Sir, - The notion implicit in Patrick Gregg's letter of May 1st, that only GAA games represent the authentic strand of nationalism, is too simplistic for serious comment. Some of us who were active in the campaign throughout the 1960s to ditch the infamous "foreign games" ban had a vision - with that obstacle out of the way - of Croke Park becoming a national stadium under GAA control. Perhaps that vision is about to materialise.
Your correspondent states that the GAA is "non-sectarian and non-party-political". That is what the association's rules state. But in practice, the GAA represents the Catholic strand of nationalism with the accent on exclusivity. One of the extremely rare representatives of the other persuasion, Dr Douglas Hyde, a co-founder of the Gaelic League and a long serving patron of the GAA, was drummed out of the association by the Central Council in 1938. His crime was that he attended an international soccer game in his capacity as President of Ireland.
Incidentally, Peter Farrell, the Roscommon delegate, was the only member who opposed the decision. I am glad to note that the motion to amend Rule 42 at the recent Congress was sponsored by that county. And by the same token, 20 years ago, at a time when GAA politics appeared to be hitched to the chariot of extreme nationalism, a Roscommon motion at Congress to remove doubt about the commitment of the association to the promotion of constitutional nationalism was sidelined despite the emphatic objection of Eamonn Bolger, the delegate who had proposed the motion.
That "non-party-political" arm of the GAA calls for brief comment. Over 100 years ago the GAA became deeply involved in politics in the wake of the Parnell split. Apparent terminal decline was averted by a ban on politics. That ban remained in place up to Congress in 1979. There it was amended, after scant debate, to allow GAA clubs, etc., to support non-party politics. In no time the IRA was using GAA pitches and games to promote its aims.
The 1979 dispensation presented the GAA leadership with a headache in 1981 when IRA H-Block members decided to contest a Dail election. Thereupon they were deemed by the central council to have abandoned their non-party-political status and to be no longer eligible for GAA support. In an article in your issue of August 7th, 1981, headed "GAA contribute to own embarrassment", your columnist Sean Kilfeather outlined in some detail the bizarre position in which that 1979 decision had landed the GAA. In the course of a letter to the Irish Press (August 5th, 1981) I stated: "The H Blocks were accepted or tolerated by the GAA leadership until they added a constitutional plank to their platform."
The 1979 amendment means that GAA units may support the IRA or its dissidents. But support for, say, Sinn Fein is taboo. Isn't it food for thought? - Yours, etc.,
Tom Woulfe, Victoria Road, Dublin 6.