San Antonio Gaelic Athletic Club

San Antonio Gaelic Athletic Club (Irish: Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Naomh Antaine) known as The San Patricios is a Gaelic Athletic Association club in San Antonio, Texas and a member of the North American GAA since 2012. Currently the club has a men's Gaelic Football team, and a ladies' football team. Their club badge features the Alamo, as well as the San Antonio Riverwalk. The SAGAC is registered with the State of Texas as a Domestic Nonprofit Corporation.^[1][2]

History

San Antonio Gaelic Athletic Club (Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Naomh Antaine), or the San Patricios was formed in San Antonio, Texas in 2011. The SAGAC was conceived as an idea by a group of individuals, and was birthed as San Antonio’s first gaelic football team. The group sought to reconnect to the land of their ancestry, to celebrate the sport and traditions of the Irish culture and to foster a community that would keep those traditions alive.

Now, coming into its third year, the SAGAC has grown into a vibrant, diverse family of over fifty members. The men’s football team competes in the Texas League, along with clubs from Dallas, Austin and Houston. Two-thousand and twelve, marked the SAGAC’s first trip to the NAGAA National Tournament in Philadelphia, PA. Once there, they competed against teams from all over the country en route to winning the Junior D Shield and earning the team notice and respect among Irish-born and American players alike. Three of the SAGAC ladies who joined with fellow Texan team, Dallas, were also able to compete and come out victorious in Philadelphia. Two-thousand and thirteen, saw the SAGAC return to the NAGAA National Tournament. A traveling team of seventeen members traveled to Cleveland to compete and represent San Antonio. As the new season approaches, the SAGAC plans to expand its women’s football team so that San Antonio may field a team of its own as well as start a men’s hurling team.

The SAGAC has become active in San Antonio’s Irish community, often partnering with organizations such as the Harp & Shamrock, the Irish Cultural Society and the Ancient Order of Hibernians Columkille Division 1 (AOH) as well as the Highland Games, working toward the common goal of spreading the Irish culture. The past year also saw the success of the 2nd Annual SAGAC Celtic Crawl 5K Run/Walk as well as the 2nd Annual SAGAC Golf Tournament. With the continued support and corporate sponsorship of The Lion & Rose Restaurant & Pub and GLI Distributing, the SAGAC looks forward to accomplishing even more this year.

This season, the Club is also rolling out its new nickname, the San Patricios. A name the seeks to celebrate and honor the complex, intertwined histories and cultures of Ireland, Texas and Mexico.The SAGAC is actively looking to recruit new players, supporters, and sponsors of all experience, backgrounds and diversities. Whether you’re looking to get fit, get into an exciting competitive sport, volunteer your talents and time, or just to enjoy the craic, all are welcome.^[3]

Maybe we heeded to a familiar call, a call across miles and continents and lives before now disconnected. A call that reached out to men and women who hungered not only for life but connection to their roots, their history; that ancient echo of ancestors that follows each one of us. That echo that imbues our soul with the thirst for community and understanding. Most of all, that echo reminds us that we too, are of this earth, and as such we are made to commune with it, to irrigate it with our sweat and blood and tears. We honor those that went before and those that will come after. We stand together. Under this banner, this name, we invite you to join us.

San Antonio Gaelic Athletic Club Kit

Uniform

The team kit itself is keeping in touch with Texan roots with its team colors, taken directly from the sky blue found on two of the earliest Texas flags of independence:^[2] The "Scott's Flag of the Liberal Faction" and the "Goliad Flag". One of the founding fathers of Texas, Captain William Scott of Kentucky, raised a company of men under this banner to fight for the independence of Texas from the Centralista dictatorship of Mexico. Those men marched to Gonzales to join Austin's Texian Federal Army, where the sky blue flag would later be flown at the battles of Goliad, the Battle of Bexar, and to San Felipe where the Goliad Declaration was delivered. The sky blue on the team's jersey is also reminiscent of the "Goliad Flag" made by founding mother Johanna Troutman of Knoxville, Georgia. “Texas and Liberty” was inscribed on one side and a Latin inscription “Ubi, libertas habitat, ibi nostra patria est” (“Where liberty dwells, there is my country”) was also inscribed on the other.

The green found on the jersey represents the country that created Gaelic football, Ireland. The Irish themselves have a connection to the Republic of Texas. Of the signers of the Goliad Declaration, twenty-five were native-born Irish, and of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, there were four.

Website and Social Media

The official website of the SAGAC is www.sanantoniogac.org.^[4] The SAGAC can be found on Facebook by visiting www.sagac.org. The SAGAC football team also has a fan blog by Jason Binkley, and can be found at http://heftytackle.com on Twitter at SanAntonioGAC and Instagram at sanantoniogac

Sponsors

The Executive Club Sponsor of the SAGAC is the Lion and Rose Restaurant and Pub.^[5] GLI the distributor of Guinness and Harp Lager have become major sponsors as of fall 2012^[6]

The Irish Cultural Society of San Antonio, Ancient Order of Hibernians Columkille Division 1, and The Harp & Shamrock Society of Texas, all San Antonio Irish organizations have all been long time supporters and partners of the SAGAC. This year (2014), that will be commemorated as their crests will be added the 2014 SAGAC San Patricio Jerseys.

Pub League

In September 2011 the Lion and Rose Restaurant and Pub officially announced its decision to become the Sponsor of the SAGAC Pub League.^[7] The SAGAC had made plans to follow in the footsteps of the Dallas GAA Team, "Fionn McCumhaill's Gaa Dallas" by creating a Pub League to help promote the Gaelic Football and increase the amount of competitive play time for each member. The SAGAC announced that the two teams of the inaugural Pub League would be named "The San Patricios" (named after the St. Patrick's Battalion of the Mexican American War) and the "Irish Citizen Army" named after James Connolly's Socialist Revolutionaries.

Active Roster

As of February 2014, the SAGAC has 58 men & women on their active roster (those who have played in either a National Tournament, Texas League or Pub League game). The Club is managed by Adrian Brett.

References