Raleigh Cú Chulainn started out in 2012 as a football club looking for its first game. Fourteen years on it fields hurling, camogie, men’s and ladies football teams, has two national titles, and in 2026 sent three teams to the USGAA Finals for the first time.
The club played its first competitive football at the Connolly’s Cup, hosted by Charlotte GAA, on 16 June 2012. A month later, on 21 July, it hosted Charlotte in what the club records as the first Gaelic football game ever played in Wake County.
Growth was quick. In 2013 Raleigh added hurling, ladies football and camogie, launched the Thomas Burke Cup hurling tournament and won the Peach Cup 7s in Atlanta. In 2014 the footballers won the Junior B title at the North American GAA Finals in Boston, and club members helped found the NC State and UNC Gaelic sides. The Triangle Irish Sports Youth Association followed in 2016 for boys and girls aged seven to 16.
The hurlers have become the club’s banner team. In 2024 they travelled to the USGAA Finals in San Francisco, beat Richmond in the semi-final and brought home the national Junior D title, the club’s first in hurling. Coach Richard Finnegan was still in charge of the hurlers for the 2026 season.
The 2026 season opened with field training at Cedar Fork Park in Morrisville from March. On 23 May the club hosted its Festival of Gaelic Games at Pleasant Park in Apex, with Michael Collins, Red Wolves and Winston-Salem visiting, and Raleigh’s men’s footballers won the Andrew Britton Memorial Cup. The cup remembers Andrew Britton, who emigrated to the US in 1988, lived in Raleigh and died in 2008 aged 27.
The hurlers won the Southeast Division title to reach a fifth USGAA Finals in a row. For the first time the club also qualified its camogie and men’s football teams, and nearly 50 players, coaches and volunteers travelled to the August Finals near Boston.
The club carries the name of Cú Chulainn, the hero of the Ulster Cycle, alongside the city it plays for. Its jersey turns up across the Southeast at tournaments in Charlotte, Atlanta and Apex, and at the national finals most summers now.
This FanFile covers Raleigh Cú Chulainn GAA as a club rather than one particular jersey. Check the crest, sponsor, manufacturer label and product code on your own shirt to identify its specific season and edition.
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Facts checked: 11 November 2026.
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