Nov 02,2024
The GAA is celebrating its 140th anniversary today, having been founded at a meeting in the billiards room of the Hayes' Commercial Hotel in Thurles on 1 November, 1884.
That meeting elected Maurice Davin as the first President of the 'Gaelic Athletic Association for the preservation and cultivation of our national pastimes' and the positions of secretary to Michael Cusack, John Wyse Power and John McKay.
JK Bracken, Thomas St George McCarthy, and Joseph P Ryan were also at the meeting, which may have had as many as 13 attendees.
Davin was a track and field athlete of international fame, who wanted Irish governance for athletics on this island and formal rules for the traditional sports of hurling and Gaelic football.
The Tipperary man drafted the first set of football rules, which were adopted by the GAA in January 1885, and is the only two-time president in the association's history.
Clare man Cusack was a teacher, journalist and enthusiastic advocate of Irish sports, who started hurling clubs in Dublin before linking up with Davin to establish the new body.
While usually recognised as the prime mover in the foundation the GAA, he was also a combative individual, who was removed as secretary in 1886 after clashing with the association's first patron Archbishop Croke.
Both Cusack and Davin have stands named after them at Croke Park.
Waterford native Wyse Power and Down man McKay were supportive journalists, who wrote accounts of the meeting.
McKay also served as a GAA secretary until 1886 while Wyse Power was the first chairman of the Dublin county board before resigning in protest at the ban on RIC members in 1887.
Patrick McKay, a great-grandson and the oldest surviving direct relative of the founding officers, attended an event in Hayes's Hotel today by the GAA History & Commemoration Committee to mark the association’s founding.
The GAA today is active in 52 countries, with more than 1,600 clubs across Ireland and almost 500 abroad.
Hurling has UNESCO intangible cultural heritage status alongside camogie while Gaelic football and women's Gaelic football are on Ireland's national list of cultural heritage.
The Camogie Association is 120 years old this year and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association is 50 years old. The two organisations are currently in talks with the GAA to form one unified body.
GAA Handball is 100 years old this year and, together with rounders and Scór, complete the sporting and cultural links which embeds the GAA in many communities.
GAA director general Tom Ryan said: "It's remarkable the organisation is of that standing and that durable. The founders had great foresight to come together and codify the games in a world that was so different to what we now know.
"I take great pride in the fact that the GAA is still growing and flourishing. We say things like 'it's never been stronger', and they're all true. It has never been as popular. It has never been as deeply embedded as it is now.
"I think too of everything that had to happen between 1884 and today to make that the case. All the people, both heralded and unheralded, who made that happen. It's humbling when you think about it.
"We haven't a notion of what the next 140 years is going to bring and what the world will be like but it's not unreasonable to believe that the GAA will be part of it. I fervently hope it will."
