How Gaelic football became a fixture on Seoul's amateur sports scene

Two decades after Irish expats launched Korea's first Gaelic football club, about half of its members are non-Irish. And the club has been a fixture in Seoul for amateur women's sports.

Seoul Gaels women compete at a tournament in Jeju in November 2023. [TOM COYNER]

The 2002 FIFA World Cup is remembered as being a breakthrough moment for Korea, who defeated heavyweights Italy and Spain en route to the semifinals, and for cementing football as one of Korea's most played and followed team sports.

A round of 16 game between Ireland and Spain brought tens of thousands of Irish football fans to Suwon, Gyeonggi, and some would return to Korea as expats in an English-teacher boom. Expats brought with them their beloved sport, Gaelic football, opening their first club in 2002 — so goes the Gaelic-in-Korea lore, according to multiple long-time members of the Seoul Gaels, Korea's oldest Gaelic football team.

Now, the club holds twice-weekly practices around southern Seoul, one on a weekday morning and another on a weekend, and is gearing up for the North Asian Gaelic Games, set to be held in Jeju in May.

Kim Na-na, who grew up in Jeju, stumbled into Gaelic about a decade ago. She had wanted to play football, the Premier League kind — she’s a longtime Manchester United fan — but said she struggled to find a women's club.

So, when she saw a flier for Gaelic football practice in Seoul, open to women and players of all skill levels, at a Moroccan restaurant in Haebangchon, she decided to turn up, alone.

“It was kind of scary because I’m not really extrovert person and then my English wasn’t perfect,” Kim said. “I remember there was only one or two Koreans there and then mainly Irish people and some Americans.”

Ten years later, Kim is a fixture at the Seoul Gaels and regularly travels with the women’s team to compete at international tournaments in Asia and Ireland.

“They really welcomed me,” Kim, now 37, said. “I had no expectation for myself, but everyone really encouraged me.”

Seoul Gaels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kim Na-na, center in the middle row, cheers alongside her teammates. [TOM COYNER]

According to Michelle Winthrop, Ireland’s Ambassador to Korea, that’s embedded within Gaelic football — an exclusively amateur sport in which no players nor coaches, even at the highest level, are paid.

“They take it seriously, of course they do. But the ethos is very much about encouragement and about belonging. If you turn up, and you pull on your shorts and your boots, nobody cares about how terrible you are,” Winthrop said.

Everyone plays and contributes to the game despite their skill level, said Brian Keane, who plays for the men’s B team and volunteers as club treasurer.

“There’s a bit of physicality, but it’s not very physical, it’s not dangerous,” Keane said, adding that all the different elements within Gaelic football — catching, kicking, bouncing, running and passing — make the sport attractive to a lot of people.

Non-Irish players on the women’s side of the Seoul Gaels, like Kim, now outnumber Irish players, more than two decades after their founding.

“There’s something really powerful about that gender thing,” Winthrop said. “And, as you know, in Korea, gender issues are difficult. And if we give a small number of women an outlet and a way to be themselves and express themselves and make new friends and be a bit more connected, happy days, right?”

Established women’s football clubs in Korea haven’t always been welcoming to beginners, according to Lee Jung-woo, a sports sociologist who studied the role of Gaelic football in Korea’s Irish expat community.

Gaelic football’s emphasis on introducing the sport to new people stood in stark contrast to that, Lee said.

“The Gaelic football club... intended to promote the Gaelic football sport anyway. So whenever a few women contacted them, they are more willing to teach them how to play,” said Lee, who is also a program director and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education and Sport.

Kim said she now structures her schedule around football practice and tournament schedules.

“Since I started Gaelic football, life has been changed in a good way. I take care of myself, even if not on the pitch. I just want to play better on the pitch. That’s why I care about myself by running and eating or drinking a lot of water,” Kim said.

And it's also expanded her community, she said.

“I’m from Jeju, so I’m kind of, not abroad, but it’s not my hometown. So it’s kind of tricky to meet new people,” Kim said, adding that it was more difficult to make friends at work than in high school or college. “Sometimes I lost myself in community, or society, but Seoul Gaels is one of the place I can feel I belong somewhere.

“I think Seoul Gaels changed my life, actually.”

Although the number of Korean players on the Gaels, especially on the women’s side, has grown since the club was established in 2002, there are only a few Korean men. Plus, some Seoul Gaels trainings take place on weekday mornings, which can be difficult for people who work 9-to-6 office jobs to join.

“It’s definitely something we want to improve on,” said Keane, adding that recruiting more Korean players has been a priority.

A member of the Seoul Gaels men's side, center, breaks through on the pitch. [TOM COYNER]

The Gaels have been intentional about introducing Korean culture to the players, Kim said, through food and even a volunteer trip to a chestnut farm. Before Covid, there were a lot of Irish people in the club. But after Covid, it’s become a lot more international — especially for the women, Kim said.

Language barriers can make it difficult for foreigner-oriented clubs to hold practices in Korea, said Lee, the University of Edinburgh sports sociologist.

In order to freely use sports facilities in Korea, a club must be registered with the Korea sports council, Lee said. But many international clubs lack Korean speakers, which he thinks is one of the reasons why international sports clubs struggle to integrate into the Korean sports system.

“They speak Korean, but sometimes it’s not enough to order something or just communicate with other organization,” Kim said, referring to club leadership. “I always help them. I know it’s not easy for them. But they try their best, and they ask me if I can help. I always help.”

Kim said one of the highlights since joining the club was traveling to Ireland in 2019 to compete at the World Games on a women's team representing Asia, including with players from Japan.

“In Asia, in Japan and Korea is always enemy," Kim said. “Everyone in my club, they know I hate Japan, and they making fun of me, like, Na-na, are you even going to pass to the Japanese girls?”

While Kim said she was worried about the dynamic at first, there were no issues on the pitch. And though they had never played together before, it was obvious who was representing Asia.

“We didn’t win any game at all, but we are very emotional,” said Kim. “Can you imagine, the Asian girls, like, almost 40, we played sports in Ireland with another country’s girls? So it was an amazing experience for me.”

They were reunited last year at the 2023 World Games and won one game, which was their goal, Kim said.

Keeping alive a Gaelic football club, run solely by volunteers, has come with challenges, too.

“Seoul Gaels has been here for 20 years. And it’s a big enough club and it’s successful enough in Asia; people kind of take it for granted,” Keane, the club treasurer, said. “It’s like, ‘Ah, there’ll always be a Seoul Gaels,’ But it’s not necessarily true.”

Early members of the Seoul Gaels pose with a flag. [TOM COYNER]

The Seoul club was hit hard by the pandemic as people stayed home and practices became harder to organize.

Keane said he watched the club in Daegu, the Daegu Fianna, and other clubs around Seoul disappear as their numbers began to dip. A club needs volunteers to run it and people to actually play the sport, he said.

“Something like this is worth preserving, but it can go," Keane said.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]