Along with hurling and camogie, Gaelic football is one of the few remaining strictly amateur sports in the world, with players, coaches, and managers prohibited from receiving any form of payment.

Gaelic football is mainly played on the island of Ireland, although units of the Association exist in Great Britain, mainland Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The final of the All-Ireland Senior Championship, held every year at Croke Park, Dublin, draws crowds of more than 80,000 people.

The earliest record of a recognised precursor to the modern game dates from a match in County Meath in 1670, in which catching and kicking the ball were permitted.

[8] However even "foot-ball" was banned[10] by the severe Sunday Observance Act of 1695, which imposed a fine of one shilling (a substantial amount at the time) for those caught playing sports.

It proved difficult, if not impossible, for the authorities to enforce the Act and the earliest recorded inter-county match in Ireland was one between Louth and Meath, at Slane, in 1712, about which the poet Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta wrote a poem of 88 verses beginning "Ba haigeanta".

By the early 19th century, various football games, referred to collectively as caid, were popular in County Kerry, especially the Dingle Peninsula.

The account of H C A Harrison, one of the seminal in the history of Victorian football, of Irish rules was that it gave players "the full ability to kick anybody that came within reach".

[14] Shin-kicking (or hacking) was a major feature of traditional Irish football and also one of the main reasons why it failed to be widely adopted in Australia.

An 1882 theatrical performance in New York portrays a controversial Irish football match on Saint Nicholas Day 6 December 1790 at the school of Champs de Mars in Paris.

Trinity College Dublin was an early stronghold of rugby, and the rules of the (English) Football Association were codified in 1863 and distributed widely.

By this time, according to Gaelic football historian Jack Mahon, even in the Irish countryside, caid had begun to give way to a "rough-and-tumble game", which even allowed tripping.

[18] A major difference between the two styles is that the Irish variety featured high kicking "up and under" whereas in colonial Victoria, the little marks or foot passes were much more common.

[18] Irish football is a great game and worth going a long way to see when played on a fairly laid out ground and under proper rules.

Peter's Irish Football Annual of 1880, argued that Gaelic football did not exist before the 1880s and curious about the origin of the distinctive features believed that clubs from England in 1868 most likely introduced elements of their codes including the "mark" (a free kick to players who cleanly catch the ball, which was a feature of the matches played in the 1880s), lack of offside and scoring by kicking between the upright posts.

At a similar point in time, the same football rules were proposed as an alternative to those of soccer and rugby in northern England[21] but did not take root there.

Playing the code under its own rules the club (representing County Limerick) later won the inaugural 1887 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.

Ball-playing, hurling, football kicking, according to Irish rules, 'casting', leaping in various ways, wrestling, handy-grips, top-pegging, leap-frog, rounders, tip-in-the-hat, and all such favourite exercises and amusements amongst men and boys, may now be said to be not only dead and buried, but in several localities to be entirely forgotten and unknown.

[23] Irish forms of football were not formally arranged into an organised playing code by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) until 1884 with the rules widely distributed in 1887.

The game was intended to promote peace and harmony, rejecting the violence of other football codes, and Davin even included a requirement for players to hold hands with their opponents[29] though this practice fell out of favour.

The first game of Gaelic football under GAA rules (developed by Maurice Davin) was played near Callan, Co Kilkenny in February 1885.

Pushing or tripping behind, holding from behind, catching below knees, or butting with the head, shall be deemed foul, and the player so offending shall be ordered to stand aside for such time as the referee may think fit, and his side cannot substitute another man.

[42] By 1958, Wembley Stadium hosted annual exhibition games of Gaelic football in England, before tens of thousands of spectators.

[citation needed] In 1967, Australian journalist, broadcaster, and VFL umpire Harry Beitzel, inspired by watching the 1966 All-Ireland senior football final on television, sent an Australian team known as the "Galahs" including South Melbourne's Bob Skilton, Richmond's Royce Hart, Carlton's Alex Jesaulenko and Melbourne and Carlton legend Ron Barassi as captain-coach – to play against Mayo and All-Ireland champions Meath, which was the first recorded major interaction between the two codes.

Irishmen who have distinguished themselves in both codes include Dublin's Jim Stynes – a 1984 minor All-Ireland football champion who became the 1991 Brownlow Medallist, a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia and a member of Melbourne's Team of the Century – and Kerry's Tadhg Kennelly, the first man to become both a senior All-Ireland football champion (2009) and an AFL Premiership player (2005 with Sydney, the Swans' first flag in 72 years).

Players advance the football up the field with a combination of carrying, bouncing, kicking, hand-passing, and soloing (dropping the ball and then toe-kicking it upward into the hands).

Similar to the mark in Australian rules football, a player who catches the ball from a kick-out is awarded a free kick.

Shoulder-to-shoulder contact and slapping the ball out of an opponent's hand are permitted, but the following are all fouls: A football match is overseen by up to eight officials: The referee is responsible for starting and stopping play, recording the score, awarding frees, and booking, and sending off players.

Clubs are also located throughout the world, in other parts of the United States, in Great Britain, in Canada, in Asia, in Australasia and continental Europe.

A recent (the 1990s/2000s) re-organisation created a "back door" method of qualifying, with teams knocked out during the provincial rounds of the All-Ireland Championship now acquiring a second chance at glory.