Association has monolithic role in society, school told

THE GAA has risen to a monolithic position in Irish life by combining two of the worst aspects of our society, “short bursts of violence, punctuated by committee meetings”, the Parnell summer school was told yesterday.

The school heard a number of sociologists, nationalists and sporting figures ask if the GAA had now replaced the State and the Catholic Church as the religious and cultural symbols of the Irish.

Addressing the theme Does the GAA still matter after 125 Years?the senior GAA figure Jarlath Burns said that he was "an Ulster bigot" who was jealous of all other sports which distracted young people from focusing on the GAA.

In a comment on State support for Croke Park, Mr Burns said “if the Government emptied its entire exchequer into the GAA” it would still not have repaid the social good the organisation had brought about in every rural parish and town throughout Ireland.

It was the GAA, he suggested which was prepared “to cherish all of the children equally”.

In a tongue-in-cheek way, Mr Burns recalled a priest’s efforts to encourage respect for cultural difference and diversity, by speaking at a club’s annual meeting.

He recalled the priest had urged the players to remember the opponents were just men like them, albeit in different shirts.

The priest asked that at least games be allowed to finish before violence broke out.

The manager replied immediately indicating “with all due respect to you, father, and your cloth”, that that kind of talk sickened him.

Mr Burns said that the GAA had become the major sporting and cultural body in Ireland through “the combination of two of the worst aspects of Irish society, short bursts of violence, punctuated by committee meetings”.

He said the operation was to draw a line down the centre of an estate “and call the person the other side the enemy”.

But Mr Burns, who is from south Armagh, said that far from “being the IRA at play”, the GAA in Northern Ireland had provided nationalists with social cohesion and an ability to express their cultural identity and pride in resistance to the “colonial oppressor”.