Anyone else get cultish vibes from the GAA?

[Crazyworksituatio]

My kids are quite young and do the Saturday morning GAA sessions. My 6 year old daughter is now moving up into more official training which is 2 nights a week plus matches! I find this insane. My husband thinks its great but it actually curdles my blood. There kids not Olympians!

I agree with the shock of the time involved for such a young child. One of mine is in the local football team at a similar age and same thing, training twice a week and matches every weekend. They enjoy it but it's a bit of a faff for me finishing work...flying to get them from afterschool....flying home to get them changed and back out to the club by 6pm.

A friends son has been recruited by a local 'developing talent' football team though which is 4 nights a week and several hours at the weekend sometimes both days. So in comparison its not that bad!!!!

I guess a lot of sports are the same but it does seem a lot quite young. I know what you mean re GAA cult though, although I've found our local club quite friendly I imagine they're quite cliquey.

Definitely cultish. And if for some reason you or your kids are not involved it can be very isolating.

But not as bad as the secret life of Irish dancers.

I always think it must be sad for the dancers when it all suddenly ends , after being your whole world for years?

The GAA might be a bit clannish but I don't see much overlap with religion - even less with the Irish language. They meekly accepted that trans guys can play Ladies football for example. Not sure if that is still the case though.

It’s very religious. You hear people on the sidelines invoking Jesus Christ and God Almighty constantly.

😂😂

My kids have played GAA since age 4 and yes started competitive matches at that age so completely different to football (they also attend that) who won’t let them play matches until age 7 and rugby which is older than that (they dropped that as it was just game/exercises no matches) as a single parent I have found the GAA community welcoming and supportive

in my area there are multiple GAA teams and depending on which family you affiliate with you don’t play for the other - I’m not Irish so just picked ones with convenient training times

Well yes @JaneJeffer 😆

LGFA accepted trans play ladies football not the GAA.

Fair point. The GAA itself won't have that problem I guess.

Whenever I quickly glance on this thread title it's not cultish my naughty mind registers. 😜

How many trans people would be GAA heads anyway ? Sure nobody would mind once they could kick .

And Irish dancers of a certain age are always good for a laugh at weddings.

Nobody minds how you identify I'd say. But you wouldn't want some big lump in your daughters Camogie team. Even if he scrubbed up well.

For safety reasons I don’t think it should be allowed. But as it is allowed probably nobody will take it up.

There was that bloke playing Ladies gaa in Kildare ? Italian chap.

There's a trans camogie ref in Dublin. Unsure if they play for any club

A woman refereed Wales v All Blacks rugby recently. She looked tiny but she wasn't taking any crap!

I suppose it depends if the child enjoys it first and most of all.

If they stick with it they might be able to get out of speeding fines when they are older, provided they only contact the Gardaí verbally...