Opinion

Patrick Murphy: GAA defies partition but cannot avoid northern challenge

Tyrone will have about half the county cheering them on in today's All-Ireland final. Picture by Philip Walsh
Tyrone will have about half the county cheering them on in today's All-Ireland final. Picture by Philip Walsh Tyrone will have about half the county cheering them on in today's All-Ireland final. Picture by Philip Walsh

THIS unique All-Ireland final Saturday is perhaps an appropriate time to reflect that the GAA has defied partition for 100 years, mainly by ignoring it.

After 1922, it continued on an all-island basis so that, unlike nationalist political parties, it practises a united Ireland, rather than preaches about it.

So what is the GAA’s influence on modern Irish society, how did an amateur sports body become so prominent and, although it is non-political, does it impact on politics, north and south?

Today it is often the hub of rural parishes, the driver of urban sport and the glue which knits together much of Ireland’s social fabric.

Its voluntary work in youth and community development cannot be costed in financial terms, meaning it is literally a national treasure.

It has over 2,200 clubs here and 450 overseas, making it one of the world’s biggest amateur sporting organisations. Its primary aim is to strengthen national identity (an attractively vague concept) through promoting Gaelic games.

It was founded in 1884, as part of the Gaelic revival, which had many Protestant leaders including Thomas Davis, Douglas Hyde and Horace Plunkett (relative of 1916 leader Joseph Plunkett).

(Some unionists today criticise GAA club names, but the most common names commemorate two Protestants: Robert Emmet and John Mitchel.)

The organisation’s first patrons were Archbishop Croke, Home Rule leader Charles Stewart Parnell (another Protestant) and Land League founder Michael Davitt. It was an interesting mix of morality, social and economic development and constitutional nationalism.

Its creation gave the working class a recreational outlet for the first time. Limerick Commercials were made up of shop-workers. Dublin’s Kickhams consisted mainly of drapers’ assistants and the 1890s revival of hurling in the capital was driven largely by clerks.

Since then the GAA has been a binding force in southern politics, as evidenced by its role in healing Civil War divisions (I have watched Kerry club games where a friend indicated which players’ families fought on which Civil War side).

In the sectarian north, it is inevitably associated with nationalism, despite its outreach attempts and the creation of new clubs in places like east Belfast (Not all their players are Belfast-born. If my hearing is correct, some of their hurlers speak Munster Irish to gain a communicative edge during a match - fair play to them).

Fairer coverage from the BBC might help promote the GAA’s non-sectarianism. Attempts to equate it with the Orange Order misrepresent it (Wicklow Protestant Jack Boothman was GAA President, 1994-97. Will a Catholic ever head the Orange?).

The GAA’s inclusiveness is evidenced by Zak Moradi, who came here as a Kurdish 11-year-old in 2002 and helped Leitrim hurlers to win the Lory Meagher Cup in 2019. Pakistan’s Shairoze Akram arrived 20 years ago, with no English. In 2016 he won an all-Ireland under-21 medal with Mayo and narrowly failed to make the Mayo senior panel this year.

Unionists arrived in Tyrone over 400 years ago and, with respect, none of them will join the Tyrone panel any time soon.

The GAA’s inclusiveness is offset by intense geographical rivalry, based on allowing only one club per parish (As Patrick Kavanagh said, the greatest b……s in the world always live in the next parish). So whether the rivalry is between Irish-designated parishes, or English-designed counties, religion and politics are relegated below a sense of place.

Today as accents from across those places mingle in Croke Park, Kerry people will lyrically refer to “Tie-rone”, while Tyrone supporters will spit out the name, “Throne”, like a verbal assault. Our regional differences bind us together.

So as the two teams compete for the Sam Maguire Cup (named after a Protestant) all of Mayo will cheer their team and that is the GAA’s great success.

In Tyrone, about half of the county may neither know nor care about the match and that is the GAA’s greatest challenge. It has not come all this way to avoid it.