Pen Pics

  • Name: Brian Irwin (thats me on the right)
  • Age: Something Big!
  • Club: St John Bosco GFC, Co Down
  • Height: 6ft 1in
  • Weight: 14 st
  • Favourite Player: Jack O'Shea
  • Greatest Playing Achievement: Div 4 to Div1 in Down in 3 years.
  • Greatest off field Achievement: Berniece, Se, Cathal and Meabh
  • Hardest Opponent: Martin O'Connell
  • Favourite Pitch: To play the Dubs in Croke was a childhood dream come true.
  • Favourite Food: Steak, egg and chips.
  • Favourite Band: Prince and The Revolution

What is GAA-DNA:  We are a passionate team dedicated to revolutionising fundraising for GAA clubs across Ireland and beyond. We combine an easy-to-use online ecommerce marketplace with a dedicated platform that helps raise club funds by supplying quality branded products currently unavailable to their membership. Clubs will receive a commission on the profit from every online sale according to the product and price. We passionately believe every GAA Club, no matter the size, needs to start thinking outside the box when raising funds, maximising their brand potential with their members and ex pat members.

Why Have You Created this Site: I started selling GAA products over 15 years ago. I created the whole vintage GAA jersey market in 2010 with my highly successful brand RetroGAA. Since then, I have branched into selling club gloves across Ireland while simultaneously creating the first 15 v 15 very successful Gaelic Football Board Game – Breaking Ball, still bringing fun to Gaels especially those living far from home today.

While interacting with clubs, and being a committee member myself, I was acutely aware of the challenges facing committees within every club with traditional fundraising methods that require significant time, effort, manpower and upfront costs. We want to help in some way to change that, and have been working on this project for over 2 years. By combining our passion for GAA in the community and technology, we have created a platform designed to make fundraising easy, effective and enjoyable for everyone involved with a club.

In Hairier Times!

September '91 Croke Park changing rooms with legends Gregory McCartan and Paul Higgins.

What makes you different:Through the last 15 years I have focused exclusively on innovative quality GAA products and with GAA-DNA that trend continues. I have been drawn in the last 2 years to the ongoing plight of clubs attempting to make ends meet with spiralling costs of insurance, equipment, pitch upkeep, heating, cleaning etc etc. I am uniquely positioned as a long-term committee member to understand the problems from a club point of view and as a successful GAA product developer, who thinks outside the box, I have been able to create a platform to aid clubs in their annual quest to make ends meet. We aim to remove traditional barriers of upfront costs, inventory risks, and time-consuming logistics by offering a platform that handles everything – from product design to delivery.