With the emergence that the annual financial cost of a Connacht team visiting New York to kickstart the provincial championship amount to €250,000, there is every likelihood that the current structure will come to an end when the present agreement runs out after the ‘26 campaign
While both the GAA in Ireland and locally through chairman Seán Price understand the historic, cultural and social links of those championship encounters, there is also the realization that maybe there is a better way to strengthen the link and make it all more viable as well.
After beating Leitrim two years ago, it gave New York a massive lift but after Galway’s win this summer and Division One side Roscommon due to make the trip in ‘26, it is hard to see anything other than a huge expense for either the traveling Irish or the NYGAA if there was an extended agreement.
So how can change come about to embrace the exiles while also making a game or maybe two games on successive Sunday more financially appealing while also giving Irish people in the Big Apple a few occasions to meet up at Gaelic Park?
In an interview with RTE’s Damien Lawlor, the New York Chairman has suggested a more meaningful clash might be with the Tailteann Cup winners who come from Division 3 or 4 of the current National League structure.
If the GAA x 2 were to go down that road, then it would give the NY team a much better chance - Leitrim and Sligo oscillate between Div 3 and 4 for instance - than if they are facing Galway or Roscommon who invariably are Div 1 teams.
Such a chance would make the Gaelic Park game more interesting but it could also lead to greater expense. What if New York began to win such encounters regularly? Their reward would be another championship match but either in Ireland or New York, that could double the current cost of staging the one-off event.
New York, quite rightly, wants to continue the championship link - in older days it was in the league with the home final and then New York was brought in, winning twice in the 1960s when powered by the Nolan brothers Peter and Willie among many other great names.
That was then, but now there are also the Trump problems, which might mean that New York players might fear traveling home in case they can’t get back in. As a side issue, a friend of mine was grilled for an hour in Dublin by the U.S. authorities before finally being allowed in to participate in a medical conference - yes, that is the level of examination currently going on.
So the reality of change must be practical as well and because of the above example, the most likely outcome of a win over Tailteann Cup winners would be a second visit to Gaelic Park by an Irish county.
Such a review comes after next year the agreement between Connacht and the Exiles is up and which appears to be under a major threat of not continuing.
A quarter of a million euro is a big undertaking at one level but New York always has been and hopefully will remain a golden link across the Atlantic both for people in Ireland and for those who have emigrated and are now raising families in the city but want to keep and hand down their Irish traditions to the next generation.
Past GAA President Larry McCarthy and Jarlath Burns, the incumbent, are both very pro keeping the link going - and for the record so am I, and I will add that €250,000 may seem a big amount but in the context of a weekend of Irish-Irish American culture and gatherings, it should never be the reason such an important event is dropped.
Which is why I propose the Department of Foreign Affairs, Bord Failte and every other Irish back institution on U.S. soil should use the Gaelic Park venue and fixture for an economic gathering which would be backed by the Irish government — a sort of New York version of St Patrick’s Day in Washington.
Imagine that week as one of green gathering of economic, travel, social and personal information which could become invaluable and could be highlighted if we had a man with GAA blood as President presiding over the first annual NY GAA Business week gathering in April or May 2027.
All conjecture I know but why not set up an ideas committee on a Price-Burns axis and immediately sit down with Diaspora Minister Neale Richmond to study the feasibility of this coming to pass?
That’s my tuppence worth and below is what Sean Price said to Damien on RTE last week: “Jarlath was out here in March and marched up Fifth Avenue in the parade and he sees what we're trying to do. We're trying to keep it alive.
“The first page in the official guide is centered on preservation and promotion and this fixture is absolutely crucial to us in terms of Gaelic games and our culture.
“New York is a hotbed of immigration for the Irish and has been for 200 years, maybe even longer. So, I applaud Jarlath's thinking on this."
“Anything will be explored. Is it possible it could be the Tailteann winners that we might face? That would definitely give us a better focus. I don't know - the structure and fit would have to be looked at. I mean we're very happy with the current arrangement and we feel it's a good fit for us.
“So we would look at the financial side of it. Nobody sends home more teams to play games than us, from Feile to junior to senior in both codes and we know all about the travel and the hotels and the buses.
“We'd love to explore ideas with visiting teams because if they're spending €250,000 to come out here that's way too much money. That's definitely not sustainable and we could help them save €50,000 to €70,000. We just want to keep going. We want to try and do it right. And we want to stay involved.”
On the proposition of an annual clash with the All Ireland champions instead of the Tailteann Cup winners, the NY GAA supremo asked: "Is it ideal? I suppose it isn't. It feels good and sounds good, but it would be tough on players here to motivate them.
“The other side is to take Kerry as current champions and wouldn't it be great to see David and Paudie Clifford, Seanie O’Shea and everybody else in action? Imagine what that would do for the young kids of New York GAA?
“Another thing I would say is that if counties feel they’re spending too much money and maybe don't want to come out, we have to try and think of something to help and also keep us alive here. We've a development going on (Gaelic Park) and that annual game is a big economic driver for us. We had Galway this year with a crowd of 6,300 between everybody that was in the ground. That's a massive day for the Irish, and it brings the diaspora together,” he emphasized.
