With no proper formalised structures in place it was always going to be difficult to get Gaelic Games up and running in London schools. However, through the determination and vision of Pat Morrissey a meeting was held in early January 2003 and the Schools Board was formally launched in February. Johnny Wilson was appointed as Schools Coaching Officer by the London Schools GAA Board – suddenly everything became possible.

The Board started by recruiting and training students at St. Mary’s, Strawberry Hill PE College who were then sent into selected and interested primary schools. All these coaches were Irish with a background in Gaelic Games themselves. This has worked well and the coaches were always on hand to referee and organise teams on Tournament days also. The launch proved to be a very successful and informative occasion and the clubs seemed willing to take ownership of individual schools for coaching and recruitment opportunities. It also lent a more formal edge to
the ad-hoc arrangement of schools games as had existed previously.

The genesis of this project came from one of the recommendations in the “Report on Schools” commissioned by Jack Boothman, Uachtarán, CLG in which schools and units in traditionally-strong GAA Counties were asked to twin with schools in weaker areas with a view to raising standards.

East/West Project

The whole project got underway because of a chance meeting between Johnny Wilson, a young teacher in London and Liam Weir a member of Sciath na Scol Chorcaí. Johnny was interested in setting achievable goals for London schools who wanted to play Gaelic Football and Liam was able to provide administrative know how. Below is an outline of the chronology.

A. The first objective was to work at a twinning arrangement and St. George’s Primary School, Harrow visited Scoil Barra, Beaumont in June 2002 with the Cork school visiting Harrow in November.

B.. A London Schools’ GAA Board was founded in Feb 2003, which now has 21 schools affiliated and active.

C. In June 2003 four London schools visited Cork for a GAA weekend, with the Irish schools set to return next March.

D. Then, in July this year we had a GAA Summer camp in London with 150 indigenous London school children actively involved.

E. As a final piece of development and promotional work we organised a coaching weekend for 14 London teachers in Cork. An indication of the success of the project so far is that there are expressions of interest by 15 London schools to avail of the coaching scheme.