THIS SPORTING LIFE

The pig's bladder and the bull's scrotum took fair abuse in their time. For these were the early balls which men kicked and punched and caught and tugged. It was the dream of every able-bodied man to be the one who brought such a ball through the main street of his village, leaving the neighbouring villagers humiliated in his wake. It was the nightmare of every man to race towards triumph only to be confronted by thirteen or so opposing villagers with nara a local in sight.

Early Gaelic footballing - like practically all other balls sports - took balls, arms and legs with it. Rules weren't broken because there weren't any. Bones were. Some would say that Gaelic hasn't changed much. But if it hasn't then that's because the Irish haven't changed much either. Picasso said that to understand the Spanish you had to understand bullfighting and I think it was Paddy Kavanagh who said that you couldn't know the Irish without understanding the GAA.

The English excused imperialism by saying that they were civilising the natives; that without English law, order and stiff upper lips, races like the Irish would be lost in a maze of savagery. But what England saw as savagery, the Irish saw as individualism. Our country was full of kings and chieftains, while they had only one. Individualism has its side affects, stubborness and rivalry being two of them. You see, the Irish never liked orders and were highly suspicious of rules.

'racial menace'

In 1884, the GAA was set up with one objective: to get rid of English sports and to replace them with Irish ones. It was, in essence, the sporting wing of Irish republicanism. In the years before it was set up, rugby, cricket, and to a degree, soccer, were sweeping through Ireland. Up until the 1960's the introduction to its rule book stated: "The GAA was founded to check a grave racial menace in the deterioration of the pastimes of the people through want of organised control, and to combat the influence of other games and customs which threatened to destroy the surviving cultural inheritances of the Gael."

Of course, the English authorities hated the GAA and did everything in their power to crush it. The press - controlled by imperialism, as is usual - never lost an opportunity to slander it and Gaelic games in general. Yet, though it had lean periods in the early years, it survived, and in the new century, began to thrive.

By 1918, the English authorities were so annoyed by the GAA's avowed republicanism, that they tried to make the playing of Gaelic sports illegal unless a permit was issued by the police. The GAA responded immediately, issuing a warning that anybody but anybody who even thought of applying for one, would be suspended indefinitely. They called for the following Sunday to become 'Gaelic Sunday', with games to be played anywhere and everywhere. The day was a roaring success.

A very different day, Bloody Sunday, was to follow. On the morning of the 21st November 1920, the IRA shot dead twelve British secret agents. That afternoon British troops entered Croke Park and shot dead thirteen people. This merely reinforced the link between the GAA and republicanism. As an example, two years later, an ad in the Anglo-Celt promoted a "GAA - Great Challenge Match". The winner's prize was to be a Thompson machine gun.

What was to become the infamous Ban, began back in 1885. The Ban declared that no GAA member could play or watch a 'foreign' game under penalty of suspension. The ban also excluded members of the RIC/RUC and British army from playing Gaelic sports.

The reason for the first part of the ban was simple: The GAA had to build a set of sports from minimal beginnings in a hostile environment. RIC members were barred because they had been joining to spy on and shadow prominent GAA members. The first part of the Ban was removed in 1971; long, long after it should have been. However, the ban on RUC and British Army remains, due to the Northern conflict, and the view of many nationalists that the RUC is a sectarian force.

Although the GAA is still an avowedly nationalistic organisation, its direct links with the present IRA have been well and truly severed. This is for the simple reason that the GAA represents a huge section of the Irish population. Many of its players, spectators and administrators, although dedicated to Gaelic sport, would give no support to the armed struggle waged by the IRA.

Added Meaning

The GAA is a voluntary organisation. South County Dublin club, Ballyboden, fields fifty one football, hurling and camogie teams. It has 150 mentors and officials, with hundreds more parents and friends helping out. In an average year, some 700 Championship, League, Cup and Friendly matches will be played. Over 1,500 training sessions are held annually. All of this is organised on a voluntary basis.

Sport gives an added meaning to life for countless people. I have two bachelor uncles who had to take over a small, miserable farm when they were hardly in their teens. They have worked hard and magnificently and built something very prosperous.

As a child I often visited them, to sit by an open-hearth turf fire - which was never let go out - and to be enthralled by stories of the great Longford team of the mid-Sixties, with Jimmy Hannify and Jackie Devine playing and of the great Cavan teams and the legendary John Joe O'Reilly: "Through the length and breadth of Breiffne they are singing one refrain/God rest you John Joe O'Reilly, the pride of Cornafean."

I heard about stylish Down teams and great Roscommon teams and great Kildare teams. And again and again, of course, there was Kerry. The very word has an untouched magic for anyone who has ever known anything about Gaelic. And there was always Mick O'Connell. I remember once hearing about how he had jumped so high to make a catch, that his boots tripped over his opponents shoulders. Whether that was truth or myth, it didn't matter; the man is legend.

And of course too, there was Dublin. There was Brian Mullins; the man they said had a habit of telling a country opponent that there was a smell of cowshite off him. But Mullins was a great, great player, who came back from a car crash better than before. A legend too.

There was Pat Spillane, Kevin Moran, Jimmy Hanniffy, 'Ogie' Moran, Martin Furlong, Jack O'Shea, 'The Bomber' Liston, James MacCartan and countless, countless more. There were those extraordinary clashes between Dublin and Kerry. Who will ever forget Paddy Cullen racing desperately back as Mickey Sheehy lobs the ball into an open goal?

When I grew up and emigrated from the soil, I forgot that past, as I searched for what I had been told was a more sophisticated life. It wasn't there; not in the way I expected it anyhow. Country people have their conservative faults; that's without question. But as I meet and read our 'intellectuals', the child in me longs for the passion, wisdom and decency of a people who know enough to love beauty. Beauty was sitting by that blazing turf fire on a Winter's evening, listening to the conversation dance higher than the flames. It was easy to forget then that where I came from was devastated by emigration and drained of hope.

Drained of hope except for the aul' Gaelic; where men jumped high and dreams took flight.