We looked at every GAA crest in the world — here’s what we found
- This article is part of our Best of 2024 collection. It was originally published in November. Find more stories like this here.
A lot of GAA logos draw on the same kinds of imagery. Of course, the crossed hurleys, the sliotar and the football are mainstays (even for clubs who don’t actively practise both codes).
Irish symbols such as the shamrock, the harp and the Celtic cross are also commonplace, as are local landmarks like churches, castles, towers and bridges, often complemented by mountains, rivers and skies.
Though many of these designs are lovely, the eye is naturally drawn to the efforts that are a bit more adventurous, unique, and, in some cases, downright curious.
Loads of GAA clubs have animals on their crests, although maybe not the animals one might expect for a native Irish sport. Cows, for example, are terribly underrepresented considering there are more cows than people on this island.
With that in mind, the crest of Cavan club Gowna is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, it has a calf on it. Secondly, it was designed by a very well-known local lad: the actor and comedian Kevin McGahern of Hardy Bucks and Dancing with the Stars fame.
The bovine may be cute and innocent-looking but, as Kevin explains, the devil is in the detail.
“I was in first year in secondary school at the time. I was always interested in drawing so my uncle Philip thought I'd be the right person to design our new crest. He told me all the elements he wanted: the red hand of Ulster, the lake, and, of course, the calf.
“The significance of the calf is related to an old legend about a demon calf jumping out of a well and chasing some poor girl across half of Cavan. Lough Gowna translates as ‘lake of the calf’.
“Anyway, I drew it up and we sent it to the printers. To be honest I'd love to have another go at it. I was very inexperienced and didn't really know anything about design at the time. But the crest does have its charm, I suppose. It may not be the fanciest but it's ours.”
Far more common than the humble Irish cow is the humble Middle Eastern camel. The expansion of Gaelic games into new territories worldwide has led to the creation of new clubs with eye-catching crests, and camels feature on the logos of teams like Kerry Middle East, Dubai Éire Óg, Abu Dhabi na Fianna, Ruwais Gaels, Kuwait Harps, and Naomh Alee Riyadh.
The Kerry Middle East design is particularly interesting. At a glance it is a carbon copy of the current Kerry GAA crest, but closer inspection reveals that the original stag and Skellig Michael have been artfully replaced by a camel and the Burj Al Arab, one of the tallest hotels in the world.
Other exotic creatures found on GAA crests around the world include the dragonfly (Jakarta Dragonflies), the elephant (Thailand), the oryx (it’s a type of antelope - Oryx na hÉireann, Qatar), the silverback gorilla (Uganda), the orangutan (Orang Éire, Malaysia), and the koala (Harps, Brisbane).
A few international clubs have a dragon or dragons on their logos - Hong Kong providing one of the more eye-catching designs - and in France, Le Mans Gaels have the Chimera, a monster from Greek mythology with two heads (one lion, one goat) and a snake for a tail.
Closer to home and a lot less terrifying, St Agnes of Belfast have a pleasant little lamb as their emblem. The Latin for lamb is ‘agnus’ and in art St Agnes is often depicted holding a lamb.
At county level, Roscommon GAA also have a sheep as part of their logo, but this resulted in controversy in 2023 when local farmers argued that the animal in question was not actually from Roscommon.
The Roscommon Sheep is a native Irish breed with a white face, while the sheep on the Rossies’ crest had a black face. The county board noted the oversight and they have since rectified matters. An amended crest with the correct breed is already being used online and will appear on the Connacht team’s new jerseys for 2025.
In Armagh, Granemore have a hare in reference to the old Irish ballad ‘The Granemore Hare’, and down in Carlow the Fighting Cocks have two roosters, although thankfully they don’t appear to be fighting in the crest. The name ‘Fighting Cocks’ derives from the bar in which the club was founded in 1928.
Many GAA clubs are named in honour of saints and Irish revolutionaries so it will come as no surprise that images of these figures appear on numerous crests. St Patrick, Pádraig Pearse and Wolfe Tone are three of the more popular individuals in this regard.
Michael Cusacks, the Clare club named after the founder of the GAA, have a brilliant and fittingly iconic design that is simply comprised of a black and white portrait of Cusack (and his magnificent beard) in an oval frame, with his name in Irish underneath.
Cú Chulainn, the heroic demigod from Irish mythology, is also a regular fixture, but a hurling club from Mayo went in a different, more sinister direction. Tooreen’s crest stars an impish cartoon devil wielding a hurley and reaching for a sliotar.
Club secretary Austin Kenny tells us why.
“Back in the 1950s, Monsignor James Horan (of Knock Airport fame) was the curate priest in Tooreen. One of his first ventures was to build a dancehall in the village. People came from all over the county to the dances and big showbands of the day played there with huge success and massive crowds. My own parents met there!
“Then, one night, the devil himself appeared and took a young lady out for a dance. His two hooves scorched an imprint on the maple dance floor before he ran out the door. If you don't believe me, Google it.” I did Google it and the story checks out. Well, the story about there being a story checks out. The incident, which supposedly took place on December 23, 1954, made national and international news with eyewitnesses claiming that a well-dressed man arrived in a big, black car, crossed the floor and danced with a girl - before doing a runner when someone noticed the hooves.
“It was said at the time - but never investigated or proven - that some of those lads who started our club in 1957 were in the dancehall the night the devil appeared,” Austin continues.
“Leading up to our 50th year, a competition was held to decide what crest would best match our history and ongoing endeavours. Kenneth Robinson, a player of ours who has since moved to Australia, came up with the design. A fearsome sight when we cross the white line.”
The famous poet and novelist Patrick Kavanagh appears on the crest of the club he served as a player, secretary and treasurer, Inniskeen Grattans of Monaghan. According to legend, while he was playing in goal for Inniskeen on one occasion Kavanagh wandered off mid-game to buy an ice cream. Perhaps the portrait of the Raglan Road writer would be more accurate if he was eating a 99.
Arguably even more famous than Kavanagh, albeit in a slightly different field, is the man who appears on the distinctive crest of the self-proclaimed “smallest GAA club in the world”, Shunde Gaels of China.
Shunde, a district in Foshan, Guangdong, is the site of the ancestral home of Bruce Lee and the local GAA team’s logo has an action shot of the martial artist/actor executing an acrobatic flying kick. It’s the kind of tackle that would surely land him in hot water with the CCCC.
Taking to the skies, Firies of Kerry are unique in having an airplane on their club crest. The Firies pitch is in Farranfore and if match-goers get bored of the football or hurling they can watch planes taking off and landing at Kerry Airport, which is located only a few fields over. Fixtures against neighbours Currow are referred to locally as ‘The Airport Derby’.
In a similar vein, Shannon Wolfe Tones’ crest is dissected by a runway with the numbers 0624 on it, a reference to the 06/24 runway at nearby Shannon Airport.
Dublin’s Ranelagh Gaels have a hot air balloon on their emblem, a nod to Richard Crosbie’s famous balloon flight from Ranelagh Gardens to Clontarf in 1785 (the first ever manned balloon flight in Ireland).
Over in the States, the logo of the Akron Celtic Guards features a blimp, a salute to the Goodyear company which was founded in the Ohio city in 1898. “Usually, at one hurling practice a year (at least), the Goodyear Blimp can be seen flying overhead,” says club secretary Coleen Taylor.
(Speaking of companies, a few club crests have product placement for an Irish brand, and it shouldn’t be difficult to guess which one. O’Neills, the official producers of GAA match balls, make the cut in the Achill crest among others.)
We are really heading down the rabbit hole now. Two clubs have half-naked women on their crests. Well, half-naked half-women. Mermaids feature on the emblems of Bray Emmets (Wicklow) and Ballyea (Clare). Emmets’ mermaid is borrowed from the town badge of Bray itself. The Ballyea mermaids apparently allude to reported sightings of the mythical aquatic creature in the area down through the years.
The blades of a wind turbine feature prominently in the crest of Crotta O'Neills which makes sense as the club is located in North Kerry where the landscape is decorated with several picturesque wind farms.
A pyramid takes pride of place on one team's emblem – and no, it’s not the Cairo Celts (they went for a pharaoh's head). The Pyramid of the Neale is a 30-foot structure in County Mayo that was built around 1760. Apparently it is architecturally categorised as a folly, i.e. a building that serves no purpose. It makes for an interesting feature on a GAA crest, if little else.
Those are all examples of club logos that are notable for what's included. What about one that's notable for what’s left out?
Na Piarsaigh of Cork have the red hand of Ulster, or at least most of it. Intentionally omitted is the thumb, which the club say symbolises the six northern counties “under foreign rule”. If/when all 32 counties of Ireland are united again, “the thumb will rejoin the fingers to create a strong, powerful, useful hand”.
In Philadelphia, the Kevin Barry club opted for a more overt brand of republicanism: two crossed rifles over a harp, accompanied by the phrase 'TIOCFAIDH ÁR LÁ'.
Ahane of Limerick proudly display a pot of potatoes on their logo, a reference to the club’s frankly excellent war cry of ‘Come on Ahane, the spuds are boiling!’
According to a book about the club’s history (which is, itself, titled after the above motto), the famous words were first uttered by the mother of the legendary hurler Mick Mackey.
“It appears her boys (Mick, Paddy and John) went practicing hurling with many neighbours after mass in Castleconnell on Sundays and to herald a halt to proceedings, Mrs Mackey would stand at the kitchen door and shout, ‘Come on Ahane, the spuds are boiling!’ to make sure her trio were on time for Sunday dinner.”
Staying in Munster, a contemporary of Mick Mackey’s, the great Christy Ring, is remembered quite poignantly on the crest of his first team, Cloyne of Cork.
Ring and his brothers left Cloyne over a dispute with the club committee and in 1941 he joined Glen Rovers. He would go on to win 14 Cork senior hurling titles with the Glen and eight All-Irelands with the Rebels, earning a reputation as one of the greatest GAA players of all time.
Writing in the in 2020, former Cloyne and Cork goalkeeper Dónal Óg Cusack revealed that the yellow star on the club’s emblem “represents Christy — but with a teardrop taken from the star to represent his leaving for whatever reason and the hope that we would always be strong enough for this to never happen again”.
Staying on the topic of mixed allegiances, Ballydesmond, a club situated on the border of Cork and Kerry, have yellow and blue versions of both the old Cork GAA and old Kerry GAA logos within their unique crest. There’s a noble attempt at keeping the peace if I ever saw one.
The fact that Ballydesmond have persevered with this version of their emblem despite the Cork and Kerry logos having long since been replaced is a fitting representation of the single biggest difference between club and county GAA crests.
While clubs continue to stick with the old, counties have embraced the new since the turn of the millennium. The vast majority of them (27 out of 32 in Ireland) redesigned their logos in the period between 2000 and 2011. This trend was largely down to commercial concerns as the new designs could be copyrighted in a way that the old ones could not.
The GAA’s own logo was also re-imagined during this time. In 2009, the triangular version that had been used since 1994 was replaced by the current stylised ‘GAA’ lettering. The ’94 to ’08 logo, which was preceded by the traditional Celtic cross design, was certainly distinguishing, although some struggled to make out what the abstract illustration was meant to represent. Legendary broadcaster Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh once said it looked like “a salmon in pain”.
Change can be a tricky thing in the GAA and it’s safe to say the newer models were not universally popular when they were first unveiled. For example, Louth brought out an updated badge in 2005 that saw the traditional Brigid’s cross playing a bit part beneath the new centrepiece, the Boyne Valley Bridge (since renamed in honour of Mary McAleese). There was just one problem: most of the bridge is actually in Co Meath.
This oversight had apparently been bothering a section of the natives for some time before the O'Raghallaighs club tabled a motion in 2009 calling for the symbol to be removed. The motion was passed, and, in January 2011, Louth GAA unveiled a new, modernised crest that was once again based on the Brigid’s cross. After that infamous Leinster final defeat of 2010, it probably felt pretty good to purge themselves of any semblance of Meath-ness.
One of the more intriguing rebrands of this era was that of Carlow GAA. In 2009 the Dolmen county took the design maxim ‘less is more’ to the extreme by commissioning a crest with the word ‘Ceatharlach’ in black text enclosed within a white circle. That’s basically it, apart from a few red, green and yellow flourishes around the left-hand perimeter. The choice of a basic, sans serif typeface (Futura Condensed) and only capitalising the first letter of the name maximises the minimalist aesthetic.
It's a matter of personal taste, of course, and maybe it’s pure nostalgia speaking, but there was a certain charm and timelessness to the pre-millennium designs, many of which were closely linked to the historic coats of arms of the counties themselves.
Two Ulster neighbours have held firm all this time and, perhaps as a direct result, theirs are two of the most iconic and recognisable crests in the GAA.
Donegal’s current logo dates back to the early 1990s with the distinctive undulating green and yellow lines said to represent the county’s picturesque hills and beaches. The hand holding a cross is taken from the O’Donnells of Tyrconnell coat of arms.
Derry’s oak leaf badge is even older. At the beginning of 1977, senior manager Frank Kearney decided that his back-to-back Ulster Championship winners needed a team outfit to wear to games and functions. After settling on rust-coloured trousers, crisp white shirts, black ties with red and white stripes, and black blazers, Derry were almost ready to arrive in style.
“However, there was a missing piece in the overall jigsaw,” Kearney said in his own written account of events, provided to me by his friend and then PRO of Derry GAA, Seán Bradley. “We needed a simple, unique, and easily recognisable link which could be absorbed into the overall need of being totally identifiable as ‘Derry’. We needed a crest for the blazer pocket.
“At that time the only such crest was that of ‘Londonderry’. The striking feature of this specific coat of arms was a pensive skeleton sitting on a rock - hardly an acceptable motif for a Derry football team! I consulted the county chairman, Dermot Devlin, and he agreed with my proposal that the meaning ‘oak grove’ from the Irish ‘Doire’ should be our central feature.
“Over some weeks, I drafted and redrafted (and redrafted again) possible outlines, seeking something simple, striking and significant. I harnessed the art skills of a colleague in St Paul's Secondary, Una Diamond (née Maloney), and we came up with a drawing showing an oak leaf cluster which we hoped would be acceptable as a new logo. Symbolic in format yet striking in its acceptability of ‘Derry-ness’, the new Derry crest had arrived.”
And it was here to stay. It first appeared on jerseys in 1980 and the design has pretty much remained untouched ever since.
Simple, striking and significant. Frank was on to something there.