The stadium of Blanquefort also has mobile goals on wheels. Thierry David / SO
Technical: Provided by the Irish Gaelic sports federation, the iconic GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) goals were stored at the Stadium de Toulouse before ending up with the Girondin club. Their silhouette evokes both football and rugby. The base looks like a football cage. It is topped with H-shaped posts. A strike between the posts scores one point. When the ball ends up in the net, three points are scored, which is more difficult due to the presence of a goalkeeper and defenders. But the comparison with football and rugby ends there. There are no tackles or offside rules. The ball carrier cannot take more than four steps in a row. To continue advancing, they must either bounce the ball on the ground with their hand, a technical move called a “bounce”, or juggle once with their foot to return it to their hands, the “solo”. Short-distance passes, in 360 degrees, are made with the palm of the hand or the fist. D1 residents, the Girondins, led by Baptiste Lézin, Kevin Jaux, and international player Antoine Mania, were French champions in 2019, a title currently held by Nantes. The men’s section includes around fifty licensed players, including an Irishman from County Kerry, the most titled in the Irish championship, which includes all of Ireland and whose final takes place at Croke Park in Dublin, in front of 82,000 spectators.
Calendar: On March 7, in Agen, their female counterparts, coached by Antoine Ansevin, finished at the top for the first time in the federal championship, ahead of Paris Gaels. This two-round competition gathers all the French teams, except those established in Brittany, which have their own championship. They all met on April 4 in Lorient for the first day of the French championship, won in 2025 by Rennes, who will then stop in Le Havre on April 25 and in Clermont-Ferrand on June 20 where the finals of all divisions, men and women included, will take place. The club’s two jerseys, presided over by Loïc Raphaël, one bordeaux and the other navy blue, are halfway between those of Girondins de Bordeaux and Union Bordeaux-Bègles. The name of their sponsor, Molly Malone’s, the Irish pub on the Quai des Chartrons, is featured on them. Trainings are held at Bordeaux-Lac on Thursdays. It often happens that Irish students from the Erasmus program come to bolster the team. In France, boys play with eleven players and girls with nine.
“The Irish are really too strong, for now.”
The Bordeaux ladies, twelve in number, count three Irish women among their ranks: Pamela Walsh, Aisling Fee, and Estelle Reeves Long. They are part of the France Irish Ladies Gaelic Football team. Newly created, this selection of Irish women residing in our country will participate from July 13 to 17 in Waterford in the prestigious GAA World Games in the Open category, reserved for Irish women playing outside of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Foreigners practicing this traditional Irish sport will also compete in a tournament labeled “international-born”.
Antoine Ansevin, coach of the women. Thierry David / SO
Member of the French team, Fanny Lézin, the captain of Burdigaela, experienced the 2023 edition in Derry. The Americans from Charlotte emerged victorious. Returning from holidays in Ireland, she was struck by the popularity of this sport, which surpasses that of football and rugby. “There are Gaelic football fields in every village, in sometimes incredible locations, on the ocean’s edge, like in Galway.”
The paradox, but which is explained, is that there is no national team in Ireland, due to a lack of opponents at their level. “The Irish are really too strong, for now,” testifies Jean-Philippe Meunier. But the level in France continues to rise. In September, one of the Gaelic football stars, Rory Grugan, toured French clubs to promote the sport. “He was impressed by the enthusiasm,” reports the former president of Burdigaela. The player confided: “When I go back to Ireland and say that Gaelic football is played by the French, no one will believe me.”
