had been playing a very similar game since the 1880s. Gaelic football did not exist until the 1880s Geoffrey Blainey in 2010 wrote: Irish historian Garnham, citing R.M. Peter's Irish Football Annual of 1880, argued that Gaelic Football did not actually exist prior to the 1880s and curious on the origin of the distinctive features was of the belief that clubs from England in 1868 were most likely introduced elements of their codes including the "mark" (a decade after it had been introduced in Australia) and scoring by kicking between the upright posts. He believed these attributes to have been introduced by English clubs Trinity (1854) and Blackheath (1862) who had their own distinctive rules, rather than from those of Melbourne. However these English games were otherwise dissimilar to both Gaelic Football or Australian Football of 1885. There was a motive and means for borrowing the rules Like the Victorians, the GAA worked hard to create a game that would differentiate from the popular British sports of rugby and soccer. While the GAA may have used Victorian rules to create Gaelic football, it is not known exactly how or when, Victorian rules were transferred to Ireland. One theory suggests that the origin was Archbishop Thomas Croke, one of the founders of the GAA, was the Bishop of Auckland and lived in New Zealand between 1870 and 1875. Croke visited Melbourne in both 1872 and 1875 at a time when Victorian rules was immensely popular His sister Mother Mary Ignatius Croke moved to Australia in 1866 and he made a planned visit to her Sisters of Mercy in 1875. Victorian rules was also known in New Zealand in the 1870s and was growing in popularity with the earlier games in Auckland played under hybrid rules of British and Victorian Rules not unlike Gaelic football, but its popularity lagged behind rugby, a game (which along with soccer) that the GAA viewed as a threat to Irish nationalism. Croke's desire to help promote an Irish style of football as an athletic pursuit was well known, referring to 'football kicking, according to Irish rules' in his 1884 letter to the Irish Republican brotherhood's Michael Cusack and he favoured it being played on Sunday. Croke had ample opportunity not only to witness the Australian game being played but obtain copies of the rules which were widely published and distributed. Croke was idolised by Gaelic Football's