Irish Life has announced an extension to its partnership with the GAA Healthy Clubs programme, deepening a long-standing relationship that brings health awareness, support and opportunities to communities around Ireland.
The new partnership will run for four years and will facilitate up to 400 additional clubs in joining the innovative and impactful Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs programme. The new announcement extends Irish Life’s support of the GAA Healthy Clubs to over ten years, bringing Irish Life’s total investment to over €3.5 million.
Since launching as a small pilot involving just 16 clubs in 2013, Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs has to-date engaged 300 clubs and tens of thousands of participants. Thanks to Irish Life’s extended partnership, an additional 175 clubs will commence their Healthy Club journey in February 2022 while a further 200 clubs will join the growing movement in January 2024. The goal is for all GAA clubs to become Healthy Clubs.
Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs work with their members and communities to identify priority activities to deliver. The most common themes include physical activity and social Gaelic Games; mental health; healthy eating; diversity and inclusion; working with older members of the community; youth leadership; gambling, drug and alcohol awareness; becoming smoke-free clubs; and sustainability (Green Clubs).
The Irish Life Healthy Clubs gained significant visibility during the pandemic. Due to the structures that they had already implemented, Healthy Clubs were amongst the first GAA clubs to coordinate the delivery of vital essential supplies to those forced to self-isolate during the first lockdown.
Two Irish Life Healthy Clubs Steps Challenges (in June 2020 and January/February 2021) also provided 40,000 participants across 700 GAA clubs with a fun-focused way to stay active and connected while our population was locked down. Collectively, they recorded over 7.7 billion steps.
Commenting on the partnership, Larry McCarthy, President of GAA, said: “Irish Life has been a valued partner to the GAA for many years, so I am thrilled to announce the extension of this long-standing and impactful relationship. Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs supports our clubs in becoming hubs for health, while ensuring that as many people as possible from their local community benefit from their diverse Healthy Club activities. As a community-based, volunteer led association, this is a major priority for the GAA, and the levels of engagement we have achieved to-date simply wouldn’t have been possible without Irish Life.”
Speaking at the announcement of Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs partnership, Declan Bolger, CEO Irish Life, said: “At Irish Life, we help people build better futures, so we are extremely pleased to be extending our relationship with the GAA Healthy Clubs. Having been involved with the Healthy Clubs since 2015, we know that the entire community benefits when a local club is provided with the skills, information and guidance to improve health. We’ve seen this programme go from strength to strength since our initial involvement, and I’m really excited to see how the programme develops in the coming year as we move towards almost 500 clubs across the country engaged in Healthy Clubs.“
Niamh O’Sullivan, All Ireland senior football championship winner with Meath in 2021 and member of the Dunshaughlin & Royal Gaels club, said: “I’m delighted that our club will participate in the Healthy Clubs programme in 2022. Our Healthy Club officer Eadaoin Slattery has done great work in readying the club for participation. Our work with older members of the community is something we’re particularly proud of and that really came to the fore during the pandemic as our members rallied around those forced to isolate during the lockdowns. The Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge was also a great way of staying active and connected when our games programmes were forced to stop.”
Also speaking of his involvement with the GAA Healthy Clubs, William O’Donoghue, Na Piarsaigh GAA Club in Limerick, said: “While we’ve been fortunate to have experienced great success in recent years on the field, the Healthy Club project has ensured we’ve remained mindful of our wider membership and community too. We’ve had huge crowds attend talks by the likes of Oisin McConville and Conor Cusack on gambling awareness, and mental health and wellbeing. A Healthy Club strives to support its members both on and off the field of play.”
About Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs:
The Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs programme assists GAA clubs in supporting the holistic health of their members and the communities they serve. It is delivered in partnership with the HSE, the National Office for Suicide Prevention, and is an official programme of Healthy Ireland’s. It is also supported by the PHA in Northern Ireland.
Started in 2013 as a pilot involving just 16 clubs (four from each province), as of 2022 it will have engaged 475 clubs, including numerous clubs from each county and a small number of international units. Their Healthy Club Officers and project teams receive training based on the World Health Organisation’s setting approach to health promotion. They then engage with their members and communities to identify priority action areas during their 18-month journey towards accreditation as an official ‘Healthy Club’. The most common themes include:
- Physical activity for non-playing members (such as walking groups) and GAA social games (such as Gaelic for Mothers & Others, GAA for Dads & Lads, or Social Rounders, Handball or Camogie)
- Mental health and emotional wellbeing
- Gambling, drug, and alcohol awareness, including becoming smoke-free clubs (50% of participating clubs have to date become smoke- and vape-free clubs)
- Diversity and inclusion, with inclusive camps/games opportunities for persons with additional needs proving particularly popular along with the engagement of other minority groups
- Sustainability, under the new GAA Green Clubs programme
- Supporting older members of the community and youth leadership initiatives
- Healthy Eating
- Community and personal development
To date, tens of thousands of participants have been engaged through the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs programme. Two independent evaluations by Waterford IT’s Centre for Health Behaviour Research has endorsed the efficacy of the model as a vehicle to deliver community-based health promotion. With the support of Irish Life’s funding, the GAA will in 2022/23 undertake a Social Return on Investment evaluation of the Healthy Clubs programme.