The GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) in Britain
On a recent Sunday in London, it came home to me how lucky we Irish are when it comes to sport. On that sunny day, I made my way out to Ruislip to see a Connacht Senior Football Championship clash between London and Galway. The London Gaelic Football team competes each year in the Connacht Provincial Championship and last year reached the final of that competition, a remarkable achievement.
That day in Ruislip was not a great one for devoted supporters of the London team, for the home players were well beaten by the visitors from the west of Ireland. It was, however, an uplifting sporting occasion with supporters of Gaelic games travelling from far and wide to witness the spectacle of top class Gaelic football being played in London. There was a wonderful atmosphere, reminiscent of similar summer occasions at GAA grounds all over Ireland.
After watching the game at Ruislip, I sat down to view the TV coverage of the Munster Hurling Championship game between my home county, Waterford, and our Cork neighbours. It was a stirring spectacle as a youthful, unfancied Waterford team came within a whisker of defeating Cork. The replay last weekend ended in a resounding victory for Cork.
I grew up in Waterford in the 1960s in a soccer-supporting family, League of Ireland soccer of course, as English soccer was an unknown quantity to me at that time. Among my earliest memories are of Sunday evenings listening with my grandfather to Soccer Survey on RTE Radio, with exotic names like Oriel Park, Glenmalure, Dalymount and Flower Lodge filling the airwaves.
In those days, soccer in Waterford was on a high while hurling, after Waterford's defeat in the 1963 All-Ireland Final, entered a period in the doldrums. This has changed in recent times with now the premier sport in my home county. In those earlier days, with the GAA(Gaelic Athletic Association) ban on foreign games still in place, there was a degree of partisanship between followers of the different sporting codes. That is no longer the case and I recently sat at a dinner table in London with the President-elect of the GAA and the President of the Irish Rugby Football Union.
Over the years, my enthusiasm for Gaelic games has increased enormously. This does not mean that I have abandoned interest in other sports. Not at all. We Irish have a rich palette of sport to choose from, but a summer of Gaelic Games has a unique appeal. A Munster hurling final at Semple Stadium in Thurles would now be my sporting venue of choice. I am glad that people in Britain will this year be able to sample the magic of hurling and Gaelic football with live coverage on Sky Sports.
Ironically, my burgeoning interest in the GAA has come in part from the fact that I have lived much of my adult life outside of Ireland, circumstances which tend, in my case at least, to boost interest in all things Irish. I recall, for example, attending the All-Asia Gaelic Games Championships in Phuket on 2003, watching teams compete from as far apart as the Gulf and Korea.
During my time in London, I have learned how important the GAA has been over the years to the Irish community in Britain. This is particularly so for newer Irish migrants for whom the GAA is an important means of expressing their Irish identity. The GAA has also played a key role in the positive development of British-Irish relations, including by hosting the historic visit by the Queen to Croke Park during her State Visit to Ireland in 2011.
In recognition of its importance to the Irish in Britain, the Irish Government has provided support to the GAA in Britain through the Emigrant Support Programme (ESP). Over the past six years, the GAA has received over £1.3 million in funding to assist in the important work of promoting Gaelic games and community-oriented GAA activities in schools and clubs across Britain.
This is a joint partnership arrangement which means that at least double this amount has been invested in developing the GAA in Britain. In addition, in March this year Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore announced a grant of €600,000 through the ESP for the redevelopment of the Ruislip GAA grounds in London, the headquarters of the London County Board.
Recently, I also had the pleasure of launching the All-Britain GAA Championships at the Embassy. On that occasion, I paid tribute to the GAA as a major pillar of Irish identity. It is a unique achievement for the GAA to have preserved our national games as the two most popular sports in Ireland, and to have maintained their amateur ethos. When I was younger, there were those who believed that the GAA would falter as Ireland became a more advanced, outward-looking society. Quite the opposite has happened and Gaelic Games have probably never been more popular than they are today, including among the overseas Irish. Roll on another memorable Summer of Gaelic Games!
Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador