Gaelic Games: The GAA has "no issues whatsoever" with the playing of the British national anthem at Croke Park next weekend before the Ireland-England Six Nations rugby international.
Danny Lynch, the association's PRO, was responding yesterday to news that former Kerry player JJ Barrett was to remove from the GAA Museum a collection of All-Ireland medals belonging to him and his late father in protest against the playing of God Save the Queenon Saturday.
"That is entirely a matter of opinion," according to Lynch, "and an opinion he is fully entitled to.
"Nearly all exhibits in the museum are granted on loan, and obviously if the owner at any time wishes to terminate the arrangement we have no difficulty in handing back what is after all their property."
Lynch went on to say Barrett had communicated his views to the association during the week.
"We respect his right to hold those views just as we must respect the decision of Congress in 2005 to agree to lease Croke Park as a clean stadium for other sports in order to stage matches along with their appropriate protocols, which include the playing of the national anthem of any visiting country's team.
"The GAA has no issues whatsoever with the playing of those anthems."
In the Sunday Tribune, Barrett, who won an All-Ireland with Kerry in 1962 and whose father, Joe, won six All-Ireland medals in the 1920s and 1930s, said: "I cannot reconcile the provocative words of God Save the Queenbeing sung in the very stadium where Michael Hogan and others died at the hands of crown forces on Bloody Sunday.
"The words run contrary to our Constitution and I believe the GAA should have foreseen this problem when they rented out Croke Park and instead insisted on an England's Call type of musical prelude," he added.
"If we accept this alternative anthem Ireland's Callas a a mark of reconciliation, then surely the English followers should forgo the playing of God Save the Queenas a reciprocal gesture.
"The arrogant war-mongering words of God Save the Queenringing out over Croke Park is surely pushing the boundaries of tolerance and common sense beyond what is expected in any republic on earth."
