The Gaelic wars

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Ella. Ella was from Dublin but moved to Galway when she was three years old. At a young age, Ella fell in love with sports she played snooker, soccer, basketball, and hockey but her favorite sports were the sports in the GAA.

Now let's get to the story.

It was the first of January 2018 it started as a perfectly normal day, but Ella did not know of the adventures that she and her friends were about to witness that week. That morning when Ella was in school, she happened to ask her teacher about GAA. Her teacher told her that GAA stood for Gaelic Athletic Association. She also said Gaelic and other GAA sports were amateur sports and they were the only national sports in Ireland.

This really angered Ella.

That evening when Ella went to Gaelic, she told all her friends what she had heard in school that day. She thought that that was bad, but her own friends knew about this terrible thing and didn't think to tell her.

"Why didn't you tell me about this, guys?" exclaimed Ella angrily. ‘’We didn't think you’d care and even if you did, we couldn’t do anything about it. We're just kids and we don’t have the power to change the world." ‘’Maybe you're right. Maybe we are just kids. Maybe we're not rich but we're Irish and we're proud of it so who's with me?" ‘’Me!’’ ‘’Me!’’ ‘’Me!’’ All the girls were in. They were going to make GAA a national sport NOT JUST IN IRELAND BUT ACROSS THE WORLD.

Ella ran over and asked Joe and just in time too, as he was about to leave the pitch. ‘’Joe, Joe wait!’’ shouted Ella loudly. Luckily, she got his attention before he left the pitch. Joe got out of his car and said, "Girls why are you still here is there something wrong?" "Yes, there is something wrong and we need your help." Joe shivered in fear, ‘’What’s wrong is someone hurt?"

‘’ No not at all, no one is hurt, but inside we really are hurt because today when I was in school my teacher Ms. Gibbins to me that GAA was an amateur organisation and that GAA Sports are not played in every country like soccer and rugby etc. We want to make a difference to change the world and make GAA a national sport in every country all over the world. Do you agree with this Joe?’’

"Yes, of course, I agree. I've been trying to do that for years but with no ideas. We need a plan.’’ That night Ella and her friends Sophie, Lilly, Juile, Emma and Kaytlin had a sleepover and to make it even better Joe was Sophie's dad, so he was there to help. Joe and the girls made posters and set up a petition on change.org

GAA

The idea of the petition was so people in Ireland could hold a protest and be aware that GAA is not played around the world the girls wanted to get over 20000 signatures but the next morning when Joe and the girls opened the computer, they had only had 12 signatures and they were only from the girls, Joe and a few other family members. Twelve signatures were not enough.

But the girls did not give up. They got their posters and hung them up all over Galway city and they even went to Dublin and stuck a few around Croke Park. Now you might think it's an awful long way just to hang posters but if you want justice you have to put in the work! While they were there, they got to see Damien Comer score a goal or two. Up Galway!

That night when the girls got back to Sophie's house it was way too late for the girls to go home so they had another sleepover. Suddenly that night Ella got a great idea; she wanted to send a letter/email to all the clubs in Ireland to ask them to sign their petition.

So before they went to bed Joe and the girls composed a letter and sent it to every club in Ireland, even soccer clubs, rugby clubs, every club you can think of, and not just the GAA clubs.