A Bronx tale

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The referee drew the first half of Kerry's match against Cavan to a close and made his way out of the rain. Dripping wet, he took a seat in a small green cabin among the resident experts of the New York Gaelic Athletic Association, men who have watched Gaelic football there for decades. They welcomed him in, staring out at the sprawling field and the unforgiving sky.

"That rain," said the referee, Sean Jones, "that's just like at home, boys."

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John Walsh, of Gaelic football team Kerry, carries the ball during a game on Wednesday.

The downpour wasn't the only thing that was just like home. Except for the parked cars of the No. 1 train on elevated rails, the whole scene might have passed for Ireland instead of the Bronx. Clusters of fans huddled in the stands. Every accent around Gaelic Park was a brogue from some corner of the Emerald Isle. Even the advertising on the fences was for Irish companies.

But it is hardly surprising that the Irish community has made the park its own. Irish immigrants have been playing Gaelic football in New York for more than 100 years, first at Celtic Park in Queens and, longer than anyone can remember, at its current home at 240th and Broadway in the Bronx. Every Sunday from April to October, teams named for Irish counties duke it out for bragging rights and hometown pride—albeit 3,000 miles from home, where Gaelic football is king.

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A parked No. 1 train provides a backdrop for a game.

"It's probably hard for people to understand how important Gaelic football is if you haven't been born and reared in Ireland," said Rory Stafford, who moved to New York in 2009 and plays for Cork. "It's the biggest thing in your life. It runs so deep in your blood that no matter where you go in the world, you just have to be involved in it."

The sport is yet another one with a claim to the name "football." Based on how much feet actually meet the ball in this game, it falls somewhere in between soccer and its distant American cousin.

Gaelic football players advance the ball, which is a heavier version of a soccer ball, predominantly with their hands up the 150-yard field—they can carry it for four steps at a time, punch it to each other, or punt it. There are goalposts at each end, much like in rugby, except that the area under the crossbar is an eight-foot high, soccer-style goal, complete with a goalkeeper.

Similar to rugby, players can kick it through the posts above the crossbar—worth a point in Gaelic football—but unlike rugby, they can also knock it in the goal past the goalkeeper, which is worth three points.

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Players fight for possession in a contest between Aruagh (orange) and Leitram (green).

Officially, the only sanctioned contact in this game without pads is the shoulder-to-shoulder check. And players are pretty good about hitting that target— most of the time. Do it right and your opponent will cough up the ball and maybe look twice for your number next time. Do it wrong and you may be left to defend for yourself.

At least three fights broke out in the match between Kerry and Cavan alone.

"It's just natural for the sport," said Jones, the referee whose job it is to keep players from knocking each other senseless outside the laws of the game. "It's the way you're brought up with the game back home in Ireland. It's always on the boil."

The homegrown rivalries only fuel the fire. Cork, for instance, does not get along with Kerry. There is no love lost between Tyrone and Leitram either. And Ireland's divisive history also adds some spice to any game involving a team from the northern counties, like the orange-clad men of Armagh.

Of course, with only six teams in the league, they cannot entirely be made up of players from those counties. But they are entirely Irish or Irish-American, with the majority coming over from Ireland to find work. Those without any Irish heritage on a team can be counted on one hand. During the summer, the league's numbers are also bolstered by students coming over from Ireland on J-1 visas and a handful of players who have appeared at county level in Ireland.

All of them know about the league long before they cross the Atlantic.

"The fortunes of the New York GAA seem to ebb and flow with the Irish economy," said Laurence McCarthy, a professor of management at Seton Hall and chairman of the New York Gaelic Athletic Association. "When the Irish economy is doing badly, the New York GAA will do well and vice-versa."

The Irish economy was doing particularly badly in the 1950s and early 1960s, which is why that period is regarded as the finest in the New York GAA's history. The quality of the game was at its peak—teams were even going back to Ireland and successfully challenging sides there—the stands were full, and Gaelic Park was woven into the fabric of the Irish experience in New York. Its reputation as a hub for New York's Irish population was so deeply rooted that Robert Kennedy made it a campaign stop when he ran for United States Senate in 1964.

On Sundays, a visit to Gaelic Park was nearly as important as a visit to church. And one would usually follow the other. After morning mass, thousands would flock to the stadium and the small restaurant and bar at the corner of 240th Street known to everyone as "the shed."

"People would come to the games, go to the bar, have their dinner, and then there'd be a dance in the place," McCarthy said. "So many marriages have been made in Gaelic Park— many people will tell you they met whoever they're married to there on a Sunday."

Though the social importance of Gaelic Park has since faded, hundreds, sometimes thousands of fans still fill the bleachers on a regular basis. But more importantly for the long-term health of the sport, more and more kids are turning to Gaelic football, according to the GAA's Youth Officer, Denis Twomey.

New clubs are cropping up in Queens and Rockland County with enough players to fill age groups from under-8s to under-21s. In the Bronx, 18 teams compete below the senior division. Twomey said he thought Gaelic football might very well be the fastest growing sport in New York that no one has ever heard of. He only has to look as far as his American-born sons to recognize the game's potential here.

"They would take Gaelic football over anything. Soccer, basketball, anything," Twomey said. "Gaelic football is their love and they're keeping the tradition alive. They want that culture to be with them."

That isn't to say the Bronx's Gaelic football players haven't changed with the times or refused to adopt anything American. As they emerged from the showers on Sunday, the proud Irishmen in their home away from home were living proof.

They drank Coors Light.mod=wsj_share_email

Good to see the games doing well across the atlantic. With similar Irish populations around the world it could be an idea to stage some big inter-county matches abroad in the likes of the US, Canada, Australia and NZ. A bit like the 1947 fitba final played at the NYY stadium at the time- the polo grounds.