Bloody Sunday 85th Anniversary: Keith Duggan on how the events in Croke Park ultimately brought a farewell to arms.
Monday marks the 85th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday atrocity in Croke Park. Arriving just a week after an All-Ireland medal from 1887 fetched a five-figure sum in Sotheby's of London, the anniversary is a powerful reminder that the darkest day in GAA history happened less than a lifetime ago.
November 21st, 1920, marked the most stark and shocking point in the War of Independence, a struggle defined by guerrilla tactics, formidable intelligence and ruthless execution. That the GAA got caught up in it was down to pure opportunism and the British policy of reprisal, which had an imprimatur from prime minister David Lloyd George.
Ironically, widespread violence and the prohibition of public meetings had caused a dramatic fall-off in GAA activity in the summer and autumn of 1920. The Cork board had cancelled their fixtures in support of city mayor Terence McSwiney, imprisoned and awaiting death through hunger strike, but elsewhere activity faded naturally. It was only because of a healthy response to an October challenge game between Dublin and Kildare in Croke Park that the Tipperary board decided to challenge Dublin to a football match.
The events of that afternoon are well documented, but the sober account given by Marcus de Búrca in his seminal work The GAA: A History (Gill & Macmillan) remains all too vivid.
Around 3pm, when the crowd of under 10,000 was settling down to an entertaining game, a British military plane flew over and emitted a red signal flare. Immediately, Black and Tans began to climb over the walls at each end of the ground, some using ladders. At once, a withering fire was directed straight into the crowd, first from small arms and then from machine guns hastily set up on the ground just inside the main entrance.
After about 10 minutes an RIC officer advanced across the pitch, announcing a proposed search of spectators. An initial stampede resulted; most of the crowd was detained, and it was some hours before any search was concluded.
After the shooting and subsequent stampede, 13 people lay dead around the ground, close on 100 were injured. The dead included the Tipperary captain Michael Hogan, a young Wexford man who had been rendering spiritual assistance to Hogan, a 26-year-old Dublin woman due to get married a few days later, and three Dublin boys - aged 10, 11 and 14 years.
De Búrca is one of the speakers at a commemorative lecture that will take place on Monday night in the Croke Park museum. The lecture will set the atrocity in the context of an extraordinarily violent period and a murderous day in the capital. The terrible drama of that afternoon will be relived and the lives and personalities of the 13 victims celebrated. The talk will end with an examination of the aftermath of Bloody Sunday.
"It was unquestionably a turning point," says historian Diarmuid Ferriter of St Patrick's, Drumcondra, who will deliver the closing paper. "And it probably heightened the sense of urgency and speeded up the momentum and negotiations which led to the truce. We know now that Michael Collins would have settled for a truce as early as December, 1920. The assassinations carried out that morning and the shootings in Croke Park - which even the Daily Mail described as a 'reprisal' in all its negative connotations, led to the declaration of martial law.
"And it was not a total imposition, but it was still recognition of the fact that things had become out of control in Ireland. And even at the very worst point, there was always some form of negotiations going on."
The ostensible reason for the Black and Tans' indiscriminate shooting was a response to the IRA counter-espionage unit's execution of 14 British intelligence officers as they slept in their city-centre quarters the night before. Collins was convinced those officers were in Dublin with the express intention of assassinating Sinn Féin leaders. Cold-blooded as the act was, it was a spectacular coup for Collins and underlined the depth of the Irish intelligence network.
The afternoon game in Croke Park was an obvious source of engagement for the enraged British military. There was an inevitably strong link between the GAA and the nationalist movement. Thirty revolvers were found scattered around the ground on the evening of Bloody Sunday - although no fire had been returned from the crowd. The Irish political leaders were not unaware that the match might provide the focus for a British retaliation.
"Seán Russell and Michael Collins did want the game called off," confirms Dr Brian Hanley of Trinity College, another guest speaker. "That was their wish, they were worried. The fact that the game went ahead showed that the GAA and the IRA were not intrinsically linked.
"The GAA was independent and acted so. Broadly speaking, the auxiliaries probably assumed that Croke Park would be a good place to try and weed out those who had carried out the morning assassinations. And there was an association between that sporting and cultural movement and nationalism.
"But it was more complex. For instance, Todd Andrews of the Dublin Brigade had played a soccer match for UCD shortly before the shootings. Oscar Traynor, the OC of the Dublin Brigade, was a goalkeeper with Belfast Celtic. So the nationalist movement did incorporate the GAA, but it also had members who quite possibly had no interest in it whatsoever."
No official inquiry into Bloody Sunday was held, but it was disastrous for the image of the British. There was evidence that some of the military personnel were drunk, and one of the auxiliaries disclosed that revenge had been on the agenda. The wilful and predetermined decision to aim gunfire at a crowd attending a sporting event was unprecedented and provoked a strong response on both sides of the Irish Sea. The GAA, however, registered no protest whatsoever to Dublin Castle.
"In the sacking of Cork, not a single person was killed," points out Hanley. "This was a massacre on a sporting field. The British were already in trouble because of image. And the events of Bloody Sunday gave the GAA the most powerful symbol imaginable."
In the immediate aftermath, the GAA were chiefly concerned with the rapid worsening of their financial health. In echoes of more recent times, they approached the Dáil for a loan to meet the £6,500 which had been spent on Croke Park. Early in 1921, that request was approved.
Gaelic Games continued sporadically through the six last, vicious months of the struggle for independence, and, after the Truce was declared on July 11th, business in Croke Park became brisk again.
It is hard to reconcile the luxury and splendour of modern day Croke Park with the terrible violence that occurred 85 years ago. The slain Hogan was honoured in the naming of one of the stadium's main stands.
In the recent debate over Rule 42, the legacy of Bloody Sunday was one of the reasons voiced by those in favour of preserving the stadium for Gaelic games only. As the association moves inexorably towards the centenary of that violent afternoon, the debate centres on how best to honour it.
"I do think the GAA is anxious to keep the memory of Bloody Sunday alive and it is important that they do that," says Hanley. "I would see Monday's gathering as a part of that process. It was a controversial and violent day, but I certainly don't feel that by talking about it and commemorating the victims future generations are thereby indoctrinated into the more extreme attitudes that prevailed in the past.
"It is a part of Irish history and of the association's history, and it is natural and right that the GAA should mark it."
The Bloody Sunday lecture takes place in the Croke Park museum at 7pm on Monday. Tickets may be reserved by phoning (01) 819 2323.
Bloody Sunday Victims
Jane Boyle 12, Lennox Street, Dublin
James Burke Greenland Terrace, Dundrum, Dublin
Daniel Carroll Ballincara House, Templederry, Co Tipperary
Michael Feeney Smith's Cottages, Gardiner Place, Dublin
Michael Hogan Grangemockler, Co Tipperary
James Mathews 42, North Cumberland Street, Dublin
J O'Dowd Buckingham Street, Dublin
Jeremiah O'Leary 69, Blessington Street, Dublin
William Robinson 15, Little Britain Street, Dublin
Thomas Ryan Viking Road, Dublin
John W Scott 15, Fitzroy Avenue, Drumcondra, Dublin
James Teehan Green Street, Dublin
J Traynor Clondalkin, Dublin
(courtesy of An Illustrated History of the GAA by Eoghan Corry)
