The Roots of the GAA

Books

 * 1) Grand Opportunity (following your advice)
 * 2) GAA: A History - By Marcus de Burca
 * 3) The GAA: An Oral History
 * 4) Lest We Forget: Gems of Gaelic Games and Those Who Made Them
 * 5) The History of Gaelic Games by Ian Prior

Lest We Forget

 * "Ireland began to move toward her place among the nations of the world where her young men began to revive the athletic traditions of their forefathers" - William T. Cosgrave

The GAA: An Oral History

 * Gaelic games offer us a group identity, a spiritual home to belong to, a sacred place where we can be among our people and therefore ourselves. - John Scallly, "The Throw-In"


 * For one hundred and twenty-five years, the GAA has been the one fixed point in a fast-changing age. - Throw-In


 * This book does not purport to be a definitive history of the GAA.


 * As it is an oral history, the story is told via a series of snapshots through the memories and reflections of some of the key players and managers who made the magic happen. -- (WHERE ARE THE FANS? THE IRISH POLITICIANS? THE CULTURAL SPHERE, eTC?)

In the Shadow of Cuchulainn

 * Reference to Irish Legend


 * To understand the origins of the Association, we must reach further back into time and try to weave together the threads of the rich, though often dark, tapestry of Irish history. (WE ? The Irish? Or anyone who cares to read this? Who is the WE? And what of weaving?)


 * Next passage "The Ireland of the 1840's was a vision of hell" so the connection being made that "We" must go back to the famine.


 * "nothing prepared them for it" "a battleground of contending dooms" "government neglect" --> situates the authors reading of the famine and suggests how it forms his relationship to the GAA and nationalism


 * "That food was exported while Irish people starved in the country's greatest human tragedy is an enduring moment to inhumanity, ineffectiveness, and indifference" --> "Irish people" ? "the country" is this a pre-Ireland?


 * Resistance to British begins at Press -> "The Nation"


 * Then "self-government"


 * Then "land reform"


 * Charles Parnell


 * Then Historical traces of "ball-and-stick" games


 * No historical precedent for gaelic football until 1670


 * Michael Cusack -> Story attached to a great man


 * "Garrison games" as Rugby & Soccer of British.


 * "Cusack advocated that the Irish take control of ther own games in the same way Parnell had led them to win back ownership of their land" -> Athletics as well as "field games"


 * Quotes Croke, Cusak and Cork Examiner publication on the famous "Billiards Room" story


 * "from its inception, the GAA had a two-fold objective of promoting Irish games and reducing the perceived malign influence of 'foreign games'" -> not true and inconsistent. GAA also about regulate athletics on the island, etc. Something the author previously acknowledged...


 * Radicality and politics of the origins of the organization are identified but not elaborated on. John O'Leary and William O'Brien are identified as Irish Republican Brotherhood members who are patrons but there is no discussion/elaboration of their impact.


 * "Having given birth to the Association, Cusack almost strangled it in its infancy because of his acerbic character."


 * "Nationalism and the GAA often went hand in hand. In the early days, many IRB members were involved in the GAA, using it as a recruiting ground. Archbishop Croke, though, had influenced the young organisation from falling under the control of the Fenians. The tensions between the the nationalist elements within the GAA and their opponents would endure for most of the Association's history."

Review of The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics

 * Challenges the the statement of author W.F. Mandle that "no organisation had done more for Irish nationalism than the GAA" by contending that "Mandle's account of the sporting contexts (whether Irish or British) of the Gaelic athletic revival is cursory, if suggestive"

The GAA: A History

 * Funded/commissioned by the GAA "In the 1970's, the GAA decided, as part of the advanced preparations for its centenary in 1984, to commission a history of the Association" (Preface) told to foucus on "its influence on the national movement of the pre-1922" --> Not explained why, but it is made clear the GAA not only commissioned (paid?) for the project, but opened up their records for consideration. So where W.F. Mandle used "police records" and other figures, this appears to be a study from within.


 * Book "an attempt to record the revival of 115 years ago of native Irish games" (1)


 * Even more wide-situating that Scally: "rural folklore - played by moonlight, by fairy folk on the surface of lakes" "pre-christian ireland" / Evidence of laws & religious degrees that were supposed to suppress popularity / Cuchulainn again (like Scally) "bronze hurley and a silver ball" / even discussion of "winter hurling" -> hockey-ish? (2)


 * Importantly, De Burca also talks about the spread of British games: ""By the late 1860's, nearly every town had its own cricket club" (4)


 * De Burca also complicates the hagiography of Cusack by saying that "at least one person" prior to Michael Cusack thought about a National organization for Irish sports: "Dennis Holland" "advocated the revival of Irish games and the setting up of a network of parish clubs in 1858" but he went to America (2).


 * Then into TOTAL HAGIOGRAPHY of Michael Cusack : "To understand how and why the GAA was founded it is essential to know something of the personality of its founder: Michael Cusack. To Cusack must go all the credit for stateing the GAA; without him there would have been no GAA, certainly not in the 1880s." (5)


 * * Situated within a broader "revival of amateur athletics in Ireland" (6)


 * Another figure considered Pat Nally a celebrated athlete and IRB member "To Nally, as to many nationalists and unionists at the time, politics and sports were inseparable. For some years, Fenianism and the cause of the small tenant-farmer had been closely allied in Connacht; hense Nally became a bitter opponent of Landlordism, the class then patronising rural athletics." Instead, he advocaties "Athletics organized by nationalists"


 * Cusak as writer / athlete / teacher / Home Ruler


 * Dublin Hurley Club in 1882 to weed out alternative "much closer to English hockey" (10) -> Not successful


 * Septemenber 1883 -> Metropolitan Hurling Club much more successful (11)


 * Piece really works teleologically, imagining its conclusion always in its treatment of events in Cusack's life.


 * Also take Cusack as a public figure, observing and profiling his popular writing and what they meant


 * October 1884 -> Article published in United Ireland and the Irishman : "A Word on Irish Athletics" they have succinctly put the case once again for a body as that formed in Thurles a few weeks later." (13)


 * 1 November 1884 -> meeting in hotel billiard room : disputed how many people were there. "Probably not more than thirteen people, and possibly only seven were present. The accepted number of founder-members is seven. Soon afterwards Cusack put the number at a dozen; twice later, in uncontradicted statements made publicly when all concerned were still alive, he changed to nine [sic]" (13-14)


 * Emphasizes the difficulty and politics of this 'historic event'


 * Thereafter, "spread like prarie fire" quote from Cusack used by Scally and De Burca (De Burca 15)