Week 15: On days like this you wouldn’t know the difference between Harney’s of Dunhill and the Wolfhound Irish Pub in Itaewon

As the clock approached 1am on Sunday morning celebrations were well under way back at "the local". Players, friends and well-wishers had packed the place out to the extent that one could not move without bumping into someone as they did.

At one end of the bar players from the victorious men’s team, had formed in a circle, arms around one another, as the cup was being passed around. As it did, “I will wait” by Mumford and Sons, roared out from the speakers adding to the lively atmosphere. One by one, each player took a long satisfied swig of the cup’s contents, some of which had come from a newly opened bottle of champagne courtesy of player and bar owner Ciaran Doherty. A few steps away, members of the winning Ladies team danced jovially while others were at the bar getting in the next round of drinks.

This could easily have been a scene from my local pub back home after winning a county championship in football or hurling, in junior, intermediate or senior. I’ve been lucky enough to experience a couple of these occasions and there’s never anything quite like bringing the cup home to show off to the rest of the village. It’s one of the times when the whole community is brought together by the success and hard-work of players and management on the pitch.

This time, however, I was not in Harney’s bar back in the small rural village of Dunhill, Co. Waterford. Instead, I was in the Wolfhound Irish Pub in Itaewon, Seoul where the Seoul Gaels men’s and ladies’ teams were celebrating winning titles at the North Asia Games. Thousands of miles away, almost as far away from home as I can get, yet the parallels are still there.

Unlike at home, however, this was not just a celebration of our own club’s success but also a celebration of the GAA and Gaelic Games in North Asia as a whole. On Saturday night, opposing teams and players from Busan, Daegu, Japan and China celebrated almost as much as we did. Everyone mixed freely and had the banter together regardless of club or whether they had won or lost on the day. In the same way that county win’s strengthen the local community back home, events like this, strengthen the Irish/Expat community over here.

The event itself had run off superbly well since the very moment buses had come to collect players and bring us to the pitch at 8am that morning. Some of our members had gone to the pitch early that morning to make sure things like tents and water were all in place once the teams arrived. Some of us, once we arrived, had enough time to securely tie round pipes onto existing goalposts to make authentic looking GAA posts for the day ahead. The first game got going by 9,40am and after that there was a game every twenty minutes until we took a break around midday for two kids’ exhibition games and one hurling exhibition.

While the hurling won’t be remembered as a classic it was definitely a fiercely competitive and enjoyable encounter and it has given us momentum as we look to push on and get a team together for the Asian Gaelic Games.

The day was another scorcher and the addition of an on-site barbecue serving hamburgers, pasta salad and cans of cider made it an event everyone could enjoy. By the time it came to the cup and plate finals late in the afternoon most of us had played three or four games. Having lost the last final we had played in Shanghai, it was hugely satisfying to come out on the right side this time round when we beat Busan in a vigorously contested game.

Shortly afterwards, it was time for everyone to jump on a bus and go back into central Seoul for the banquet that evening. Held in a classy but relaxed outdoor venue at the Renaissance Hotel, in Gangnam, the food there was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend. It included BBQ ribs, chicken drumsticks, hand-rub pork, grilled spicy squid, various kinds of sausages and, to cap it all off, a spit roasted whole pig.

Once all the teams were suitably fed and MVP awards were handed out it was time to bring the cup home. Not quite back to the village for the homecoming but, it kind of felt like that, at least.