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The Fiction Library

Short original pieces set in the GAA world. Read in a lunch break, carried home in your head like a ball of hurley tape in a gear bag.

House rules. Every story here is fiction and involves invented characters. We do not publish stories that depict real, named GAA players — current, former, underage, or otherwise — in romantic, sexual or otherwise-private scenarios. Submissions that do are declined. See our editorial policy for the full rules.

Latest stories

Six to start; a new one every few weeks. Arranged newest-first.

FICTION · 1,200 words · club-level

After the Final

Two members of a small-club senior side walk back to the car after losing a county semi-final. A conversation neither planned to have opens anyway.

Read it

FICTION · 1,100 words · minor-grade

The Sub

A new panel member on a U17 team makes a decision about being out at training — and another one about whether to take his coach's advice.

Read it

FICTION · 900 words · ladies football

Strapping Up

Two team-mates in a Galway ladies football dressing-room realise they've been dancing around each other all season.

Read it

FICTION · 1,300 words · hurling

Roe's Bar, Half-Time

Two supporters meet properly for the first time in a pub in Thurles at the half-time of an All-Ireland semi-final. The match is not the point.

Read it

FICTION · 1,000 words · camogie

The Long Puck

A camogie goalkeeper coaches the under-12s with her girlfriend and tries to work out, one under-12 at a time, how out she wants the club to be.

Read it

FICTION · 1,400 words · intercounty (original)

The Bench

A fictional corner-back on a fictional Leinster county senior panel decides, in the week of a provincial final, to come out to his team manager.

Read it

Submit a story

GGA.ie runs on submissions. If you've written a short piece set in a GAA world, we'd like to read it.

What we're looking for

500–2,000 words, self-contained.
Original characters only — invented players, coaches, supporters, families, clubs or counties. Fictional club names are fine; please don't set the piece inside a real, named senior inter-county panel.
LGBTQ+ characters somewhere in the story — but the story doesn't have to be about coming out. We want the full spectrum: training, sideline, supporters, staff, travel, the morning after a county final.
No explicit sexual content; no graphic violence; no slurs used to dehumanise. Warmth is welcome.

What happens when you send us one

One of us reads it within two weeks and replies personally.
If we'd like to run it, we'll copy-edit lightly and send you a proof before publishing.
You keep the copyright. We ask for a non-exclusive right to host the piece on GGA.ie.
You can publish under your name, a pen name, or anonymous.

Email your piece as plain text or a Word/Pages document to fiction@gga.ie, with a sentence about yourself in the body. Any questions, same address.