The Mayo News

GAA Claremorris man Páraic McGrath is at the forefront of the GAA in Asia. We talked to him ahead of a big weekend. Let the Asian Games begin


Claremorris man Páraic McGrath is at the forefront of the GAA out in Asia

Feature
Daniel Carey

LATER this week, Claremorris man Páraic McGrath will leave his home in Singapore and fly to Bangkok for the 14th annual Asian Gaelic Games. And he’ll have plenty of company.
McGrath, aged 42, is chairman of the Croke Park-affiliated Asian County Board, organisers of next weekend’s competition, and he will also keep goal for the Singapore Gaelic Lions Club. His son Joseph, who turns 16, in November, will be on the same team, at corner forward. And his two daughters Olivia (11) and Phoebe (9) are members of the Singapore under-12 mixed team that will play in the first ever children’s competition at this, the showpiece event for the GAA in Asia. Throw in the support of his wife Clara, and it’s a real family affair.
Páraic, son of former Mayo GAA Board chairman PJ McGrath, has spent almost 20 years outside of Ireland, having lived in Japan and Australia before moving to the former British colony in 2003. So he’s particularly proud to see his son, who has never lived in Ireland but learned Gaelic football through an underage programme on Singapore, graduate to the adult ranks.
The Asian Gaelic Games is, McGrath says, now ‘the biggest annual event’ for Irish people in the region. “It’s probably bigger than any St Paddy’s Day Parade in the whole of Asia and the Middle East. We’ll have a couple of thousand people every day over the two days, Saturday and Sunday,” he explains.
The logistics are mind-blowing. The weekend will involve 22 clubs, 48 teams (36 men’s outfits and 12 ladies’ sides), 580 players, 184 games and at least 18 nationalities (including Irish, American, Canadian, English, Welsh, Scottish, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Australian and New Zealanders). Goalposts have been shipped from Singapore to Bangkok, which is hosting the event for the first time under the auspices of the Thai GAA Club.
Two referees are coming from Ireland, and they’ll be joined by one from Perth and another from Brussels. Former GAA President Joe McDonagh and Ulster Council President Tom Daly will represent Croke Park, while Asian County Board patron and former Tánaiste, Dick Spring, is also making the trip.
“Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh is coming out to join us for five days,” McGrath adds. “He’ll commentate on the games and do MC at the event. His son Cormac plays with my club here in Singapore – he’s a doctor with the Singapore Olympic team, so Micheál comes out every year and joins us.”
Mixing business with pleasure, the event will be preceded on Friday by the third Asia-Pacific Ireland Business Forum, where Irish companies and CEOs in the region come together. Little wonder that a committee of ‘about 10 or 12’ have been working on the weekend’s activities for the guts of six months.
With the largest geographical area of any county board, the governing body do things a little differently than their equivalent bodies at home.
“It’s not like going to the Welcome Inn once a month for the ham sandwich and the cup of tea on a Tuesday night, unfortunately!” Mc Grath says with a laugh. “We have quarterly teleconferences and twice-yearly get-togethers, and of course, we’re in touch by e-mail regularly.”
Getting full county board status from the GAA has meant better sponsorship possibilities and increasing funding – and with more money comes more equipment, coaches, people and marketing. The graph is very definitely on the up. There are underage programmes in Singapore, Thailand, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur (where the club chairman is Belmullet man Pat Gorham, and the man in charge of the children’s section is Ballyhaunis native Johnny Cleary). And there are exciting developments elsewhere too.
“There’s a huge programme starting in Hong Kong next year involving 1,000 kids playing Gaelic football over different periods through 2010,” says McGrath, the enthusiasm audible in his voice. “There’s a bunch of lads in Japan who have taken Gaelic football to one of the ladies’ universities in Tokyo … We try to spread our funding as much as we can … We have start-up kits for anytime an Irish fella gives us a call saying: ‘I’m here! I’ve found six or seven lads!’ We send them some footballs and whistles and the rule-book and we say ‘Right, off ye go!’”
The latest fruits of that grassroots movement will be seen in Bangkok. The Canton Celts, one of nine teams based in China, were formed about four months ago. They have managed to pull together a team and will take part in next weekend’s showpiece event.
Next January, a DCU student and Cavan footballer named Barry Waters will head out to Asia and spend six months coaching underage and ladies’ teams in four different cities. And the numbers of Irish people heading east are on the increase.
“We had a touch of recession in the first six months of this year, but it seems to have moved on again,” says McGrath of Singapore. “There seems to be a lot of people coming out looking for work. Asia seems to be recovering and it didn’t get as badly hit as Europe and America.
So [whereas] in the old times you’d be looking to America and England for jobs, we’re finding CVs are coming in every day from fellas at home, looking for work. So there’s a lot of traffic coming through here at the moment. But things seem to be going okay. I think we’re over the worst of it.”
For further information, see www.asiancountyboard.com

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