GAA Handball

GAA Handball Ireland (Irish: Liathróid Láimhe C.L.G. na hÉireann) is the governing body for the sport of Gaelic handball in all of its codes 40x20, 60x30 Softball & Hardball and One-wall. Handball is one of the four Gaelic games organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association. Its headquarters is located in Croke Park, Dublin. There are over 200 handball clubs in Ireland.

As in the parent organisation, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), a president is elected every three years. The current president is Walter O'Connor from Meath, who took up his role at the 2011 annual congress. At GAA Handball Congress 2013, Willie Roche won the role of President-elect and will take up the role in 2014.

The national committee of GAA Handball is Ard Comhairle (the central council) on which the president sits as chairman.

During the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's, handball was very popular among the Irish republic, It was cheap, fun and easy to play but as years went by, handball lost its popularity to other GAA sports such as football and hurling and of course to "foreign" sports such as soccer and rugby. In recent times however there has been a surge in popularity of the sport, with the re-branding of the sport as GAA Handball and the ongoing promotion of the sport and especially One Wall handball by the organisation. One=wall courts have been built in many schools across Ireland following this new found popularity. In 2012 Ireland hosted the World Handball Championships in the Citywest International Events Arena in Dublin, where a multi-court complex was erected to host the greatest International Handball event in history, with over 30 countries and 2,000+ competitors in attendance. Due to the increasing popularity of One Wall handball it is hoped it will become an Olympic sport, and during the 2012 World Handball Championships a new unified International Federation for the sport worldwide was established and it is called the World Wall Ball Association (WWBA).

In late 2010, GAA Handball announced that it was to launch a new TV show on TG4 featuring highlights of the biggest competitions that were held over the last couple of months. In mid to late December of that year, TG4 premiered the first ever edition of the GAA Handball show and it was followed by a six-part series that was broadcast in January, 2011. It was a huge success and following the broadcast of the six episodes, through a new association with TG4 as GAA Handball Ireland's media partner, this has been doubled with more episodes now to come. The new series commenced on Monday 2 January 2012 with the opening 2 of the 8 episodes, and again every Monday night, on TG4 in January 2012. Further television coverage was shown on RTÉ, TG4, TV3 (Ireland) and Sky Sports for the 2012 All Ireland 40x20 Open Championships and for the 2012 World Championships. GAA Handball Ireland also regularly puts television coverage of the sport on to the video-sharing website Vimeo