How WIT Vikings GAA came to be?

The Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) Vikings GAA club was formed in 1981 by a dedicated committee within the Institute. In the beginning if you want to be strictly and unswerving-ling accurate, the early days was chaos! No hurleys, no jerseys and only a couple of sliotars that had to be kept and dried out after every training session and match! Difficult to believe now, but that was the prevailing climate during the formative years of the then WRTC GAA club. In 1981, the club consisted of just one Hurling team playing in Division 3. In 1982 in order to assist with the clubs development the committee decided to employ a Development Officer. The club was the first in Ireland to do this and it came in the form of Colm Bonnar who is the current Carlow Senior Hurling Manager.

Today under the guidance of WIT Novus, the GAA club continues to grow and develop, and currently fields 18 teams across 23 different competitions throughout the five codes. Our teams all compete at a high level in their respective competitions and have tasted great success down through the years. In total WIT have won a total of 105 titles, including Division 1 Hurling titles, Fitzgibbon Cups, Fresher 1 and Fresher 2 All-Irelands, Ashbourne Cups, Purcell Cups, Division 1 Leagues and numerous Men’s and Ladies Football titles. In fact since its foundation, the club has won at least one major title every year. Recent successes include winning the Fitzgibbon Cup in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2014, the Ashbourne Cup in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013, the Giles Cup in 2011 and 2018, and the Lynch Cup in 2017. Success was obtained in 2019 in the Division 1 Camogie League and the Fresher A All Ireland Championship along with numerous Handball titles this year.

How many years have you played GAA?

The WIT Vikings GAA club was formed in 1981, meaning that it is now 39 years old.

How do you plan to expand if given the chances?

The WIT Vikings GAA club is extremely fortunate to have top class home facilities at the WIT Arena. The WIT Arena on WIT’s West Campus at Carriganore, Waterford is a €20 million state-of-the-art facility which opened to students, staff and the general public in September 2016. The WIT Arena has 4 sand-based grass pitches, three of which are fully floodlit available to the club. Also at the clubs disposal is a fully floodlit all weather GAA pitch. The club also has use of the commercial ‘Edge Gym’ along with a High Performance Gym.

Therefore with the facilities in hand the next area if given the chance to expand would be to develop further our events offering. Having hosted the Fitzgibbon Cup along with the GAA World Games in 2019 and the Ashbourne Cup in 2020 all at the WIT Arena, we would certainly like to utilise and expand our ability to host such prestigious events in the future. Doing this would also offer exposure to prospective students of the wonderful facilities and ethos the WIT Vikings GAA club and WIT has to offer. The club would also like to expand the current scholarship programme and lead up more development initiatives. Currently, we engage in programmes with underage squads which will hopefully assist in developing and forming players for the future along with increasing participation in our ever expanding club.

Would you like the College game to get more exposure?

Yes I would, College sport is special. It must be said that in the culture and learning environment of higher education, sport occupies an important position. It is a connection between the professional and personal development of the student, contributing significantly to the building of character and leadership. Some of Gaelic Games greats began their careers through third level competitions, with the likes of Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh, TJ Reid, Henry Shefflin, Kate Kelly, Ursula Jacob, Denise Gaule, Mairead Daly, Matty Forde and Declan Browne to name a few of own former WIT Vikings with some of our present Inter-County Vikings including Austin Gleeson, Katie Murray and Ciara Doyle.

As mentioned above this year the club hosted the CCAO UPMC Ashbourne Cup Weekend in the WIT Arena. Being on the CCAO committee myself we worked on increasing social media coverage along with getting the Ashbourne Final streamed. By engaging in the above, the promotion and publicity that the games got was phenomenal and made the whole weekend a huge success. This is just one example of the endless work done by third level GAA clubs and committees, and with this the more exposure the better in order to keep our prestigious competitions alive!