GAA’s heart beats proudly in Disneyland!
The GAA jersey crest for CLG Orlando – a dual club revived recently by two Connemara men – perfectly encapsulates their Gaeltacht roots and adopted home of Florida.
The top half of the crest displays a Gaelic football with a Walt Disney castle in the background; a nod to the world-famous theme park that is situated just miles away from where the team trains.
The bottom half has native palm trees, and in the foreground, a sliotar with wings attached; a reference to the Golden Snitch ball used in Quidditch games from Harry Potter movies made by Universal Studios, Disney’s main rival.
Its motto is written í nGaeilge. “Croi agus anam is obviously heart and soul. We don’t have enough skill so we have to go with a bit of heart,” laughs An Cheathrú Rua native Jimmy ‘Darba’ Ó Flatharta.
Jimmy, and another An Cheathrú Rua man, Tomás ‘Diane’ Ó Gríofa, has revived the GAA tradition in Orlando in just a few months.
Jimmy emigrated initially 20 years ago to Boston when he was 21. He spent the last ten years in Florida but never really encountered GAA there until he almost accidentally stumbled across it with last November with Tomás, who trained underage and women’s teams in An Cheathrú Rua before he left.
“We were just looking around for GAA, couldn’t find much. There was something in Tampa, but finally we found some lads who were getting together on a Sunday.
“I’d say the biggest turnout they had when we turned up was about six. We started to take over a little bit . . . yesterday, we had 30 at training, and we’ve a tournament coming up. It’s a massive turnaround, and you’re only talking since November,” says Jimmy.
Read the full story of CLG Orlando in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download our digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie