The GAA in Crisis 55 Somhairle Mag Uidhir
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The GAA in crisis 55 Somhairle Mag Uidhir he clock overlooking Croke Park reads 72 minutes corner-forward, who, instead of recycling the ball, and 22 seconds. The allotted two minutes of shoots from an impossible angle and invariably misses. injury time have passed and the Cork bench are Instead it is the greed of corporate GAA that comes screaming for the referee to blow the whistle. It is to mind; of ticket-price hikes and Sky pay-per-view theT 2013 All-Ireland Hurling final and the Rebel county deals, encapsulated in the oft-repeated refrain of the are ahead by a point against a Clare team led by Davy ‘Grab-All-Association’. And the reality is that the GAA Fitzgerald. Both counties have surprised pundits and has reached a crossroads. Its founding values – of supporters alike by making it this far, and for Clare, amateurism, community, voluntarism and democracy this match represents their best chance of ending the – are under threat to an extent never before seen in the fifteen-year gap since their last All-Ireland win. history of the Association. Up steps the Clare corner-back, Domhnall This article is an attempt to shed light on the rot of O’Donovan, who receives the ball just past the 65-metre commercialisation that has taken hold. It will lay out line. And instead of playing it into the Clare forward line where the compulsion to commercialise has come from, (which had been so potent that summer), he turns to how it manifests in the GAA, and why it needs radical his left, throws off the shackles and strikes the sliotar action to tackle it. Because ultimately, if we want to save high and over the bar, tying up the game. A quote in the GAA, we need to be clear about what we’re saving one report on the match emphasised the risk involved it from. As such, this is not intended to be a historical in taking the shot himself: “And what he was doing account of the GAA, of its roots and its role in 20th century inside the Cork 65m line only he knows!” Regardless, Irish society. Instead it will tease out the contemporary the final whistle blows, Davy Fitzgerald puts his face in dynamics of the organisation, arguing that the problems his hands, and a week later Clare beat Cork in the replay facing it are not simply the result of a few bad eggs. to win one of the most remarkable All-Irelands of recent The depth of commercialisation within the Association memory. means that the problem is structural, and is one which And whether it is O’Donovan going it alone, a golfer needs to be overcome before the amateur organisation driving for the green rather than laying up, or rugby that is a source of such pride for its members gets into a teams opting to kick for a five-metre line-out from a hole from which it cannot escape. penalty when three points are a given; greed is never far away from the margins of sport. The potential either for The Good unmitigated glory or for disastrous ruin is something Many could be forgiven for thinking that, despite the that makes the ‘greedy’ play so compelling. They are odd difficulty, much was rosy in the GAA. Indeed, part of the drama of sport, and as such, of the GAA. it would be unfair not to look at some of the positive However, over the past decade ‘greed’ has begun aspects of Gaelic games today. to be associated with another, different, aspect of There are record breaking crowds and viewers the GAA. No longer does it conjure up images of the watching hurling and football1. And no wonder, as we are IRISH MARXIST REVIEW 56 seeing arguably the highest ever quality play; on-field is a good place to start, because there has been a definite exploits are leaving people all over Ireland mesmerized, limit to the progress made. Women continue to struggle (in hurling especially). The skill and athleticism of the with a high level of discrimination and a general lack game today, especially at inter-county level, cannot be of status and recognition given to “ladies’” football and overemphasised. camogie. In terms of pitch times, resources, coverage, At the other end of the organisation is a vast network and basic respect, the women’s games are made to play of volunteers; people of all ages who give up countless second fiddle to the men. hours of their own time simply for the sake of sports Similarly, behind the positives of huge attendances they love and communities they belong to. The Irish and recent record viewing figures lie a litany of problems Independent, for example, recently described the which paint a very different picture. activities of one club volunteer, Martin. Over the course In October 2018, one of the most decorated hurlers of one week, he marked out the pitch for an under-16s in the history of the sport, Kilkenny’s Tommy Walsh, game, went to a committee meeting, drove a carload to a said that “we won’t have club hurling in ten years”2. He camogie game, stewarded the car park for a minor league was alluding to the damage the current fixture crisis in final, took the under-8s for training, and organised the the club game is doing to hurling. And the challenges celebrations for the club’s intermediate champions. are mirrored within club football, leaving the club game Despite many problems at the top, local GAA clubs in general in a very precarious position. Scattered and continue to be rooted in communities across the disorganized fixtures, last-minute cancellations, leagues country and exist as the lifeblood of many of them. It is and championships crammed into short windows; the a mass-participatory sporting organisation, providing a horror stories have been growing in number, to a point much-needed, positive social outlet in today’s atomised where many club players have come together to found capitalist world. the Club Players’ Association (CPA) in an attempt to Importantly, given the rise of racism across Ireland, bring about a change.3 Gaelic games have acted as a means of integrating newer Not wholly unrelated to the club fixture crisis is the arrivals to Ireland. While there is more that could be reality that many rural teams are under threat because of done, many GAA clubs across the country have provided the emigration which is devastating rural communities. worthwhile examples of what local populations can do In fact, it could be argued that the health of a particular to welcome refugees and immigrants. Other good news rural GAA club can be a useful lens through which to stories include the trend of specifically Irish language view the health of the wider community. So far, the GAA GAA clubs, outside traditional Gaeltacht areas, wherein has been unable to adequately deal with this dilemma. people train and play wholly through Irish. In recent Then there are the controversies which have emerged years such clubs have been established in Belfast, in recent years, pointing to the wider trajectory of the Dublin, Galway, and Monaghan, with great success. organisation. One which stood out was the ‘Newbridge And significantly, there has been an historic growth or Nowhere’ debacle. Kildare were entitled to a home in the women’s games, with participation among girls venue in their qualifier match against Mayo, based on the skyrocketing. The decades-long efforts by women to rulebook. Central Council, the GAA’s governing body, gain long overdue recognition is beginning to pay off. Of attempted to relocate the fixture away from Kildare’s course, there is still a long, long way to go. Newbridge to Croke Park, citing safety concerns. The Kildare team, their county board and their supporters And the Bad managed to hold fast, threatening a boycott unless the The GAA, then, is not all doom and gloom. Indeed, it is game was reinstated in Newbridge. As a campaign, precisely because of the many ways in which it continues ‘Newbridge or Nowhere’ electrified the GAA community to be a beneficial part of Irish society that the dangers right across Ireland. Many were sceptical of the talk facing the Association are so pressing. Dangers that are of ‘safety concerns’, highlighting another potential worth examining if we are to understand the cause of the motivation for moving the game to a bigger venue: more crossroads the GAA finds itself at. The women’s games money to be made at the gate. 57 That saga followed in the wake of officials at more people. Furthermore, keeping up with other teams is than one senior championship game trying to remove only possible with the best training conditions, the Palestine flags from the crowd.4 There was also an best equipment in the best facilities, broken up with instance of a mother being told that she must pay for extended training camps – sometimes abroad. Neither her infant baby to enter a Tyrone match at Croke Park, can any expense be spared for the logistical elements: even though the baby would have been in her arms the travel, accommodation, matchday-meals, and more whole match.5 build up over the course of an eleven-month season. At the opposite ends of Ireland, stadia controversies Of course, this is without mentioning the player- rumble on. Huge multi million-pound redevelopments specific costs for inter-county players in the modern era. of Casement Park in Belfast and Páirc Uí Chaoimh in The findings from research conducted by the Economic Cork have sparked political and financial headaches, and Social Research Institute in 2016 should leave us in while ticket-prices have seen successive increases at vir- no doubt as to the effort of inter-county players, with tually all levels.