BY DAIRE WALSH
IT will be all hands on deck for the Barcelona Gaels club later on today as they take part in historic events at both home and abroad.
In UPMC Nowlan Park at 12 noon, the Barcelona men’s team will take on Kilkenny champions Conahy Shamrocks in round one of the Leinster junior club football championship and will, as a result, become the first side from Iberia to feature in the competition. It is also set to be a big day for them on the LGFA front with over 200 women making the journey over to the Spanish city to participate in a Gaelic4Mothers&Others festival that is being hosted by Barcelona Gaels.
In addition to being the first of its kind to be organised by an Iberian club, this Mothers & Others extravaganza is also predicted to be the biggest in Europe owing to the sheer amount of people that will be in attendance. A member of Barcelona Gaels since arriving in the city last November, Mayo woman Brid Murphy is one of a number of players from the ladies section who will be helping to ensure today’s festival runs as smoothly as possible.
“It’s actually amazing to think that there is a team in Spain and we’re competing in the Leinster championship. Then we’re hosting clubs from nine different counties here also. Gaelic football is well and truly on the map here in Spain, for sure,” Murphy remarked.
“With the organising [for the Gaelic4Mothers&Others festival], it’s all broken up. Obviously the men are away, so it’s all the ladies teams. I think there are maybe 30 or 40 of us volunteering for the day and obviously we’ll look after them for the weekend as well.
“We have broken it up into referees and then we have people with the jerseys. We have linesmen, we have umpires and then we have refreshments. The usual what you’d get at home, it’s the same here. Everyone has a job and if you don’t have a job, you’ll be given a job!”
Due to her job with Irish company Mercury Engineering – who she started working with in 2022 — Murphy has found herself travelling around Europe in recent times. She previously served as construction manager on a complex data centre project in Brussels and joined forces with the Belgium GAA club during this period.
Murphy’s spell in Brussels lasted for 18 months and upon touching down in Spain for the latest strand of her work with Mercury, she quickly linked up with another overseas outfit in Barcelona Gaels.
“I work in construction, we build data centres around Europe. That is why I was in Brussels for a year and a half. I lived there building a data centre and then I got sent here, building another data centre. I travel around Europe with Mercury, just being sent wherever I’m required essentially.
“I moved here on a Sunday and I was at training on a Wednesday. I was like ‘feck this, I need to get involved with a team asap or I’ll go stir crazy!’ I went down to training of a Wednesday night. We train at a university on a Wednesday and there was 30 girls there. I couldn’t believe it. Of a Wednesday in the middle of Barcelona.
“You’d hardly get 30 girls at my club training back home in Mayo. It would have been unheard of, because there wouldn’t have been 30 girls. Here, 30 is the lowest number. We could have 35 to 40 girls some nights or some mornings of a Sunday.”
Even before working with her current employers, Murphy was already used to being based away from home. Back in 2016, she took up employment as a quantity surveyor with the JRL Group – a construction firm in London that is owned by her fellow Mayo native John Reddington.
This led to Murphy transferring from her home club of Cill Chomáin to Thomas McCurtains in Ilford and having previously represented Mayo at virtually all grades, she was subsequently called up to the London county panel.
Playing alongside current green and red attacker Lisa Cafferky, she featured on the Exiles side that lost out to Limerick in a TG4 All-Ireland junior football championship semi-final in 2018 before also appearing in a defeat to Fermanagh at the same level of the competition 12 months later.
“Lisa, she was actually a good friend of mine when I moved to London because both of our sisters at the same time were playing for Mayo. We had another connection there and obviously we have played against each other at club level at home as well.
“I just moved to London and I said ‘feck it, I’ll see how I get on in London and just join McCurtains’. I went from there and I started playing for the London county team. We were back and forth to Ireland playing in the junior championship for the guts of the six or seven years I was there.”
A part of the Mayo set-up at the same time as Brid was donning the London colours, Murphy’s sister Sorcha is also playing Gaelic football overseas at the moment with Zurich Inneoin. While it is some time since she lined out for Cill Chomáin, Brid still keeps an eye on the development of the club and will be hoping their men’s side can get over the line in their Mayo junior football championship final replay against Bonniconlon later on today.
Despite very much being a part of the Barcelona and Zurich GAA communities as it stands, Murphy and her sibling fully intend to make a return to their local club at some point in the future.
“Before these boots are getting hung up, I’m putting that black and white on one more time. 100%. My sister and myself said we would. Whether it be in the Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta, which we’re going to have in Cill Chomáin in a few years’ time,” Murphy added.
“I’ll be old then, but I’ll try and dust off the boots and get togged out for the club. Because it will be the first time the Comórtas Peile will have been in Cill Chomáin. Hopefully I’ll still be going at that stage!”
Bríd in action for London against Olivia Giltenane of Limerick during the TG4 All-Ireland Junior Championship semi-final at Mallow GAA Sports Complex in Mallow (Photo by Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile)
