Over 1,000 GAA clubs sign up for 'Ireland Lights Up'

Over 1,000 GAA clubs have signed up for the countrys biggest community walking initiative, Ireland Lights Up.

The initiative encourages GAA clubs across the 32 counties to light up their walking tracks and bring communities together to walk and talk in a safe environment during the dark winter evenings, with a club showcased each week on RTEs Operation Transformation.

This years Ireland Lights Up started on January 11 and will run for seven weeks with participating clubs organising a community walk at least once per week.

Participation numbers have smashed the previous record set last year of 700 GAA clubs.

Last year clubs also recruited over 28,000 walkers to participate in the Every Steps Counts Challenge delivered through the MyLife app, in partnership with the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs programme.

Participants walked over 5,000,000 kms during the five-week challenge.

Those numbers will be comfortably outstripped this year with three clubs from each province once again due to win vouchers worth a total of 5,000, kindly provided by Irish Life T&Cs apply.

Starting in 2018 with 91 clubs, the Ireland Lights Up initiative has gone from strength to strength in the last six years.