On the eve of yesterday's semi-final football game between Cork and Kerry, the GAA presented six members of the Killarney asylum community with coveted match tickets.
The tickets were made available at the instigation of Father Michael Fleming, parish priest of Killarney, and were raffled among the three Killarney hostels housing asylum-seekers.
"We've distributed them fairly between gender and nationality," said Mr Eugene O'Shea, owner of the Bunrower hostel, which caters for 16 asylum-seekers.
He described the gesture as a wonderful attempt at integration.
Asylum-seekers from Russia, Yemen, Armenia, Romania, Algeria and Nigeria joined the crowd of 40,000 at the biggest sporting occasion of the year in Killarney.
For the first time, tickets were colour-coded with green for Kerry, red for Cork and blue for neutral. "They're not too worried about the colour. They are delighted and excited to go to the match," Mr Mike Galligan, a Cork man, said.
Mr Galligan was speaking on behalf of asylum-seekers housed in the Park Place Hotel, once the headquarters of the Kerry team in Killarney and now home to 45 asylum-seekers.
Gardai in Killarney reported no trouble in the run-up to the match. About 120 gardai, including two members of the mounted unit, were on duty and a tight security operation was in place to prevent any repetition of the riot which marred the Rally of the Lakes in April.