'Allianz Out' protesters breach GAA security to interrupt Congress

GAA President Jarlath Burns talking to anti Allianz protesters who gained access to the Congress floor during motions. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

“Allianz Out” protesters breached security at GAA’s Annual Congress in Croke Park on Saturday.

Several of those who were part of a march from Gill’s Pub on the North Circular Road to Croke Park entered the suite on the fifth level of the Hogan Stand.

Further protesters were admitted into the room where they raised banners reading “Fermanagh Gaels Against Genocide” and “Allianz Blood Money” at the top table.

Accompanied by drums, cries of “Allianz Out”, “Allianz Amach” and “you are all complicit with genocide” were shouted at delegates.

GAA president Jarlath Burns told the protesters “you have made your point” and requested they leave before adjourning for an early lunch break to ease the tensions.

A general view of a protest march outside Croke Park in Dublin as the 2026 GAA Annual Congress was in progress. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

One protester condemned the decision by the GAA not to debate any of the motions put forward by nine counties calling for the association to end its commercial relationship with the global insurance firm. Instead, those recommendations were referred to the GAA’s management committee.

Last year, a UN-commissioned report found a subsidiary of Allianz to be complicit in the genocide in Gaza as they purchased Israeli war bonds.

Charged with reviewing the relationship with Allianz, the GAA’s ethics and integrity commission stressed Allianz plc had no direct link with “the Israeli Defence Forces or corporate entities involved in the war in Gaza”. The GAA endorsed their recommendation not to sever the relationship.

Discussing his annual report in Congress on Friday night, GAA director general Tom Ryan said he was not “going to speak about the appalling situation in Palestine. Everybody in this room is a decent and right-minded person and everybody decries those events.

“Likewise, I’m not going to speak about the merits or otherwise of Allianz as a partner, I take that for granted, everybody knows that too.” 

A GAA Congress was previously interrupted in 2011 when then GAA director general Páraic Duffy confronted members of the “Croke Park Residents Association” who had entered the room in the Mullingar Park Hotel.