HONG KONG: Hong Kong's Aberdeen stadium may be a bit smaller than Croke Park but there was no shortage of All-Ireland style passion at the 9th Asian Gaelic Football Sevens at the weekend writes Clifford Coonan in Hong Kong.
And the weather was a lot better too.
The Dubai Celts, the Beijing Fisters and the Hong Kong GAA were among the 30 teams from all over Asia battling it out against the dramatic mountainous backdrop of the stadium, in what has become a major social event for the 7,000 Irish people living in Asia.
"This is about being Irish and celebrating what it is to be Irish. This is our festival in Asia," said Fergal Power from Beaumont, who is a chartered accountant with KPMG in Hong Kong.
While the national sport is well established with Irish emigrés in places like London and New York, Asia has only recently began to take up GAA.
The games began in Manila nine years ago and have moved around every couple of years since then, to venues like Hong Kong, Singapore and Phuket.
"It's gotten bigger and bigger and has really gathered momentum. There are nearly 400 players here," says Joe Burke, a sales director at Deutsche Telekom. "There are 85 people in from Japan - half of them to play and the other half for the fun. It's gone from being a drunken weekend to being an almost unmanageable event."
Joe, from Tallaght, is one of the founding members of the Asian GAA. "This is the highest concentration of Irish people in Asia at any one time."
Marty Duffy, from Sligo, is an official referee, one of two brought over to officiate at the proceedings. "The standard is very high. The Dubai versus Korea game I refereed had a standard as high as anywhere," he says on the touchlines.
Derek Flynn from Cork, head chef at the Irish Village in Dubai, bemoans his adoptive country's defeat by Korea.
"But we'll be back. Gaelic games are flying in Dubai. We have 50 or 60 people coming out training," he says. "We get a lot of teachers and also engineers. Around 80 per cent of them are Irish but there is a mixture - US, Canada - in fact, we have a Palestinian goalkeeper."
The Keatings of Beijing - father Joe, mother Elsie, Daniella and James - were pleased with their haul as they all got medals.
While the majority of players were Irish, there were also a lot of people from other countries taking part.
"This is a very good day, it's great to see that it's not just Irish people," says Myriam Hooper, who is operations manager for IrishAbroad.com, a website for Irish expatriates which was sponsoring the event.
"We've done a lot of stuff in the US and figured it was time to move outside and come into Asia," she says.
One member of the foreign legion, Mick Connor from Melbourne, is playing for Dubai at his first Asian Games.
The logistics manager works for DHL in Afghanistan and he says he would more than happy to set up a team there.
"This is great. Most of my travels have been related to Gaelic football because of the people I've met playing it. I've been playing GAA for seven years - though it was good to see the Aussie rules team come on," he says.
The games serve a useful function of providing a social network for the Irish community in Asia, according to Peter Ryan from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
"It's a fantastic way of bringing the community together," he says. "The Irish community is not as long established in Asia as it is in other parts of the world, so we have to do it and the network is amazing.
"If you're 23 years of age, straight out of college then you arrive in Korea or whatever, you have a great support network in your GAA club," he adds.
Korea won the men's title for the third year in a row and Hong Kong's women made the most of their home advantage to win the women's cup.