Review
Russell Rees tackles this collection of essays on the history and impact of the GAA…
- The Gaelic Athletic Association
- Irish Academic Press
The Beautiful Game
The GAA celebrated its 125th anniversary on 1 November 2009
Since its inception it has become the most important social, sporting and cultural movement in Ireland. In the modern era, when the excesses of professional sport are all too visible, the GAA has retained its community ethos. Supported by a large pool of competent volunteer enthusiasts, who ensure that the association has a significant presence in every county, the GAA continues to have a very profound and positive influence on everyday life in Ireland. At the top level GAA ‘stars’ are still seen as part of their own local communities, where they act as excellent role models for young supporters. Certainly, there are none of the trappings of celebrity which feature so prominently in other major sports.
This community ethos which is at the heart of the GAA has also intensified feelings of local patriotism. Indeed, this has been remarkable for a movement whose primary goal was to foster a distinct national identity. Mike Cronin’s essay emphasises that its two key early organisers, Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin, never regarded the GAA as a straightforward sporting body. Rather, it would seek to ‘underpin parallel efforts elsewhere to create an Irish culture’. From the outset, therefore, the movement refused to restrict itself to purely sporting activities.
The 14 essays in this volume do not seek to provide an authoritative history of the organisation, but many contain useful nuggets of information. The importance of the media in developing the organisation is emphasised. Press reports of games spread interest in the GAA and increased the sense of excitement and anticipation on the eve of important matches. Of course, the coverage of big games on the radio since the 1940s had a major impact in extending the GAA’s reach, and even today the radio broadcast is the preferred medium of many older enthusiasts.
Donal McAnallen’s contribution on the GAA and amateurism looks at the dominant amateur ethos from the organisation’s beginnings up to and beyond the formation of the GPA in 1981. Declaring that Gaelic games were plebeian by nature, McAnallen argues that amateurism was an expression of ‘Irish Catholic/Christian communalism’, whereas professionalism was regarded as ‘English, mercenary and debasing’. David Hassan charts the history of the GAA in Ulster, demonstrating that in recent decades the Association became a tangible link for northern nationalists to the rest of Ireland. Politically, of course, one of the GAA’s fundamental goals was to work for the establishment of a 32 county independent republic.
The most impressive essay in the collection is Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh’s overview of the GAA’s contribution to Irish society. Restating the view that the GAA from its earliest days was a committed nationalist movement, Ó Tuathaigh demonstrates that in terms of numbers the GAA was the main force in the cultural revival at the end of the 19th century. The essay also highlights the GAA’s enormous social influence in Ireland ever since, a development that has either been overlooked or understated by most Irish historians. Ó Tuathaigh corrects this oversight in his analysis. He attributes much of the organisation’s success to its honest, hard working, idealistic leadership which has proved itself to be flexible and politically astute. Ó Tuathaigh is probably too polite to say that the Republic’s current political class should take a leaf out of the GAA’s impressive book.
Dr Rees’s latest book, Labour and the Northern Ireland Problem, 1945-51: The Missed Opportunity, has recently been published by Irish Academic Press.
Russell Rees