The club was founded in 1952 comprising of many Irish employees from the shell refinery. The club fielded teams in both Gaelic Football and Hurling. Geelong won the first ever Victorian Hurling championship in 1954 beating Melbourne based team Young Ireland at Geelong West Oval on Church Street.
In the late 50’s and early 60’s the club would see a lot of players move from the Geelong area due to work commitments which saw the club struggle to field any teams. It was only until the late 80’s that the club would get back up and running with the help of Brendan Carthy.
Geelong entered the Victorian GAA’s League and Championship which had a new home at Gaelic Park in Keysborough that still stands today. Again over the next two and a bit decades the club would fold and restart.
In 2013 the club was again re-formed by John Reaney and Nigel Maxey.
Both men felt there were enough Irish people living in Geelong and the surrounding areas to try and start the club up again. The first coach for this period was the great Eddie O’Leary, who himself played for the Gaels through the 80s and 90s.
Once up and running the club was named the Geelong Gaels GAA club. Our first outing as the Gaels was in 2014 at the famous Padraig Pearses 7 a side competition. We then played our first 15 a side game against Wolfe Tones in the Championship at Gaelic Park.
Gaels in Gaelic Park
Since the club has re-formed our main aim has been was to promote Gaelic games in the Greater Geelong area. The club prides itself on giving everybody, Australians and Irish alike, the opportunity to play Gaelic games. In 2017 the Gaels traveled to Hobart and won the first ever Australasian Regional Games, out of the 14 players on the list 5 were Australians. Up until 2019 the Gaels played their home games in Geelong at Bakers Oval in Geelong West. But in 2020 they moved up the road to Hurst Reserve.
