Daniel Burke (centre) with Sean Farrell and his dad Tony Burke at the International Awards
Daniel awarded GAA international award
THE GAA President’s awards took place at the end of January with Drimnagh man Daniel Burke being awarded the International Award for his work with Viet Celts GAA based in Hanoi, Vietnam.
A native of Drimnagh, Burke was involved with Good Counsel Liffey Gaels as a youth and was also a prevalent member of the Bosco Youth Centre and eventually becoming chairman of a local youth club.
Burke started working with the club after arriving in Vietnam in 2017 and in the near decade that he has been with the club has transformed Viet Celts, the youth section in particular with the club now boasting hundreds of members.
Burke has had to overcome adversity throughout this journey, from the very first training session with just six children held once a week to keeping the programme alive during Covid, to the current day where he teaches Gaelic Football to children seven days a week and is involved with the Adult Ladies team as well as setting up teams in other areas of Vietnam such as Ninh Binh, some 90km away from Hanoi.
“Before I even went there I looked up all the clubs in Asia and saw the Viet Celts.
‘Within a week of being there I was already training with them and just felt like I was fitting in already.
‘When I went over a good training session would have been between 16-20 people, now we could get up to 80 on a good weekend for an adult session and for the kids sessions we could get up to 150 kids playing”.
Under Burke’s eye the club has expanded massively over the past decade which is in part due to their relationships with local schools in Hanoi which sees Vietnamese children picking up the sport without having any sort of Irish connection linking them.
Burke estimates that it could be almost 90% of the children involved in the club are Vietnamese.
2026 is set to be another big year for the club with the Adult teams set to play in a tournament in Ho Chi Minh at the end of the month and a trip to Malaysia in the works to play in the South Asian Games where Burke hopes to expand the game even further.
“For the kids I try to organise as many matches as possible so I’m hoping to bring them to either Singapore or Malaysia.
‘Malaysia are just starting off their kids program and are finding it difficult to attract players and that kind of thing. We want them to gather a bit of momentum so a trip would be something for our kids to look forward to as well as something for Malaysia to aim for.”
