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Showing posts with label GAA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GAA. Show all posts
Pádraic Mac Coitir ⚽ I've been to a number of county matches this year, most of them to watch Aontroim, and like others came away scratching my head. 

We all know that the hurling has been great and there have been very few bad matches, but that's sport.

Since the championship started I've fancied Ciarraí and until this weekend I thought they were a certainty but the Dubs have shown they're gonna be hard to beat.
 
Before the throw in today I wanted Doire to win but thought Ciarraí would just win by a point or two. I was delighted to see Doire start so positively and as the match progressed I was certain they'd win.

Unfortunately they made some mistakes up front and as we saw Ciarraí were very lucky to win in the end.
 
This brings me to the point about football. I've always said that teams should go for scores from out the field and as we saw both teams scored very good points. Yes, goals are important but they're hard to come by against good defences. It's no coincidence the Dubs and Ciarraí have dominated the football in recent years but they can be beaten. They play, for the most part, positive football. Doire and other Ulster teams have shown they are up there, especially when they play positively so hopefully next year they'll abandon that negative stuff that puts people off.
 
If I was a Doire player, or even a supporter, I'd be pulling my hair out watching the Sunday Game knowing the game was there to be won.

⚽⚽⚽

I'm one of the lucky ones who got a ticket for the hurling final and I'm absolutely delighted. I've been to a right few finals over the years but what really annoys me is how dear they are-90 euro. A friend paid for mine so it's easy for me to be critical.

Just think of the thousands of supporters throughout the country who go to club and county matches and who would love to go to a final. If, for instance, two parents and two children want to go to the match it's 90 euro each. That's on top of the travel, food etc. I know it's a special occasion but the GAA is a very rich organisation and some of their 'top' people get paid megabucks. We all know about the shenanigans within RTÉ and it wouldn't surprise me if something similar comes out about the hierarchy of the GAA.

Having said all that this could be a great match but I've fancied Luimneach all year so I'm going for them to win in extra time. The Cats are also great but because I was bought a retro Luimneach top I'll be wearing it and cheering on the lads in green...

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

But That's Sport

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ Although having played Gaelic football at school and in Magilligan prison camp - still haven't worked out which of them was the worst place to have been - I am not a strong fan. I like rather than love GAA sports. 

My love is for soccer. That probably makes me a traitor in the eyes of the Natsis - those who goosestep for Nationalists Ireland. They sometimes take to calling me that as part of their umbrage at my having abjured their hatreds. Because I was in prison on a number of occasions for IRA activity, they whine about my betrayal of Ireland. They seem to have difficulty computing that I served time for shooting people like themselves. Then they were called loyalists. But when you have bowels for brains that is the sort of shit your head churns out. 

Being traitorous to their warped worldview is a badge that is as big as the jacket that bears it. 

Three weeks ago when I attended the semi-final of the all-Ireland hurling clash between Kilkenny and Clare, it was my first time inside Croke Park. Not many cease being a Croker virgin at 66. But popping that particular cherry was an exhilarating experience.

My son and daughter had been there before and along with their cousins from Arizona they accompanied me to the game. Which was really the reason I went. It was a spectacle and one I shall remember for some time to come. Despite my love for soccer, being at Croker is a much more atmospheric experience than attending games at Weavers Park. In many ways reminiscent of being at Parkhead or Anfield.

I don't read much about GAA sports either although I always find Pádraic Mac Coitir's writing on the subject entertaining and informative. Sports wise, I am not that promiscuous, tending to stay within my own narrow bandwidth.

Nevertheless, the All-Ireland final serves up a feast to fill any day and this year's decider between Dublin and Kerry was no exception. I watched it on TV with my wife, my son and daughter off doing their own thing. Even the outstanding French espionage drama, The Bureau, had to take a back seat for Croker.

A hard fought game, at the end saw two points separate the sides, courtesy of the finetuned kicking of Dean Rock, son of the legendary Barney whom I recall from the great Dublin side of the early 1980s. It was not like watching a final with Mayo playing where the expectation is that their opponent is bound to win. This was anybody's game, never easy to call until the closing minutes when the blue wall closed ranks like a phalanx of Spartans. Impenetrable to the final whistle. 

Once Dublin edged in front, even prior to Rock's second score, they were in command. With David Clifford being well below par, the team in blue knew how to see out the final stages and maintain their slender lead. If there were two crucial differences today that decided the outcome the first would be general in that the overall play of Clifford was not what we expect from arguably the best player in the sport since Gooch Cooper. The second is specific and occurred when Kerry needlessly gave the ball away, leading to the Dublin goal.  

The commentary throughout referred to the constant turnovers that were taking place in a hard fought battle. If there is any form of reverse exorcism that can tackle dispossession neither team found it. The ball was won and often as quickly lost again. In the end Kerry had to yield and the trophy was turned over to the Dubs. Sam Maguire is now in the capital. Kerry might still be The Kingdom, but today Dublin were crowned kings of All-Ireland. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.


Dublin Turnover Kerry

Peter Anderson ⚽ Last Friday saw two sports news items appear on the front, rather than the back pages. 

The first and most interesting was that Ulster Rugby have been banned from participating in the Belfast Pride Festival parade. Recently Ulster Rugby have been making an effort to reach out to the LGBT community. That has now seemingly been nipped in the bud. Their crime was to support the World Rugby ban on trans women playing in women's sport. 

World rugby conducted research after some high profile cases where trans women had caused significant injury to biological women on the rugby pitch. They found that trans women were, on average, 40% more powerful and 15% faster than women, leading to "significant risk factors for biological females". These factors are only reduced by 5% when testosterone reduction is enforced. Subsequently, World Rugby decided to protect female players by banning all trans women from that category. Ulster Rugby support that decision. It is hard to criticise that position. 

Rugby is a brutal sport at times and serious injury is common. In the last few years World Rugby have been introducing a raft of measures to try to limit the number of injuries suffered in the sport. The logical thing to do is to protect females by banning trans women. I have a certain sympathy for the trans community. They are more likely to face public ridicule, abuse and prejudice than most demographics and are the group with the highest suicide risk. We must make sure that they are protected and accommodated safely within our societies. Having said that, under no circumstances should they be allowed to participate in women's sport or have access to women's safe spaces. That is a step too far, in my humble opinion. The current aggressive pro-trans lobby is a very, very unfortunate development in the debate. The ones advocating for tolerance during many years of activism are now the intolerant ones, and we can add Ulster Rugby to the list of the "cancelled" along with JK Rowling and Kathleen Stock. How unfortunate.

The other news item was that during an under-16 GAA match in Cookstown, a referee and an umpire were "stabbed" by a youth. Further reading explained that the two officials received minor wounds while trying to restrain the youth who produced the blade during a brawl. "Stabbed" made the better headline where "sliced" may have been more accurate. Nevertheless, it is yet another case of on-field violence that has plagued the GAA for decades. Twitter is frequently adorned with videos of GAA brawls. It is part of its toxic culture. If the authorities really wanted to stamp it out, it could. 

Football has radically improved its penchant for violence since the 70s, when leg breaking tackles and on-field brawls were common. My mate is a footy ref and he reports that football has greatly improved in recent years as punitive measures have been enforced against teams and players. Why does the GAA not stamp it out? Are they proud of it? Do they think it adds to the sport? If a unionist questions this aspect of the GAA or its acceptance of club names, grounds and competitions being named after members of sectarian death squads, we inevitably suffer a pile on from deeply offended republicans.

Personally, I view the GAA like I view the Orange Order: they are both organisations that do great service to their respective communities, however they are both flawed, essentially sectarian organisations, with an objectionable acceptance of casual violence. I will have nothing to do with either.

Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports

Ulster Rugby & GAA Challenges

Catherine McGinty 🏅 writing for Derry Now sheds light on a controversy surrounding Ladies's GAA transgender policy.

20-April-2023

Ladies’ Gaelic football chiefs have been accused of “secrecy and stonewalling” regarding their highly controversial transgender policy.

The new policy means transgender girls between 12-15 will be able to play pending approval by a special committee, while players over 16 must in addition provide medical records showing their testosterone levels do not exceed acceptable limits.

Earlier this month, Dublin-based player Guilia Valentino became the first transgender woman to have been been given the green light to play ladies football since the policy was introduced in mid-February.

Derry Now has been approached by Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) members in the North West, one of whom described the recently introduced transgender policy as “deliberately ignoring and completely contravening the principles of good governance, from formulation to implementation”.

This woman requested the paper maintain her anonymity for fear of being vilified for expressing legitimate concerns.

She added: 

Grassroots members of the LGFA were deliberately excluded from the transgender policy ‘consultation’ process. Then, the policy was announced along with the words, ‘the LGFA will not tolerate any harassment or discrimination’. It was a clear threat to members, basically, telling them to keep their mouths shut and not to question it.


Continue reading @  Derry Now.

'Secrecy And Stonewalling' By Ladies Gaelic Football Association

Peter Anderson ⛹ There has been much talk online of late about the GAA. 

I tend to avoid these things as they bring out the worst in people, but one thing that caught my eye was East Belfast GAA posting that GAA was "a sport for all". I take exception to this. I have much respect for the GAA, it is a great organisation. I have even more respect for East Belfast GAA. Indeed, on a wider basis what they are doing there in conjunction with Linda Ervine and her Gaelic language push is excellent and they have my admiration. The fact that it annoys knuckle dragging loyalists makes it even better. I am a passionate supporter of fitness and language. I regularly cycle around 100 miles per week. I teach English to foreigners and I speak Spanish, a smattering of French and have an MSc in linguistics. Anything that gets people to play sport/exercise and learn languages is a great thing, and the GAA is a big supporter of both. I saw a piece on TV about Slaughtneil GAA club and it has hundreds of young people regularly training, playing sport, socialising etc. What that club does for that rural community is exceptional, and it is replicated in many clubs the length and breadth of this island.

Personally, I just don't like Gaelic football. I tried to watch it years ago and during the match a cross came over and everyone jumped for the ball. I was waiting for someone to get their head on it, a la soccer, but instead someone slapped the ball into the net with his hand. Disgraceful! Get your head on it, son! In another move a player was clean through with the keeper to beat when he just kicked the ball over the bar for a point! Nooooooo! Go for the 3 points, you loser! Hurling I find to be like rugby, a good game is very entertaining, but a poor game is unwatchable. I'm just not into it, and more importantly, I don't feel the GAA is a warm place for people like me. Growing up in a family with military and police connections and joining the British Army at 21, Rule 21 barred my family and I from playing, so I was pretty hostile to the sport. Rule 21 was eventually abolished thanks to the GAA in the RoI, the northerners mostly opposed it. I changed my mind on GAA after having lunch with Jimmy Deenihan, the Kerry GAA legend and FG minister, in 2018. He spoke so warmly of what the GAA means to the people of Kerry, it was impossible not to be moved.

Anybody that has read my blogs over the last months will know that I am a firm believer in the separation, as much as is possible, of sport and politics. The GAA is just the opposite. Some northern clubs openly support the PIRA and INLA. Indeed you would be forgiven for thinking that the GAA is the sporting wing of PSF. Some northern clubs and competitions are named after members of both republican organisations. For me, this is totally unacceptable. Commemorate who you want to commemorate, but keep it out of sport. I wouldn't support a team named after a loyalist killer and I certainly wouldn't expect a member of the CNR community to do so either. Could you imagine a football team called Top Gun McKeag FC? Or a schools rugby competition called The Soldier F Cup? These people left victims and victims have families and friends. 

It is just not acceptable to bring this into sport. You cannot expect people who had friends and/or family killed or maimed by members of armed groups to support or participate in a competition or interact with a club named after the perpetrators. So, East Belfast GAA club, I support what you do, teaching fitness and sportsmanship to young people, reclaiming your Irish identity, and I wish you well, but don't suggest to me that GAA is a sport for all.

Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports.


A Sport For Some But Not For All

Matt Treacy - Yesterday’s All Ireland hurling final will be recalled as one of the best, certainly the most exciting, for a long time. 


It marked the formal accession of this Limerick team into the Pantheon of the great teams by virtue of their having won their third title in succession, and their fourth in five years.

Only Kilkenny, Tipperary and Cork have even managed to do this previously. Now, Limerick’s sights will be on at least emulating the Kilkenny team of 2006 – 2009 by winning a fourth in a row next year.

On the Sunday Game Dónal Óg Cusack again raised the issue of whether the inter county championships ought to be run off as quickly as they have been this year.

Dónal Óg’s reference to the overall media coverage is relevant as it indicates the extent to which what used to be the main events of the Irish sporting year have been marginalised for the want of a better word. Reducing the footprint of the GAA’s prime events is at the very least a serious marketing blunder. More to the point it is conceding prime media attention to sports that are competing with the GAA for players, particularly among children.

The decision by the GAA to squeeze the inter county championships at all grades into less than four months was approved without opposition by Congress in February 2021. The motion proposed that the senior finals be held before the 29th Sunday of the year. Which was yesterday so with the senior football final between Kerry and Galway to be played next Sunday, they are a week behind schedule. Let us hope that it does not interfere with a concert tour or a cultural event.

The reason for the decision to compress the championships was to allow more time for club games. There was some basis to that in relation to senior club championships where the involvement of inter county players meant that the club championships did not begin until after the inter county team was eliminated.

Which let us face it, only applies to a small number of counties and they are pretty much predictable from year to year. That this was still used as an excuse for some of the weaker counties to be concluding competitions in December or even the following January illustrates the extent to which it is a bit of a red herring. One county whose footballers exited the championship in early June a few years back still managed to hold their county football final a few weeks before Christmas.

In Dublin the group stage of the Senior hurling championship starts this week, but it is a rare year that the county team would still be involved at this stage on the old schedule. In any event, the group stages will only finish on September 10, after which there will be quarter finals. So with the usual break to allow for senior football games, it is likely that the championship will finish a month earlier than in 2021.

It should be noted too that there will be the traditional three week break into the second week of August so it certainly cannot be argued that holding the All Ireland senior final two months earlier than normal is having all that much difference even in Dublin where the county team’s involvement in the championship ended two months ago.

As for other grades than senior, as anyone who has played Junior hurling or football in Dublin or any other county will know, what happens at senior inter county is totally irrelevant. There has never been a reason why the vast majority of club games at all levels needed to be arranged around senior inter county matches.

There are lots of cultural battles being fought in Ireland at the present time, and it is not difficult in my view to regard the telescoping of the main traditional sporting competitions as marking a significant retreat on one of those fronts.

Anyone who grew up in Dublin as I did in the 1970s will know that the GAA was in a very weak position before the county team set the world of Gaelic football alight. One of the features of that was the huge excitement in schools when we returned in September and the mass gathering of materials for the making of flags and bunting. Then if they won, every primary and secondary school in the county – other than those known for their antipathy to our culture – was visited by a player or players brandishing the Sam Maguire.

Last week, Dublin played Kerry in the all Ireland semi-final and you would hardly have known there was a big match coming up in the days before. So few were the flags that once festooned the city and county, and the ubiquitous jerseys. It is almost as though some people cannot hasten the homogenization of Ireland quickly enough. Dublin is perhaps several years ahead on that score, but the rest are catching up rapidly.

The GAA is not helping matters by ceding the battle for young minds who need heroes that might live down the road, rather than on Sky Sports. And we won’t get started on that one!

Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of 
the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. 

Is The GAA Retreating In The Cultural War?

Michael Praetorius ✒ My father trained the local camogie team. And my sister was a gifted camogie player. She played eventually for both Down and Armagh at County level, represented Ulster, and was even selected for Ireland when they played the occasional international.
 
I went to one. At Croke Park. A long, tortuous journey on the hired, rickety team-bus through twisty, narrow-streeted wee towns; before all the new roads existed. A friend, Gerard Greene, came along. He played harmonica to pass the time. The girls ignored us, and talked about showbands and stuff. Gerard, a promising apprentice wit, described the match itself as a typical festival of fighting female Fenians. When he overheard me repeating this Taste The Difference bon mot at St Colman's College the following day, the Dean gave me six of the best with his notorious leather strap.
 
My sister was a bit of a gael. My father, though, never said a word to me about playing anything other than my beloved soccer. With hindsight, I can see he had a quiet way of signalling that the GAA Mickey Harte types, whatever they may think, don't own being Irish. And it was a short step from there for me to understand that they are, in fact, just a bunch of thooleramawns and turnip-snaggers.

Anyway, the rest is legend. I was expelled from St Colman's for having long hair, and mocking, and sneering and jeering at, and relentlessly deriding the GAA and the Catholic Church. But years later society, and history, realised that, if anything, these renegade broadsides had made me emphatically more Irish than any gang of bony-arsed GAA bogmen in baseball caps or mammy's-boy sickos in dog collars.
 
Consequently, and mainly thanks to my Thermopylae-like stand back then, my son got an Irish name that's not only spellable but also pronounceable (Liam), divorce and gay marriage were legalised, the Pope came to Dublin to receive a public bollocking from An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and women's rights were granted. Welcome to the Ireland my da and me made.


⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . .  when he can get a pitch.

The Triumph Of The Gaels ✒ My Part In Its Termination

Pádraic Mac Coitir ✒ I was at the Aontroim v Port Lairge hurling match in Páirc Corrigan two weeks ago and saw Neil McManus remonstrating with Iarla Daly. 

Being on the far end of the pitch I couldn't hear what was being said but when the final whistle went I walked on to the pitch. I asked a few people what happened and was told Daly called McManus a 'British bastard'. 

I've heard of a lot of derogatory comments levelled at players from the 6 counties but the one thing they most definitely aren't and that's 'British bastards'. It's stinking that GAA players lower themselves to that level and it's something that needs addressing. 

I was also talking to a Dublin hurler who played against Aontroim in the recent match and he told me he was called a 'Free State bastard'. That's also stinking. Players will get excited and do their best to win but they shouldn't lower themselves to that level.
 
After speaking with my friend, Colum Mac Giolla Bhéin, about it he wrote the following poem - a poem that should be read by people who would never tolerate abuse on the playing field.
 
Partitionist Mind Games
For a Waterford player

I don’t want to fight with you , fall out with you
I have had for a long time a certain
Grá for Port Láirge
Brought about by watching John Mullane
Now there was a man
Played with his heart on his sleeve
Gave it his all with nothing to leave
But when you call Antrim players British
You deeply insult me and all Gaels
I’m truly glad that I’m able say
That you no doubt, had little to worry about
Whilst going around
Wearing your gear with nothing to fear
Your identity displayed
From your toes to your head
What was your greatest worry?
If it would be cold and raining
when you got on the pitch
ain’t life just a bitch
or that your team mates would have eaten
all the sandwiches
by the time you got back to the club house
For Gaels in the occupied six counties
There was a lot more to worry about
and fear, just being here
but it never deterred them from
proudly displaying that same identity
players were shot dead by trigger happy
British soldiers on their way to games
They were killed
In their clubs
Outside their clubs
In their homes
At their places of work
By the forces of the British state
And their death squads
Supporters murdered on their way
To and from games
According to your logic another Brit
Seamus Heaney wrote a poem about it
When his cousin and another Gael
Were murdered by members of the UDR
A regiment of the British army
You see the common denominator here?
The word you chose to use
I feel sure it was never your intention
To hurt or insult
But merely to wind up your opponent
If so find another way to do it
But if indeed it was your intention
To hurt and insult
Then hang up your boots
You don’t have what it takes to be a Gael
You don’t know what it means to be a Gael

Colum Mac Giolla Bhéin

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

Partitionist Mind Games

Anthony McIntyre ✒ feels the worst team lost in yesterday's All Ireland final.


Gaelic football is not something I normally write about. When it features on this blog it is usually from the pen of Padraic Mac Coitir. I defer to his knowledge but do not share his passion. 

I don’t have a reservoir of interest for the sport, much preferring soccer. Which might just make me something of a pariah in the eyes of the culture vultures. If so, I never notice their swoop or the flash of their talons. And if they descend, they can respectfully perch on what remains of Galileo in a museum in Florence. 

Yesterday, I figuratively switched tops and watched the All Ireland Final – at home. I had the offer of viewing it in a bar with Tyrone supporters. A friend had invited me out to Swords to watch the game over a few drinks with him and some of his mates. I like Swords bars but the thought of making the journey didn’t appeal to me. I had an inflamed toe, to boot. Forget the pun. Travelling to Navan hospital on Monday to have my left foot x-rayed, I managed to hurt my right one, leaving me to feel like Mayo Man. Now it is more painful than the original that was giving me gyp. Upshot - Swords can come again. The rest I just have to put down to age. 

With my son in the States, I watched the final with my wife who, while not as knowledgeable about sport as my son, is nevertheless good company when these events come around. She gets so involved, and howls and roars in a way that I don’t. Two puzzles remain from Ireland's recent game against Portugal: why she didn't end up hoarse; how I avoided going deaf. Fuck’s sake or donkey is about as much as I might mutter, often barely audible, during the course of a game.

Normally I would prefer to see Tyrone win. On this occasion, I threw my voice behind Mayo. They hadn’t won Sam in 70 years and I have a few Mayo friends whose sense of disappointment is invariably palpable. My friend who had invited me to Swords had been winding me up during the week that Mayo were Blueshirts. That hardly mattered. I always think of Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg when Mayo is mentioned, not Fine Gael, These things have a way of balancing out, and politics has never shaped my sporting loyalties. Hence my preference for Glentoran.

Tyrone were good and were worth their victory. Their slick movement and coordination was a spectacle to observe, even if the best pass of the game was from the team in green, a scything, swerving diagonal distribution delivered with surgical precision, which Messi could have laid claim to. That will earn me a frown from the purist but as the physicist Sean Carroll says, being a heretic is hard work. Mayo might be disappointed but their performance was disappointing. The amount of chances they squandered, including a penalty, left me thinking that comeback and Mayo mentioned in the same breath must be a reference to next year.

Gaelic football is a hard fought sport. When players go down, it is because they are injured rather than them seeking to perform the Neymar Napoleonienne. Yet for all the physicality of a contact sport, nothing was produced at yesterday's game that would equate with Harvey Elliot's injury sustained today while playing for Liverpool against Leeds. 

While a neat reverse pass, the Liverpool allusion was not executed with the aim of bringing me back to my main interest - soccer. 

Mayo will push that stone up the hill of Sam again in the hope that they get it over the top, unlike so many of yesterday's attempted points. Until then it is hard to follow the lead of Camus and imagine Sisyphus happy.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Mirthless Mayo

Pádraic Mac Coitir 🏅I've a lotta interests in life apart from family of course(I have to say that!).

Politics plays the biggest part of my life and I'm very lucky to be involved in Lasair Dhearg which has great people in it. They're all younger than me, but we're still recruiting people so there's hope for people even older than me!

My other interests are sport, reading, walking (and even a bitta jogging), bird watching and one or two other things that I won't divulge. 

I love a lotta sports but as I get older I don't take it too seriously because there are more important things in life. I dismay at people going on & on about 'their team', especially soccer teams. I can understand it when people get passionate about their GAA club and county because it's part of them. Many get involved at a young age and some end up like me becoming a frustrated footballer or hurler. I go to a lotta matches and occasionally do umpire and I love it, but once it's over that's it.
 
As a member of the GAA I'm very critical of the hierarchy because most of them live in ivory towers and make decisions which frustrate me. Of course there are some sound people who I've time for and as an organisation it'll grow because of the commitment at grassroots level.

Like others I can be fickle and apart from being an Aontroim supporter I also like other counties, and for years I was an avid opponent of Tyrone. There's no logic in it because my father's mother, Rose Mulgrew, was from Moy and that should have made me a follower. I can't put it all down to Micky Harte either because although I'm no fan of his I have always given him credit for the way he made the team into one of the best.

When Tír Eoghain played Ciarraí in the semifinal I was cheering on the latter but as the match went on I was very impressed with Tír Eoghain and when they won I was glad. Later that night I watched the Sunday Game and I was disgusted with some of the pundits and this reinforced my view that too many in the Free State have a stinking view of teams from the 6 Counties. So come the football final I'm hoping Tír Eoghain win and although I may not be cheering I'll be clapping along with others as the goals and points are scored.

Yes, I'm one of those people who change their tune when it comes to sport, but most definitely won't change my politics like others I know...

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

Hoping Tír Eoghain Win

Matt Treacy ✒ What at first sight might have appeared to have been an April Fool’s stunt, was pretty quickly elevated into real news.


The Irish Independent reported in the early hours of the morning that members of the Dublin senior football team were seen, and photographed, at a training session at the Inisfails ground north of Coolock.
 
Dublin supporters out in colour Photo Credit: 
Photopol, Dublin Heartland on Flickr

The training session came after the announcement that inter-county training and matches would continue to be banned under the Covid lockdown rules until at least April 19. All club games including underage matches and training are also subject to the restriction.

The reaction, needless to say, has been swift and overwhelmingly condemnatory. Apart from those who dislike Dublin GAA anyway, there are also the usual media pundits who dislike both the Dubs and “the gah”, as well as the nanny staters who view a few lads kicking a ball around or small groups of people attending religious ceremonies or walking their dog more than 5km outside of their Covid ghetto to be a threat to very survival of the state.

Former GAA President Seán Kelly, who is currently a Fine Gael MEP, was quickly out of the traps to call for formal sanctions on Dublin. This is certain, given that the Cork and Down footballers were previously handed severe sanctions for similar breaches.

What the sanctions might be will be interesting. Will they ban the players involved, or perhaps even penalise Dublin by excluding them from the championship? They might of course choose instead to extend the ban on all GAA activity beyond April 19 and blame it on the Dubs.

The Dublin County Board decided off its own bat to suspend manager Dessie Farrell for 12 weeks, but that is unlikely to satisfy Claire Byrne and the other anti GAA media hosts who wanted to ban the GAA championships entirely last year. Marty Morrissey assured viewers of Six One News that this is unlikely to be the end of it and there will be now further pressure on the GAA to take further measures.

Following this, the sports report moved seamlessly into a piece on the Leinster rugby team that began with a shot of 30 to 40 maskless players standing with their arms around one another. Presumably professional rugby players are immune to Covid. Anyway, it was a fitting illustration of the absurdity involved in all of this. Besides, Leinster is the team of Deefur so they can do whatever they want.

Other counties, particularly those with ambitions to do well this year in the football and hurling championships, are getting around the ban in various ways. So too are club teams. The ban is rightly considered by a whole range of GAA figures including county managers who have gone on the record, as not only nonsensical in terms of public health, but contemptuous of the GAA which is somehow designated as not worthy of the elite status conferred on the FAI soccer team and on the international rugby team, and provincial clubs.

This one will run for a while you may be certain. The script will write itself for the RTÉ hand wringers and those who tried to get the GAA championships abandoned last year. Personally, and I would hazard a guess that I would not be alone among, not only GAA people but people involved in all sorts of sports, that whatever the consequences for Dublin and the GAA, that sports people in general will start to follow the example of those northern based people who called on Stormont earlier in the year to stop all this nonsense.

Ridiculous laws should rightly be ignored.

Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of 
the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. 

Dublin GAA Training ➖ Ridiculous Laws Should Rightly Be Ignored

Matt Treacy ✒ Following the fitting commemoration of those killed at Croke Park in November 1920, it is apt to recall that the other main stand and the terrace adjacent to Hill 16 are also named in honour of two great Irishmen, Michael Cusack and P.W Nally, who also died in the month of November.

 
Michael Cusack, of an Irish speaking family from Carron in County Clare died on November 28, 1906. He is best known as one of the founders of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884, a seed apparently sown during a walk through the Phoenix Park with his close friend Patrick Nally of Balla, County Mayo who died in horrendous conditions on November 9, 1891.

 
While their desire, along with other cultural and militant nationalists, to encourage the rebirth of native sport is well known, what is less spoken of is their part in democratising sport in general. Indeed their first initiatives were to organise what were termed “artisan sports days” in Mayo and Dublin in 1879 and 1880.

That was significant as sports, mostly athletics but also the emerging field games such as rugby, soccer and hockey, were regarded as the pursuits of “gentlemen amateurs” who through various monetary and caste means sought to exclude working class and most rural folk from participation. Curiously, cricket which would be regarded as the epitome of English classism, was a much more open sport which was quite popular in places like Kilkenny and north county Dublin which are now GAA strongholds but where cricket still survives.

Antique hurley owned by Michael Cusack.
Photo Credit: HockeyGods 

That only became an issue as urban and rural working people began to have a bit more leisure time in the late 19th century. While in countries with large urban populations and socialist movements, the issue was a pretty straight forward one of allowing mass participation, in Ireland there was the added fact that native sports in common with our language, music, religious practices and others had been deliberately suppressed or undermined as part of weakening the Irish peoples’ sense of itself as something other than an extension of Britain.

It was fashionable then, as it is now, for those seeking to replace Irish identity with some nebulous concept of Britishness, or EUism, or class to ridicule the pursuits of the peasantry. Hence the modern far-left fantasy of “football”, as in soccer, being a unifying factor between the cloth-capped and mufflered proletarians of Ireland and Britain. That concept is rather undermined by the reality of soccer rivalries replicating the atavistic sectarianism that is evident when Cliftonville play Linfield, or Celtic play Rangers or when the two association football teams of Ireland meet on the pitch.

Cusack despite his radical position on the land question in opposition to landlordism, his support for Irish independence and sovereignty, and his egalitarianism in sport, has sometimes been ridiculed as a caricature of “backward nationalism.” That was promoted in no small way by Joyce’s depiction of him as The Citizen in the Cyclops episode of Ulysses in which Cusack is portrayed as a drunken anti-Semitic bigot. That has been comprehensively rejected by several historians including Cusack’s biographer Liam Ó Caithnia and former Cork Lord Mayor Gerald Goldberg.

Ironically one of the most notorious Dublin anti Semites of that era was Oliver St. John Gogarty who played soccer ball for the Bow-iss, currently guardians of all that is PC and woke in Irish sport, and several of whose Antifa members have no time for “the gah.”

Dublin and Tipperary (as worn by Michael Hogan)
 jerseys from Bloody Sunday, 1920. Photo Credit: CrokePark

Cusack’s antipathy to organised rugby, which he had played himself, and soccer was based on their bigotry not on his. Soccer was very much a sport of the British soldiery which became popular in Dublin and other towns with garrisons, while rugby was classist in the extreme; to the extent that private schools of all religious persuasions basically banned working class schools from participating in competitions, a practise that only ceased in Dublin in the 1980s. But of course none of our bien pensants go on endlessly about that.

Cusack’s own political opinions, apart from his nationalism, might also be divined from the fact that in 1887 he welcomed the success of the GAA in encouraging mass participation in hurling, football and athletics under the association’s rules (camogie was only systemised in 1903) as evidence of the growth of a “democratic Christian socialism.”

Patrick William Nally was more directly involved in the revolutionary movement. He was one of the founders of the Land League in Mayo in 1879 and became Joint Secretary and in 1880 was co-opted onto the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood as the Connacht representative. Nally was arrested in 1883 and convicted of an alleged plot to murder a landlord’s agent in Crossmolina. The only evidence was provided by two Special Branch informants at a time when British intelligence had deeply infiltrated the IRB. He was sentenced to ten years and thus missed the IRB meetings that were a prelude to its backing the foundation of the GAA in 1884.

Nally was first held in Downpatrick Gaol but was taken to Millbank prison in London to appear before the Parnell Commission in late 1888. That was part of the British attempt through the Times newspaper to implicate Parnell in revolutionary crime, but Nally refused to provide information to a ‘Thompson’ who visited them on behalf of the Times solicitor Soames. The Thompson in question was most likely Superintendent James Thomson who had been involved in secret operations against the Fenians under Sir Robert Anderson but who had retired in 1887.

Millbank was a dreadful place, built on marshes close to the Thames and regularly visited by outbreaks of dysentery, scurvy and other diseases. It had not had any prisoners since 1886 until Nally and other Fenians were held there to try and break them before the Commission. It was closed for good in 1890.

Monument to Patrick W Nally in Balla, Co Mayo.
Photo Credit: NMI

Nally’s refusal to become an informer meant that his severe treatment continued on his return to Downpatrick prison. He was transferred to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin when Downpatrick closed in April 1891. He was said to have contracted typhoid in Downpatrick or Millbank, and when transferred to Mountjoy he was made to clean the piggery. He died there on November 9, 1891.

The inquest in Dublin found that Nally had died due to “harsh and cruel treatment” due to his refusal to comply (Freeman’s Journal, November 17, 1891.) The family had been represented at the inquest by Parnellite MP John Redmond who elicited from the Deputy Governor of Mountjoy John Conden, on being asked about the conditions of political prisoners, the reply: “I would not consider Moonlighters political prisoners.” (Freeman’s Journal. November 12, 1891.)

Nally’s defiance and association with the fledgling GAA led to the founding of the P.W Nally club in Dublin among whose key members were James Boland, Chairman of the Dublin GAA and father of Harry who hurled for Faughs and Dublin and was killed during the Civil War. James Boland had known Nally through the Fenians in Manchester. Members of the Nally Club led the funeral procession from Clarendon Street to Glasnevin and Nally’s coffin was draped in the same flag that had covered Parnell’s a month previously.

Michael Cusack, múinteoir Gaeilge and founder of the
Gaelic Athletic Association. Credit: NUI Galway

Parnell of course, like Hogan, Nally and Cusack still holds a special place in the hearts of the GAA community as demonstrated by the number of clubs named in his honour, and of course Parnell Park in Dublin.


Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland.
He is currently working on a number of other books; His latest one is a novel entitled Houses of Pain. It is based on real events in the Dublin underworld. Houses of Pain is published by MTP and is currently available online as paperback and kindle while book shops remain closed.

Croke Park ➖The Story Of The Cusack And Hogan Stands

Sean Bresnahan ➨ The North is no longer a ‘Protestant state for a Protestant people’, as intended when ripped from the rest of Ireland at the onset of Partition. 

 
While a welcome development by any standard, though not yet complete, for those reared with an ingrained belief in the supposed ‘Britishness’ of their ‘own wee country’, this has been internalised as though an attack on their person. 


Thus we have reports as the recently cited Holylands Transition Study (referenced in the Irish News, 22nd September) encouraging the notion that GAA tops are a sectarian imposition on those in the area from a unionist background. Needless to say, those who would decry the GAA as sectarian can only be ignorant of the many Protestants who play and have played a part in its history.

While there may be reasons to explain this psychological phenomenon — these rooted in the sectarian history of the statelet — reasons of themselves do not constitute justification, even where we understand how they came to be taken up. There is, then, no justification for these considerations. They should be given no succour or reward, even if there be fear-based reasons behind why some hold to them.

The problem that all this gives onto is that anything seen to be ‘other’ — particularly where it is Catholic or Irish — is perceived as though a threat. Thus, civil rights for others translates into an ‘attack’, as does the Irish language and now, too, a mere GAA jersey. A psychological affliction as this can only but worsen as the nationalist community continues to outstrip what once was the unionist majority in the North.

For those so encumbered, the only way out from under their difficulty is to come to terms with that the Six Counties are a part of Ireland, soon to be joined with the rest of Ireland as one all-Ireland republic. And while, yes, that republic must be a welcoming place for all, not for one split second should a ‘de-Irishing’ of our country — neither now or come the future — be considered to placate such senseless fears, as would often seem the thinking.

Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

‘De-Irishing’ Ireland To Placate Intransigence No Template For The Future

Paul Kelly has an uncomfortable question for the GAA. 

So, Boris Johnson has finally achieved his lifetime ambition and made it to Number 10. "The end of the beginning" as his hero, Winston Churchill, once said. Or could it possibly be the other way around?

Brexit is now in full-throttle Cronus mode and has clearly demonstrated that the truth is irrelevant when you're chained to an antiquated and highly flawed ideology; the good old days when the sun never set on the British Empire. If devouring its own children in order to maintain the status quo is what it takes, then so be it.

Former US president Bill Clinton summed it up perfectly to RTE's Tommie Gorman in June. Expressing his concerns about those at the vanguard portraying the pursuit of a hard Brexit as a means of "liberating the United Kingdom" Clinton warned they may be:

… consigning one of the world's greatest nations in human history to a smaller role just so that people who have historically been in control can stay there.

As much as we like to tut-tut at Boris, Rees-Mogg, Gove et al pining for a simpler time when Paddy knew his place, with regard to blind devotion to an archaic creed are we really in a position to cast the first stone?

Take, for example, the GAA; arguably the final bastion in Irish society but an organization whose stubborn resistance to change rivals that of the Vatican. If the top table is unwilling to discuss a recent suggestion from Jarlath Burns (touted by many as a potential Uachtaran CLG) in relation to removing anthems and flags from GAA events in an attempt to welcome those of a different persuasion, are they (and thus by default, we) not handcuffed to an equally outdated doctrine also?

What flew in 1884 doesn't necessarily fly in 2019. What was written during a time of war doesn’t necessarily apply during a time of peace. All philosophies have a sell-by date. I believe this is what hurling pundit Donal Og Cusack was driving at with his " … last remnants of British culture on these islands …" comment made during a recent post-match analysis in which he defended coaches criticized for exploring alternative tactics.

For many the GAA is about identity; for others it's simply chasing a ball around a field. I'd suspect the silent majority fall somewhere in between. Of course the GAA takes on different meanings depending on geography and I fully appreciate that carrying a hurley in Ballymena isn't the same as carrying a hurley in Ballyhaunis. Placing less emphasis on historical and cultural aspects may be anathema to some; it was to me until recently. But I believe it's time for what former Crossmaglen Rangers and Armagh footballer John McEntee described in his Irish News column as 'uncomfortable conversations'.

This thinking will no doubt meet with fierce resistance in some quarters but our rich culture, one which transcends burning tyres and pallets, isn't jeopardized one iota by holding such discussions.

One would think this is a more pressing matter for GAA president John Horan than introducing a ridiculous and totally unnecessary back-pass rule.

⏭ Paul Kelly is a Tuam based writer.

GAA & Brexit

Matt Treacy continues delving into the world of GAA, this time emphasising Dublin's revival as a serious footballing force. 

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Matt Treacy looks at the lean years for Dublin.

Dublin’s Lean Years

More from Matt Treacy on the world of GAA.

The Beginning Of The Dublin/Kerry Rivalry

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Is It A Parasol Or a Brolly

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Dublin By Numbers

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