a foul, players went up and down Leary Field, trying to score on one another by either kicking the ball over a goal post for a point or three points if they got it past the Cúl Báire – the goalkeeper.
The sport’s an import to the United States, straight from Ireland. Also straight from Ireland and putting the match together: Michaela Burke of County Mayo.
"You put your life on the line for football, run into tackles… but it's all about community and culture and … it's almost like a sense of belonging within itself,” she tells WAMC. “Like a team - it's like a little family that you have. It’s just great to see it take off over here, because … even at home, it's just it's a little community within itself”
Burke is a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Elms College. A player herself who's worked to form a Gaelic football team on campus as well, she teaches Irish language classes as part of collaboration between Elms and the Irish Cultural Center of Western New England.
The partnership, as well as other efforts by the ICC, looks to promote and preserve Irish roots in the region. Thousands of Irish immigrants flocked to cities like Chicopee, Holyoke and Springfield in the mid-1800s, with many working the mills after arriving from spots like County Kerry.
Among the spectators is one of Burke’s students, Dina O’Connor of Westfield. She tells WAMC that picking up Irish dance and some of the language has been fun, as has been learning more about those who made the journey to America, like her father’s parents, who hail from Kerry themselves.
“They came here for a new life, much like the immigrants today probably come here for a new life, and when they first came here, it was hard work and they stuck with it - they had each other's backs and supported each other,” she said from the stands. “Those friendships of families go deep. In Ireland, they go very deep and here in America, I think so too.”
Also in the 1800s - Gaelic football saw its rules formally codified, though versions of the sport can be traced back to the 1600s – even further if you count the sport’s close-cousin, hurling.
Bobby Nolan, a UConn player from Wexford, says such sports are cemented in Irish history – and even its mythology, as well.
“They're the some of the oldest sports in the world, they're [in] the oldest written records of sports - they're thousands of years old,” he says. “Going back into Irish mythology, like … Cú Chulainn … it's great to see it growing and it's constantly evolving, which is pretty interesting as well. But the more people play, the better.”
Nolan and company would prove to be the victors that day. While UMass had the upper hand at times in the second-half, the final minutes saw a back-and-forth that left the Huskies on top, 28-23.
It wasn’t a bad showing: both student club teams have played only a few matches this year, though a tournament in Orlando is on the docket for this spring.
On top of that, the UMass side has only been kicking for just over a year now.
Aoife Ruth started the club with a friend in fall 2024 and like many amateur players in the U.S., she says she’s found a niche community that’s been plenty welcoming.
“I think because it's such a small sport, it's easy to feel like you are really part of it, because you automatically have a place as someone that's trying something completely new and it's really cool because almost everyone on this team… I think we have two, three players out of 25 that have ever played before,” Ruth said post-match. “So it's just really inspiring to see everyone learn the game together, as a unit, and have a sense of like self-pride and also pride in the sport and be able to explain it to their friends.”
Burke says that’s what it’s all about. She adds that she enjoys seeing the sport continue to find a home in the U.S.
The United States Gaelic Athletic Association says there are records of Gaelic football games being played in the U.S. as far back as the 1850s.
Burke also commends the amount of passion and energy Americans put into it and other sports – citing her fellow housemates who she’s seen train for basketball.
“It's just great to be so passionate about a sport and I suppose, like in Ireland, when it's amateur sports… you can't put every evening into it, but … it's just great here, to see that commitment to your passion,” she says, adding that the cultural exchange in western Mass. has been mutual for her. “Even just to see the American Halloween and all that: it's just such an experience, that I'm getting that side of the culture as well… obviously, I want to spread my culture, but it's just so great to have that experience of both sides.”
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This piece originally aired on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025
