Volunteers are essential to our club, today we have a strong and diverse community of people young and old who support our brilliant teams and coaches and we are always looking for new recruits. If you can spare even just one hour per week or month and have energy and enthusiasm, no matter what your skills you can make a difference.

You don’t have to be a GAA expert, in fact, we have lots of different needs alongside the general coaching, management and committee roles including fundraising, PR and digital marketing, culture and health, general maintenance, events planning, gardening and the list goes on and on.

Most of our current volunteers fulfil numerous roles but can dip in and out depending on the time they have free to give back. They enjoy volunteering because they want the club to succeed and the more people who get involved the more we can do to enrich the lives of our local community

Here’s just some of the feedback we have got from our 2019 volunteers:

“I was quite apprehensive when I volunteered at first, having a full-time job and family I thought what am I even thinking, where am I going to get the time? But now I see my four hours a month as a great social outlet and am learning new skills and stretching myself.

“Great fun, always something different to tackle and I’ve met people in my local community who I now call friends.”

The many benefits of volunteering include:

  • Building self esteem and confidence
  • Learning and developing new skills
  • Enhancing work experience and CV building
  • Meeting new people and broadening your social network
  • Giving something back to the game you love
  • Making a difference in your local community
  • Having lots of craic.

GAA coaching scheme

Loughinisland GAC has trained more than 90 coaches to at least Foundation level under the GAA coaching scheme. This expertise in coaching Gaelic games is augmented with additional skills in organising and delivering training/exercise programmes. This includes the pre-planning of individual sessions to meet pre-set goals and objectives specific to participant needs to ensure that maximum benefits are delivered for all participants in every session.

GAA Goldmark programme for young volunteers

Loughinisland GAC is a proud ambassador of the GAA Goldmark programme, led by Volunteer Now this programme aims to promote and recognise sports volunteering for 14-24 year olds. The Goldmark programme is simple to implement and any member between 14 and 24 can start today, all that is required is for young volunteers to keep a volunteer record, which is signed off by the club co-ordinator and then county co-coordinator.

Young sports volunteers are awarded for 50 hours, 100 hours and 200 hours for volunteering with the 200 hours award gaining an Award of Excellence, all awards and can be used in job applications, and/or university/college applications and are a great way to get recognition for your volunteer work. Previous winners of GAA Goldmark programme:

For further information contact Bronagh Mason – Email loughinislandgac@gmail.com

Translink Young GAA Volunteer Awards


Ulster GAA in association with Translink is recognising the valuable contribution young volunteers make to their GAA club, county and community. These prestigious award compromise of monthly awards for young people, aged 14-24 years, who have made an outstanding volunteering contribution to the GAA during any given month. An annual Translink Young GAA Volunteer of the Year will be selected by Ulster GAA President from the monthly winners. Loughinisland GAC will be nominating our own young volunteers for these awards in 2019/2020