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.
It will always be viewed as the IRA's Sports and Social to our community Peter. Having a ground in East Belfast will feed in to the deep underlying suspicion of losing ground by stealth, bit by bit. One only has to look at the treatment of Protestants who tried to play GAA over the years. Putting a ground will be a bridge too far for some.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate Steve that the unionist community see it that way. It is far from the reality on the ground and there was always tension between the GAA authority and republicans. Unionists often claimed to feel the Catholic Church was in league with the IRA - we know how off the wall that view is. The IRA secular perspective was expressed in 1973 when it called the Church ecclesiastical vipers. All sports are for some but not all. Peter's point is that the repelling factor in this case is not a preference for one sport over another but politics. He has a point there. And he has consistently argued that sports and politics should be separate, much like church and state.
DeleteI doubt I would engage a sport positively if its clubs were named after dead RUC / UDR / British Army / armed loyalists. I would be critical of the clubs rather than the sport. I think Peter is critical of the authority and is pretty neutral when it comes to the sport.
I am not a GAA fan - played the football in school and jail but soccer is my sport of choice.
I think it is important that the view expressed by Peter gets a wider airing. As much as I think East Belfast GAA is doing a good job and has challenged any suggested nationalist monopoly over Gaelic games, its perspective is not the only one within unionism and is there to be challenged or dissented from.
Peter Anderson Comments
DeleteSteve R
I think we could be forgiven for thinking that the GAA is the sporting wing of the IRA, especially in the north. My lunch with Deenihan changed all that. The GAA in the south is a much different beast. As AM alluded to in his comment, there is much division between the Ulster authorities and the rest. They clashed over Rule 21, only Down supported its removal from the Ulster Branch. Also, with the naming of clubs and competitions, the Ulster Branch say that, if the South can name them after rebels from 1798 or 1916 then the north can name them after Provies and INLA men. They also clashed over the inclusion of the Irish Guards team in London competitions. I think most people involved in GAA have only honourable intentions and want to reach out, but a solid group of knuckledraggers are holding them back (like many organisations in the north!).
I'm in agreement that politics and sport SHOULD be separate but seldom is, anywhere in the world. Regarding the actual sport, I'm ambivalent. I used to know a couple of Shinners from Castlewellan who loved the Hurley, I often pointed out that giving them big sticks to attack each other was a cynical Brit ploy!! Always seemed like it was a case of "My village is better than your village"
DeleteSteve, when individuals or indeed communities feel under threat they become more entrenched in the culture with which they identify.
ReplyDeleteA farmer has an old horse drawn plough rusting away at the back of the house, overgrown by weeds, nettles and dockens. He has no heed to it nor little value on it ... Until a tinker man arrives in the yard. He asks, "How much do you want or the auld plough sir?"
Suddenly the plough has an inflated value and is definitely not for sale.
The travelling man gets short shift.
I think a similar identity attachment runs through Northern Nationalism. The attachment to the language, the church and the GAA albeit weakening over time, was/is but an expression of resistance to domination, regardless of whether the threat is real or merely perceived.
Similarly, the same identity challenges, manifesting in an attachment to culture is now showing up in the more beleaguered parts of Loyalism. (Linda Irvine's efforts in East Belfast though admirable, alas won't gain broad traction).
Keeping politics out of sport? Except when the politicians want to push some agenda of course then it's all good according to their acolytes. #tyrantshypocritesandliars
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