Foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)...

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) (Irish: Cumann Lúthchleas Gael) is an amateur Irish and international cultural and sporting organization focused primarily on promoting Gaelic games, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders. The GAA also promotes Irish music and dance, and the Irish language. It is the largest organization in Ireland with some 800,000 members from the island's population of six million.

At the first meeting of the GAA, on 1 November 1884, the founding members of Michael Cusack, Maurice Davin (who presided), John Wyse Power, John McKay, J. K. Bracken, Joseph O'Ryan and Thomas St. George McCarthy agreed to ask Dr. Croke, Archbishop of Cashel, Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and Michael Davitt, head of the Land League, to become patrons of their organization.

The group at this first meeting realized the importance of establishing a national organization to revive and nurture traditional, indigenous pastimes. Until that time all that was Irish was being steadily eroded by emigration, desperate poverty and outside influences. Within six months of that famous first meeting, clubs began to spring up all over Ireland.

The Irish who emigrated brought their national games with them and both regional and club units are now well established in America, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Canada, mainland Europe and in many other parts of the world where the large Irish diaspora are located.