Wednesday 28th April 2021: The John Sisk & Son team in northern Sweden recently established Lulea Gaels GAA club. “When I arrived in Lulea in November,” says Daniel O’Brien, “it was high on my list of personal priorities to get the club up and running. With companies such as Jones, Mercury, Modubuild and Crown we knew we would get the numbers in to field a team. We registered affiliation with the GAA through the European County Board and held an inaugural AGM which had over 40 attendees via Teams and an on-site meeting.
The idea, says Daniel, is that the Lulea Gaels club will remain as something for the local community, even after our northern Sweden project is finished. Covid-friendly training recently got underway for the world’s most northerly GAA club – Lulea Gaels.
The newly formed Gaels had a great response from Sisk staff and trade partners, with seven different nationalities taking part. Over 20 men and women participated in the first two training sessions.
Lulea Gaels are currently being promoted within the community and the project as part of their health and wellbeing programme. “We have involvement from not just Irish but Swedish, Romanian, Polish, English and Scottish players so far. The best thing about this is when these players meet up for training or games they are not ‘Daniel O’Brien from Sisk’ or ‘Coilin Hayden from KMCS’, they are a bunch of lads playing a bit of ball, having a laugh, staying fit and more importantly they are a team.”
The focus for the newly formed Lulea Gaels is Stockholm in May, when the Swedish Championship begins, Covid permitting.
