WHEN volunteers arrived at Celtic Park to open up the morning of Derry’s sold-out home tie with Donegal, they found the message ‘Stop the killings’ painted on the grass in the middle of the pitch.
The graffiti artists had timed it so that there wouldn’t be a chance for discovery or removal until it was too late.
Ulster GAA’s gut reaction was to avoid getting into any political wrangling by getting some dark green paint of their own and attempting to disguise the wording, which they managed.
The Irish traditional band Saoirse don Phalaistín (Freedom for Palestine) had been told before the game that they would not be allowed to play inside the ground under that name.
They had been a regular fixture for Derry’s home games in Celtic Park but the band’s Gearalt Ó Mianáin told The Irish News last month that they were informed they could play if they changed their name, and that they could not display a Palestinian flag or make any references to Palestine.
It was a textbook GAA response to anything of a political hue, which is what makes Wednesday’s joint GAA/GPA statement on the subject something of a surprise.
At the time of that Derry-Donegal game in late April, around 34,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since October.
Less than 500 metres below Celtic Park as the crow flies, Free Derry Corner bore the colours of the Palestinian flag, adorned with the words “If I Must Die / Let It Bring Hope” – two lines from a poem written in 2011 by Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer.
The support of the city’s most famous gable wall was not a new development.
It was first done in 2005.
Last May, the Palestinian flag was raised on top of the wall to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, when Zionist forces expelled one million Palestinian people from their homes over a two-year period during Israel’s establishment.
Even since Donegal came and laid their own sporting ambush in Derry five-and-a-half weeks ago, the actions of the Israeli army have worsened by the day.
Their indiscriminate bombing of Rafah this week, labelled by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a tragic mistake”, pushed their campaign further into the realm of genocide.
He and his Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, are now subject to arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
US President Joe Biden insisted the attacks on Rafah, which included the use of United States-supplied munitions, didn’t cross a red line.
Men, women and children whose homes were already in ruin, moved to a supposedly safe area and then bombed and burned alive in the terrifying dark of night, adding to the 36,000 killed in seven months.
Where’s that line, Joe?
Will they only reach that line when every single Palestinian is dead or burnt out of the country, Joe?
The GAA and the GPA released their statement on Wednesday afternoon backing calls for an “immediate and sustained ceasefire” in Gaza.
Although its members can hold and express their own political views, the GAA stands firm behind the line that it is a non-party political organisation, a position it has attempted to maintain in the face of several referendums in the Republic over recent years.
For example in 2015, they refused openly gay referee David Gough permission to wear a rainbow wristband in support of a Yes vote at the upcoming same-sex referendum.
At the time, GAA Director of Communications Alan Milton said it was “a black and white issue” and that “Croke Park is not the place to make political gestures.”
The internal politics of Ireland are difficult because the GAA would consider – with some justification – that its commentary could impact on its membership, and thereby the very running of the country given how deep its tentacles run through society.
If a referendum over a united Ireland were to happen at some point, the natural assumption is that the GAA would be in favour given its stated 32-county ideals.
Twice in recent years, in 2019 and again last year before he took office, Jarlath Burns expressed his view that the GAA would have to come out in favour of a united Ireland if it ever came to it.
He is now the GAA president, and as it stands right now, the association remains distant from the answer to a question that hasn’t yet been formally asked.
Wading into an international crisis is an unfamiliar tactic.
Traditionally, whatever rare response there has been is usually one of action, such as opening Croke Park in 2022 to house Ukrainian refugees that were fleeing amid their own country’s ongoing resistance against Russia.
Wednesday’s statement added that they would, in this case, donate to the Irish Red Cross to support relief efforts in Gaza.
The long-running plight of the Palestinian people that began long before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 has always struck a chord with the Irish, who can empathise greatly with historical oppression at the hands of their neighbours.
In terms of its apolitical status, the GAA have wrestled with doing anything for almost eight months.
And now that they have, the statement they’ve released alongside the GPA is very careful in its framing and its words.
“The GAA and the GPA share the deep concerns expressed by many of our members about the ongoing humanitarian crisis and escalating violence in Gaza. We support the Irish Government and International Community’s calls for an immediate and sustained ceasefire which will allow aid to reach Gaza and for all hostages to be released,” it read, the day after Ireland formally recognised the state of Palestine and hoisted their flag at the front of Government buildings at Leinster House.
‘Ongoing humanitarian crisis.’
‘Escalating violence.’
Some would have preferred stronger terms.
Others won’t like the message at all.
What difference does any of it make?
On its own, none at all, just another voice in the chorus sending love and support to the people whose very existence is under threat.
But what else is there? Tom Ryan or Tom Parsons aren’t going to take up arms and join the war themselves.
When the Irish women’s basketball team got caught in the storm in February, they went ahead with the game after much deliberation but refused to shake hands with their Israeli counterparts or take part in the usual pre-match formalities.
The following morning, the United Nations released a statement saying that they were “extremely worried about the fate of civilians in Rafah”.
The 12 Palestinian film-makers who put themselves right on the frontline for Channel 4′s Dispatches programme, documenting exactly what is happening there, were the proof that the chorus of condemnation has to continue.
Me, you, the GAA, the GPA, Leinster House, Channel 4, the International Criminal Court, none of the words or gestures or the almost necessary circulation of gruesome, sickening images of dead children have lessened the weight of Netanyahu’s trigger finger.
The slaughter might only stop if Joe Biden ever finds that red line of his.
If they aren’t already all dead by then.