The Ladies Gaelic Football Association is the organisation which promotes and regulates ladies' Gaelic football

Ladies' Gaelic football

Ladies' Gaelic football is a team sport for women, very similar to Gaelic football, and co-ordinated by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association...

 in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

.

The association has also selected the Ireland women's international rules football team

Ireland women's international rules football team

The Ireland women's international rules football team is the Ireland women's representative team in international rules football, a hybrid of Australian rules football and Gaelic football....

, which will play the Australia women's international rules football team

Australia women's international rules football team

The Australian women's international rules football team is the Australian women's representative team in international rules football, a hybrid of Australian rules football and Gaelic football.The team was launched in 2006...

 in international rules football

International rules football

International rules football is a team sport consisting of a hybrid of football codes, which was developed to facilitate international representative matches between Australian rules football players and Gaelic football players....

 for the first time in 2006.

History

Many dates are suggested for the foundation of the Association. It is understood that a parish league was in operation in Corr an Chláir as far back as 1926.http://www.ladiesgaelic.ie/histass.htm It is accepted officially, however, that the Association was founded in Hayes' Hotel, Thurles

Thurles

Thurles is a town situated in North Tipperary, Ireland. It is a civil parish in the historical barony of Eliogarty and is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly...

, County Tipperary

County Tipperary

County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...

 on 18 July 1974, almost 90 years since the Gaelic Athletic Association

Gaelic Athletic Association

The Gaelic Athletic Association is an amateur Irish and international cultural and sporting organisation focused primarily on promoting Gaelic games, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders...

 was founded in the same hotel. The first Championship Trophy (the Brendan Martin Cup

Brendan Martin Cup

The All-Ireland Senior Ladies' Football Championship the premier "knockout" competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland...

 was contested in Autumn of the year 1974. Eight counties - Roscommon, Laois, Offaly, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and Tipperary - participated in the inaugural set of games, and Tipperary won the championship.

Gradually, the number of competing counties increased. In 1982 the Association received recognition for the first time as a body independent of the GAA. At the beginning of the 1990s, counties which were not already registered joined the organisation and games are currently played in all counties in Ireland. Ladies' Gaelic football is now also played in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, Mainland Europe, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 http://beijinggaa.yahoo.com, mostly among members of the Irish diaspora

Irish diaspora

thumb|Night Train with Reaper by London Irish artist [[Brian Whelan]] from the book Myth of Return, 2007The Irish diaspora consists of Irish emigrants and their descendants in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa,...

.

Structure

The Association has a similar structure to the GAA in that there are clubs, provincial councils

Provincial council

Provincial councils are organisational bodies within the Gaelic Athletic Association, each made up of several GAA counties. The provincial council is responsible for the organisation of club and inter-county competitions such as the provincial championships, and the promotion of Gaelic games within...

, county boards

GAA county

A Gaelic Athletic Association county is a geographic region within the Gaelic Athletic Association , controlled by a county board and originally based on the counties of Ireland as they were in 1884. While the counties of Ireland have changed since the foundation of that date, the GAA counties have...

, and a Central Council. The organisation has an annual convention where representatives from all clubs, counties and provinces come together for a weekend. Representatives of clubs in other countries are also in attendance. It is at this convention that the Association's officials are elected every year and where the president is elected every three years. The current president is Geraldine Giles.