A correspondent to our ‘Speak Out!’ Discussion Board recently raised the interesting – but controversial – question of whether or not the GAA is sectarian, writes An Fear Rua … (See Related Topics below)

Now, you don’t get too far in a club like Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds by stirrin’ unnecessary controversy nor by pokin’ your nose into other people’s controversies. Still, AFR has never been one to shirk a challenge nor to refuse to answer an honest question. So, while there is probably no more controversial question on this island of Ireland than that of the North, the relationships between people there, and the relations between Ireland and Britain, AFR is willing to have a go at setting out some thoughts on the issue raised.

An Fear Rua would draw a distinction between what he would term ‘overt’ sectarianism and ‘subliminal’ sectarianism in ‘Dis Great Assosheeayshun Of Ours’. In his view, there is little, if any, overt sectarianism in the GAA, North or South today, though it may not always have been like that. Indeed, at ‘ofeeshal’ level the GAA goes out of its way to portray itself as respectful of all political traditions, while recognising that it itself belongs in the mainstream of the tradition of Irish nationalism and separatism. The Association’s humane response to the Omagh massacre is a good example of how far we have travelled in attitude, but what distance remains. The games scheduled for Croke Park that day went ahead, albeit with a minute’s silence, and there followed an extremely generous financial contribution. Now, apply the Doctor Conor Cruise O’Brien test of reversing the roles. If the same atrocity had occurred South of the border that awful day, would the games at Croke Park have gone ahead? That’s where the residual, ‘subliminal’ sectarianism still comes in.

Overt sectarianism is no longer ‘Politically Correct’ among any of the multitudinous manifestations of Irish nationalism or Republicanism – except perhaps among the benighted animals posing as human beings who style themselves the ‘Real’ IRA or the ‘Continuity’ IRA. This welcome situation has been aided in no small way, however inadvertently, by more than thirty years of IRA violence in the North, which was – at best – indifferent to the slaughter it created among the unionist community. It was further assisted by the pioneering efforts of people like the Savant of Howth Himself, Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, the UCC Balladeer Himself, Professor John A Murphy and the Cleverest Corkman of Them All, Eoghan Harris, to educate people in the Republic about the reality of the two traditions in the North. And, we have to acknowledge the efforts of a string of politicians and civil servants, North and South, who worked tirelessly to bring us the IRA cease-fire, the Downing Street Declaration, The Good Friday Agreement, the Patten Report and so on. All of these documents, based as they are on a recognition of the right of people to hold different political aspirations, while working peacefully to achieve them, render the language of overt sectarianism obsolete.

Certainly, it wouldn’t take too brilliant a legal eagle to construct an indictment of sectarianism against the GAA, based on its past. Many of us grew up in a Republic where the Parish Priest was either the Chairman or President of the local club; where the Roman Catholic parish was – and still is – the basic ‘unit’ of the GAA; where Catholic bishops were Patrons of provincial councils and where many trophies were named after the bishops who presented them; where the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr Croke, had been a major influence in the very foundation of the GAA. It was a Republic where bishops frequently threw in the ball at major matches and ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ – though in reality an English hymn was sung before All Irelands in Croke Park. In schools, the driving force behind the proliferation of the GAA was often the Irish Christian Brothers. Hardly, a Protestant in sight, and certainly not a clergyman. And, no, - before you mention them - Sam Maguire and Jack Boothman don’t even up the score.

Undoubtedly, the Protestant approach to respect for the Sabbath – the very day on which GAA games were played – must have been a major contributory factor in diminishing Protestant involvement in the games and in turning their youngsters and their schools towards rugby, hockey, cricket and soccer. Hopefully, one of the beneficial side effects of a less rigorous approach to Sunday observance by all churches may leave Protestants freer in conscience to participate in the GAA. After all, what’s the moral difference between going to, say, a point-to-point meeting or a hunter trials on a Sunday and togging out for your local GAA club?

This all-pervasive ‘Catholicism’ of the Republic – validated for many years by Article 44 of the Constitution – affected every part of life here, so there’s no point in picking on the GAA about it. It’s difficult to explain to the young people of the Celtic Tiger how different it was then. That is neither to defend it nor to say any of it was right. (We all know, for example, the horror stories that have emerged from the clerically run orphanages and industrial schools of that era, with the apparent acquiescence of the State). The GAA was as much a victim of the attitudes of that time as a participant.

There is, however, a wider context, which has contributed to the perception of the GAA as being an organisation of one political tradition and one religious persuasion. This was the conscious view of the founders of the Association that it was not merely a ‘sporting’ organisation. The founding fathers, the likes of Cusack, Croke and Bracken, saw evoking interest in the ‘native’ games as an instrument to remove young Irish men from ‘nefarious’ foreign influences and to win them over to the cause of separation from Britain. (Incidentally, they were not alone in that view. The Gaelic League and the Abbey Theatre were formed for similar reasons, but in the cultural sphere). That political purpose, inevitably, was opposed to the political aspiration of the vast majority of Protestants, especially in North East Ulster, to remain a part of the United Kingdom. So, if you will, there was a structural flaw in the very foundation of the GAA that rendered it anathema to most Northern Protestants.

The political reasoning behind the foundation of the GAA is also what spawned controversial rules like Rule 26 - ‘The Ban’ - and Rule 21. If your purpose was one of separation from England then you could hardly ‘have truck’ neither with England’s games nor with her military and police forces in Ireland. So, the abolition of Rule 21 is clearly linked to the achievement of a political situation in Ireland, North and South, where the presence of these forces is at least tolerated, if not accepted, by Nationalists and Republicans. Since this goes to the core of the ‘identity’ issue, it is difficult to envisage circumstances where such tolerance or acceptance might come about, but we should not underestimate the ingenuity and diligence of the negotiators on all sides. That decent man, Joe McDonagh’s error was that he misread the timing of the signals, rather than that what he tried to do was wrong.

The idea of sport as ‘a badge of national identity’ is by no means confined to Ireland or the GAA. Within the old British Empire and the Commonwealth, winning at cricket or rugby – especially over the English – was an important way for countries like the West Indies, India, Australia and South Africa to assert their national identity. And, of course, we are familiar now with the appalling programmes run under the Eastern Bloc regimes to force athletes to ‘success’ in the Olympic games. Here, and on the neighbouring island, there is a grim irony in that it is soccer – the ultimate ‘garrison’ game – th