Aer Lingus International Hurling Festival

Following an invitation from Aer Lingus and the GAA, we are delighted to announce that four teams from Britain will be travelling to Galway to take part in next months Aer Lingus International Hurling Festival. St Gabriels, Robert Emmets and Kilburn Gaels will travel from the English capital city, while a Rest of Britain team will travel to represent the rest of the Province.

Speaking this week, Brendie Brien, Chairperson of the Provincial Council of Britain GAA said "We're delighted to have four teams travelling across from Britain. Hurling has been getting stronger year by year in recent times, with the successes of St Gabriels, Robert Emmets, London and Warwickshire, to name but a few. This tournament is a great chance to showcase the work we do to the hurling people of Galway and beyond, and we're also very much looking forward to meeting up with teams, and Gaels, from across the globe. We are also very happy to be taking across a Rest of Britain team, which features players from across five of our Counties, showing us that the whole Province is really getting behind the promotion of the game of hurling".

This tournament also sees a little bit of history being made, as the Rest of Britain team will be the first to represent the Province in the game of hurling, and the first ever team to wear the Britain GAA jersey, designed especially for this event. Below is the panel of players who will travel to play next month, and we congratulate them, and their Clubs and Counties, on this great honour;
Rest of Britain Team - Barry Gaffney (St Barnabas, Warwickshire), Dwane Sheedy (John Mitchells, W), Donnacha Kennedy (John Mitchells, W), Conor Robbins (St Barnabas, W), Gareth Coughlan (Wolfe Tones, Lancashire), Michael Bermingham (John Mitchells, W), Cormac Behan (John Mitchells, W), Ray O'Driscoll (Yorkshire Emeralds, Yorkshire), Chris Brough (John Mitchells, W), Jac Quinn (Erin go Bragh, W), Darragh Kavanagh (Wolfe Tones, L), Eamon Long (Erin go Bragh, W), Stephen Walsh (Glen Rovers, Hertfordshire), Jack Crowley (St Barnabas, W), Larry Whelan (Roger Casements, W), Ruairi Brannigan (Roger Casements, W), John Reddan (John Mitchells, W), Willie Ryan (Yorkshire Emeralds, Y), Kieran Phelan (Roger Casements, W), Tom Kelly (Erin go Bragh, W), Frank Hayes (Wolfe Tones, L) & Vincent Molloy (St Nicholas, Gloucestershire)

The Hurling Festival has been made possible by the hard work of a number of people, and we would like to thank in particular Mattie Kenny and everyone at Aer Lingus for all their help, the clubs of Galway who are opening up their facilities to accommodate us, Anne Gibney and Pat Daly in Croke Park and the Galway County Board, who will be rolling out the welcome mat to thousands of visitors over the course of the festival.