JOHN CLARKE,
Sir, - It is to be hoped that the GAA will reject calls from the sporting illiterate (hypocritical?) to open Croke Park to the imported codes.
For the GAA to do so would lend credence to the absurd claim that this country can support four major field games. It doesn't, and those who claim it does know very little about sport.
To lend any support to soccer, a worthless and pathetic game in an Irish context, is unthinkable - and one hesitates to describe rugby union in this country as a sport. Rather one might describe it as a contemptible activity that has been sustained in its higher reaches for over a century by Roman Catholic middle-class snobbery and the anti-GAA prejudice of the majority of the Protestant community.
Those who disagree with the above sentiments might care to consider that no European country with a population similar to Ireland's promotes more than one major field game, or that if Germany had as many field games in proportion to its population as we have, they would reach a grand total of 64!
By the way, I am not a member of the GAA. I was expelled from that organisation 30 years ago. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN CLARKE, Clonminch Avenue, Tullamore, Co Offaly.