Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association ( GAA for short , Irish Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ) is an Irish sports association that promotes and supervises Gaelic sports such as hurling , Gaelic football , Gaelic handball , camogie and rounders .
history
On November 1, 1884 , the Gaelic Athletic Association for the Preservation and Cultivation of National Pastimes was established at Miss Hayes's Commercial Hotel in Thurles , Co. Tipperary . Founding members were Michael Cusack , Maurice Davin (as President), John Wyse Power, John McKay, JK Bracken, Joseph O'Ryan, and Thomas St. George McCarthy. In 1885 the rules for hurling and Gaelic football were laid down and in 1887 there were the first All-Ireland Championships in these sports.
The establishment of the GAA is to be seen in close connection with the nationalist movement in Ireland, which grew stronger from the middle of the 19th century . In addition to pure sport , the GAA should provide an incentive to identify with Irish culture. The obvious contrast between (“really” - hurling, or “allegedly” - Gaelic football) traditional Irish sports and English sports was an obvious choice, so that the GAA quickly became a great success. Furthermore, in 19th century Ireland there were hardly any opportunities for sport for the majority of the population. Modern sporting events with fixed rules of the game were, as in the whole of Great Britain, a phenomenon of the mostly English upper class. Tournament games traditionally took place on Saturdays and were thus excluded from the working class. The GAA games, on the other hand, usually take place on Sundays, the only free weekday for the majority of the population at the time, which was viewed by the English upper class as a break from Sunday rest. Inseparable from this cultural-political aspect, however, the GAA had a direct political connection: it formed a reservoir for political nationalists of many shades, whose ultimate goal was one form or another of Ireland's political independence from Great Britain . The founding of the GAA was therefore also a political signal to nationalist-minded Irish on the one hand and the British occupiers on the other. Members of the GAA were during the Easter Rising in 1916 and the War of Independence participated in a leading position.
This is also to be understood as the fact that the GAA radically rejected other, especially “English” sports in earlier years. In 1939 the Irish President Douglas Hyde had to resign from this position after 30 years of patronage for the GAA because he had attended a "normal" football match as President . Until 1972, participants in a football game were punished with a life-long exclusion from all Gaelic sports and clubs. It was not until September 2001 that Rule 21 was removed from the GAA's statutes, which denied members of British security forces membership. Until recently, the GAA refused to allow “English” sports to be played on their courts. By far the largest stadium in the republic, Croke Park in Dublin , was used exclusively for the few finals of hurling and Gaelic football and the annual International Rules Football games against Australia . The at least as popular games of the Irish national rugby and football teams were played in the much smaller and dilapidated Lansdowne Road Stadium. The disputes as to whether or not to open Croke Park to other sports were one of the reasons why Scotland and the Republic of Ireland failed to bid for the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship , as the Irish Football Association did not have adequate venues could promise. A change in the GAA statutes allows the Irish football and rugby federations to use Croke Park for some games in 2007 as Lansdowne Road was being rebuilt.
Irish Sports Today
Gaelic football, as well as hurling and the female variant of camogie, are widespread in the Republic of Ireland and Catholic parts of Northern Ireland. 2,800 clubs with around 180,000 Gaelic football players and around 100,000 hurling players and around 800,000 members form the backbone of the GAA. The All-Ireland Championships , in which Northern Irish counties also participate, are an event that is discussed across the country. The finals will take place at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin .