GAA’s united front on battlefields and hurling fields

Early on Sunday morning at Pennypack Park, about 20 minutes northeast of Philadelphia, you could still enjoy the last bits of calm before the third and final day of the North American GAA Championships really kicked into gear.

The bulk of the teams and spectators had yet to arrive so the vast swathes of parkland adjoining the Delaware River were mostly empty.

That made it all the easier to spot a unique sight: two orderly lines of hurlers walking slowly but purposefully towards the main section of the sprawling five-pitch set-up. Volunteers had cut the grass and lined the fields, pitched the tents and laid out all the paperwork, stocked the fridges and risen the flags and goal posts, all to create a temporary bastion of the GAA just outside the limits of the City of Brotherly Love.