WHEN Laochra Loch Lao formed eight years ago the fledgling GAA club faced many challenges.
Previously members had come together at senior level to compete in Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta, the annual all-Ireland football competition contested by clubs from Gaeltacht areas. But after the competition would end the players would head back to their own GAA clubs in Belfast.
Those behind the club, however, harboured ambitions to form a new Irish speaking GAA club that would help support and develop the growth of Irish language in the community but for that to happen the club would have to have teams at all age levels competing in the Antrim football leagues. Easier said than done.
Yet today Laochra Loch Lao have over 400 members of all ages since constituting as a full GAA club in 2017 and the club have ambitious plans to grow even further.
Last year, along with Dublin Irish speaking GAA club, Na Gaeil Óga, Laochra Loch Lao received significant funding from the Irish government, which has enabled it to employ two full-time development officers to help Laochra progress on the field and off it.
Bríd Nig Aoidh and Damien Mac Callín have just taken up their new roles and are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.
Reflecting on the club’s journey, Damien says that while it was difficult and challenging for those early pioneers who left the clubs that they and their families had been associated with down through the years to help form Belfast's first Irish speaking GAA club, Laochra Loch Lao has forged its own identity and is growing exponentially at underage level.
“While the club started out with a senior team the club has grown now to a point where we have two senior teams, the LGFA team and the men’s team, and below that our oldest juvenile team is under-16 and we have teams all the way down after that,” he said.
Minister for State Thomas Byrne TD with CLG Laochra Loch Lao players, coaches and members at West Belfast’s Spórtlann na hÉireann at the launch of the Irish language support scheme
As a Johnnies man, Damien started his new role a month ago with Laochra and says he has watched the growth of Laochra Loch Lao from the outside looking in and has seen how teams that may have struggled at the start have become more competitive over time.
“Laochra are making progress year on year,” he says. “Now we’ve got boys and girls teams coming up through all the ages. The welcome and the acceptance that I’ve received coming into the club has been fantastic and I’m really excited about the potential.”
As Club and Games Development Manager, Damien says that part of the club’s new development plan will look at the possibility of expanding into hurling, camogie and handball.
Bríd is two months into her job as Community Outreach Officer.
“Damien deals mostly with the actual teams and sports themselves and how to develop the coaches, the players and the teams to reach their potential, whereas I’m more on the community side of things,” she says. “Outside of sport, I suppose, with every GAA club there is a community around them and a family kind of feeling and Laochra have a disadvantage of being a new team in such a saturated area in Belfast where there are so many GAA clubs around them, so my role is to build that community feeling around Laochra, so that people can feel that they can be part of Laochra without necessarily having to play sports as well.
“Like any other GAA club there are members outside of the players. There has been immense work done on that already but because it is such a unique club because it is Irish speaking, which is an advantage and a disadvantage, sometimes people look at Laochra and think that you have to be fluent in Irish in order to become a member of the club, whereas in actual fact a lot of the parents whose kids play for Laochra don’t speak Irish or may have a little bit of Irish and they’re part of the team and they’re part of the community.
“So, it’s trying to show that outside of the sport there is a place for everyone, just like any other GAA club but they have the added difficulty of being a new club and being a full Irish speaking club.
“I’m also trying to make available more events for people during the year, so we’ll be rowing out a calendar year of events.”
Bríd says that normalising Irish as an everyday language helps the children who play for Laochra develop their language skills which further develops their education through the language at school.
“It’s something that the children are proud of that they can speak Irish and play football at the same time,” she says.
Increasing the membership of the club is Damien and Bríd's main goal; not only players and coaches but people wanting to be part of the community of Laochra Loch Lao. When the underage players start making it into the senior team, then the club will know that the hard work has paid off. Down the line Laochra have ambitions to own their own pitches, changing rooms and clubhouse, and of course bringing the Comórtas na Gaeltachta to Belfast.
Since its formation in 2017 the club has made tremendous strides on and off the pitch. With Bríd and Damien taking up their new roles, Laochra Loch Lao have every chance of reaching their ambitious goals.
