Madam, – I am extremely distressed at the blatant insult to my late father Con Short, by Armagh County Board of the GAA for failing to attend the visit of the Queen to Croke Park on Wednesday (Home News, May 19th). My father from Crossmaglen proudly introduced the deletion of the ban on foreign games at the annual GAA conference in Queen’s University Belfast in 1971. He was the Armagh delegate to congress, and had opposed this ban all his life. As all the sports journalists and others said over the last few days, it was the deletion of this ban which set the GAA on the path of conciliation with the unionist community.
My father believed that all children should play football, boy and girl, Catholic and Protestant. When he taught in Gransha NS and Clontibret NS, both in Co Monaghan, both Protestant and Catholic children attended these schools. He always said that some great players were lost to the game, as the Protestant children did not play beyond primary school. Many joined the British army or the RUC and were therefore banned anyway from playing football. He vowed all his life to get rid of this ban and whereas he was supported in this in Ulster by great visionaries like Maurice Hayes whom he greatly admired, he did lose lifelong friends after that day in Queen’s. He was a proud republican in the Wolfe Tone tradition and he wouldn’t waste his energy on arguments or the concept of opposition. He considered that such reflected an inferiority complex.
The Crossmaglen club supported the deletion of the ban as did Armagh County Board in 1971. It was a brave and courageous stance because at the time Ulster GAA players and officials were being targeted by unionist paramilitaries.
Has Armagh County Board forgotten its own history? I am glad my beloved father is not alive to see this sorry day. – Yours, etc,