We are all aware of the impact the GAA has had on Irish life since its establishment under Michael Cusack in 1884. Nowadays the association is probably more influential than ever with a huge public profile. But the impact which it has had, and which it is having, has not just been in Ireland. The United States, Britain and Australia have all participated in Gaelic games for many years and there have been many tours to these and other countries. Indeed, nobody is quite sure why a prominent rugby club in Buenos Aires is called The Hurling Club, but that is to digress.

It is more relevant to recall that a visit by Irish football, hurling and athletic teams to the United States as long ago as 1898 caused the abandonment of that year's All-Ireland championships. It was known as the "American invasion" and several players were lost to the home counties when they remained in the United States following the event. Some of the athletes who stayed, later won Olympic medals for the United States.

In the 1930s several teams from Ireland travelled by liner to the United States to play, including teams of footballers and hurlers from Kerry and Limerick.

Later, in 1947, the GAA, under pressure from the Irish-American lobby, decided to play that year's All-Ireland football final between Cavan and Kerry in the Polo Grounds in New York. A crowd of some 35,000 New Yorkers turned up to see Cavan win.

In more recent times, matches under what are called International Rules have taken place on an irregular basis between Ireland and Australia, many of which have been memorable contests.

But GAA's influence abroad has not stood still. When the cigarette company Carrolls agreed to underwrite the setting up of an All Star scheme for football and hurling team in 1971, the selected players and the All-Ireland champions of that year travelled to play in the United States. These tours continued under the sponsorship of the Bank of Ireland.

During GAA's connection with the rest of the world most Irish people living abroad have not lost sight of their Irish roots. Nowhere has this been the case more than in Boston. Now it has been announced that the Eircell organisation and the GAA are sponsoring a tour to Boston by some of Ireland's finest athletes. The purpose of the trip is to support the opening of a spectacular new permanent home for the Boston GAA in Canton, South Boston. The 1999 football finalists, the 1998 hurling All Stars and the winners of the 1999 hurling championship will travel to Boston for a number of matches.

History suggests that a football match between teams of immigrants from Galway and Kerry took place on Boston Common as long ago as 1886. It would seem that Gaelic games have been played in Boston on a regular basis since then. Nowadays as many as 4,000 Irish people, or people of Irish extraction, play regular matches in the summer months.

To accommodate the following, the Boston Irish, never backward about declaring their heritage, have developed a complex second to no other sporting body in the city. Included in this new complex is a communications room that will be called the McGettigan-Stewart Room in memory of Shane McGettigan and Ronan Stewart, both of whom were killed in an accident on a building site there last year.

Included in the new centre will be a function hall to accommodate 1,000 people and an auditorium capable of holding 6,000, as well as a library. These rooms will be connected to the pitches and dressing-rooms where Gaelic football, hurling, women's football and camogie will be played on a regular basis.

Not surprisingly, the president of the GAA, Joe McDonagh, has welcomed the development and has hailed it as another step forward in the development of Irish culture, not only of the sporting kind, in the United States.

The development has been under the determined guidance of Mike Connor from Moycullen in Galway, who has lived in Boston since 1969, and it has continued to copperfasten the influence of the GAA in Boston.

Young men and women from Ireland who are going to Boston in search of work, either on a permanent or part-time basis, are welcomed at the complex and benefit greatly from the comradeship which greets them, providing them with a home away from home.

At the same time as these large strides are being made in the United States, back in Ireland an international festival of minor football starts this weekend and continues until the end of the month.

The tournament will feature teams from New York, Scotland, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Kilkenny and will be centred on the Cooley Kickhams club in Louth. Other clubs taking part are local clubs Clanna Gael, Dundalk Gaels, St Patrick's and Geraldines.

At a time when the so-called Celtic Tiger seems to be in many ways undermining traditional cultural values and attitudes, it is encouraging to note that in places as far apart as Louth, Melbourne and Boston, Gaelic football and hurling are not only surviving but flourishing.