Why Donegal Slept: the Development of Gaelic Games in Donegal, 1884-1934

WHY DONEGAL SLEPT: THE DEVELOPMENT OF GAELIC GAMES IN DONEGAL, 1884-1934 CONOR CURRAN B.ED., M.A. THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D. THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR SPORTS HISTORY AND CULTURE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY LEICESTER SUPERVISORS OF RESEARCH: FIRST SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR MATTHEW TAYLOR SECOND SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR MIKE CRONIN THIRD SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR RICHARD HOLT APRIL 2012 i Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii Abbreviations v Abstract vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Donegal and society, 1884-1934 27 Chapter 2 Sport in Donegal in the nineteenth century 58 Chapter 3 The failure of the GAA in Donegal, 1884-1905 104 Chapter 4 The development of the GAA in Donegal, 1905-1934 137 Chapter 5 The conflict between the GAA and association football in Donegal, 1905-1934 195 Chapter 6 The social background of the GAA 269 Conclusion 334 Appendices 352 Bibliography 371 ii Acknowledgements As a rather nervous schoolboy goalkeeper at the Ian Rush International soccer tournament in Wales in 1991, I was particularly aware of the fact that I came from a strong Gaelic football area and that there was only one other player from the south/south-west of the county in the Donegal under fourteen and under sixteen squads. In writing this thesis, I hope that I have, in some way, managed to explain the reasons for this cultural diversity. This thesis would not have been written without the assistance of my two supervisors, Professor Mike Cronin and Professor Matthew Taylor. Professor Cronin’s assistance and knowledge has transformed the way I think about history, society and sport while Professor Taylor’s expertise has also made me look at the writing of sports history and the development of society in a different way. Professor Richard Holt, Professor Dilwyn Porter and Dr Neil Carter also provided much advice during my trips to England and deserve thanks for their friendliness and encouragement. I would also like to thank Dr Dónal McAnallen and Dr Richard McElligott for their thoughts on the GAA in Ulster and Kerry respectively. Patrick Bracken’s encouragement and advice was also a great help at various stages throughout the writing of this thesis. I am grateful to the staff of the National Library of Ireland in Kildare Street and those working at the National Archives in Bishop Street for their help in retrieving source material. The staff of the Cardinal O’Fiaich library also deserve thanks for their assistance during my visit there, in particular the man who picked me up at the bus station in Armagh when I was not entirely sure of where I was supposed to be going. I am also thankful to the staff of PRONI in Belfast for their help in locating the papers of the Irish Football Association and Sarah O’Shea of the Football Association of Ireland for granting me access iii to their archives. Those working in the Folklore Commission Archives and in the Research Department at University College Dublin also gave significant assistance while in Donegal, the staff of the County Archives at Lifford and the Central Library, Letterkenny, were very helpful. I would also like to thank Edward Molloy for providing me with a number of books on the GAA in Donegal which otherwise would not have been accessible. Finally I would like to thank my family for their never ending support and encouragement. iv Abbreviations Ballyshannon Herald and North-Western Advertiser BH and NWA Derry Journal DJ Derry People and Donegal News DP and DN Derry People and Tír Conaill News DP and TN Derry Standard DS Donegal Democrat DD Donegal Independent DI Donegal People’s Press DPP Donegal Vindicator DV Football and Sports Weekly FSW Gaelic Athlete GA Londonderry Sentinel LS Public Records Office of Northern Ireland PRONI v Abstract The development of sport in Donegal, a peripheral Irish county which was rather isolated from the more centralised areas of the British sporting ‘revolution’, has attracted only limited academic attention. This thesis will examine the origins and development of the GAA in Donegal between 1884 and 1934. The state of Donegal society in the late nineteenth century will be assessed and the factors which benefited, and hindered, the growth of codified sports there will be discussed. The reasons why the GAA failed to become established until the 1920s will be investigated and a comparison with provincial and national trends will be offered. The growth of clubs will be chartered through an assessment of the areas in which Gaelic games were played. The rivalry between organisers of Gaelic football and soccer will be addressed and the impact of the press on this will also be explored. The reasons for the failure of hurling within the county will also be outlined. How the GAA became integrated into Donegal society will be examined through an investigation of the role of the players, administrators and patrons in the Association and the Donegal GAA’s involvement in Ireland’s fight for independence will be discussed. This thesis will make a valuable contribution to the historiography of the British sporting ‘revolution’ while adding to the increasing range of academic writing on the development of sport in regional Irish areas. vi Introduction Writing in The GAA: A People’s History, Cronin, Duncan and Rouse have stated that the nineteenth century brought a revolution in sport that had its roots in the profound social and economic change which was transforming life in England. The industrial revolution turned England from an agricultural society into an urban one…between the schools and the industrial cities, patterns of play were remoulded. The informal, traditional recreations of previous generations were recast on an urban stage as modern, codified sports.’ 1 These games ‘became more commercialised as events involving amateur and professional competitors drew enormous crowds to purpose built stadiums across English cities, while many more played games in the parks and pavilions of the growing suburbs.’2 In addition, Neil Tranter has claimed that ‘the pace at which this occurred was wholly unprecedented’ and ‘sport in its modern, organised, commercialised and extensive form, was truly an “invention” of the Victorian and Edwardian age.’3 How this sporting ‘revolution’ affected the development of sport at micro-level, in a peripheral Irish setting, has received only limited attention. Donegal, a rather isolated county lying in the north-west of Ireland, but at the time part of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, has thus far received little analysis. Many regions where sport developed into a major commercial enterprise in England and Scotland in the late nineteenth century had decisive factors which, as will be seen, were lacking or poorly developed in Donegal. Some areas of England can be defined as having a central role within the sporting ‘revolution’ and the development of modern sport. John Bale’s study of areas linked with its growth has shown that professional football in Britain is ‘strongly associated with the English industrial heartland, stretching from Merseyside-Lancashire to Greater London’ with Central 1 Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse, The GAA: A People’s History (Cork, 2009), pp 10-3. 2Ibid., For an alternative view of the sporting ‘revolution’ see Adrian Harvey, The Beginnings of a Commercial Sporting Culture in Britain, 1793-1850 (Aldershot, 2004). Harvey argues that by the middle of the nineteenth century, sports events in Britain were more firmly established than has been accepted by many sports historians. 3 Neil Tranter, Sport, Economy and Society in Britain, 1750-1914 (Cambridge, 1998), pp 16-7. 1 Scotland also noted but being seen as less influential. 4 According to David Russell, ‘Sheffield holds an absolute key role in the growth of association football’ while ‘the entire West Yorkshire textile district bounded by Tormorden in the west, Leeds and Wakefield in the east, Keighley in the north and the villages of the Holme and Colne valleys in the south, coupled with a substantial section of the Yorkshire coalfield east of Wakefield’ was ‘one of Victorian rugby’s greatest strongholds and the absolute heartland of the game in the county.’ 5 ‘The widespread establishment of governing bodies to oversee the rules and organise and run competitions’ was a feature of sport’s development at a macro-level and in particular, ‘it was in soccer that the development of competitive structures began earliest and proceeded furthest.’6 Competitions such as the English FA Cup, first staged in 1871, the Scottish FA Cup (1873), the Welsh FA Cup (1877) and a number of national and regional leagues added greatly to the spread of interest in Association football in mainland Britain, while the latter years of the nineteenth century saw ‘a veritable explosion of league and cup competitions for cricket clubs’ in the Midlands and north of England.7 Tranter is, however, also careful to point out that the growth of sport in the late Victorian-Edwardian era was not a uniform development throughout Britain and that regional variations were commonplace. He highlights the case of East Northumberland and Stirling where ‘institutional fragility’ in a number of sports was caused mainly by financial problems.8 Therefore, while at a macro-level there were clear patterns and trends in the rates at which sport developed, some regional areas experienced discontinuity and a failure to develop permanent structures for the spread of sport. According to David Russell, ‘there is 4 John Bale, ‘Sport and National Identity’ in British Journal of Sports History, vol. 3, no. 1 (1986), pp 18-41, pp 32-4. 5 David Russell, ‘Sporadic and Curious’: The Emergence of Rugby and Soccer Zones in Yorkshire and Lancashire, c.

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