Gaelic Athletic Association county
A Gaelic Athletic Association county is a geographic region within the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), controlled by a county board and originally based on the counties of Ireland as they were in 1884. While the counties of Ireland have changed since the foundation of that date, the GAA counties have remained largely unchanged. However, particularly in the first 50 years of the Association but also in more recent times, there are many examples of clubs based in one of the administrative counties being allowed to participate in the leagues or championships of a neighbouring county. There are also instances where the official county boundary does not coincide precisely with the GAA county, for example where a club is based on a parish that crosses the county border. While in most cases the name of the GAA county is the same as that of the current or former administrative county, there have been exceptions: Derry has never used the official county name of Londonderry, and the Board of the county then officially known as Queen's County changed its name in 1907 to Leix and Ossary, later becoming Laois. Each county board is responsible for organising GAA club fixtures within the county, and for the promotion and development of Gaelic games and the other objectives of the Association.
The GAA county can also refer to the inter-county team fielded by each county board.
Since the inception of the county system, there have been changes to the region of control of the overseas units. In Ireland the concept of the county is very strong and changing the county boundary is extremely controversial. A proposal to divide Dublin in two was quickly and strongly opposed.[1]
[edit] Gaelic Athletic Association 'counties' overseas
Gaelic Athletic Association counties outside Ireland cover large geographic non-traditional areas which are not considered as counties in any other context. For example, Scotland is a county for GAA purposes, while the remaining counties of Great Britain cover wider areas than their names suggest. The Hertfordshire County Board, for example, oversees clubs in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire; Gloucestershire GAA reaches into South Wales, Warwickshire GAA includes Staffordshire and Birmingham, and so on. There are also 'county boards' for Canada, the rest of North America, Europe and Asia, while other overseas GAA regions such as Australasia and Cayman Islands operate with their own structures not including county boards.[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Whelan slams Dublin split". BBC News. 2002-01-27. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/northern_ireland/1785651.stm. Retrieved 2006-12-22.
- ^ GAA Overseas Units official booklet
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