The GAA may name a trophy or stadium after Michael Collins, at least that’s the wish of GAA Prez Sean Kelly. Personally I’m quite surprised we don’t already have a trophy/stadium named after the Big Fellow who was surely one of the most charismatic and inspiring Irish leaders of the last century.

… is what some are calling it. I’m referring to the IDA’s policy of attracting foreign investment by dropping corporate tax to a mere 12.5% (compared to 35% in the US). This issue has been covered a number of times on Techdirt, they looked at both Microsoft & Google who have set up here for [...]

I’m delighted to read the news this morning that the Irish soldiers who fought at Jadotville in the Congo are finally being honoured by the state today. Willie “Bad motherfucker” O’Dea is to unveil a commemorative plaque at Custume Army Barracks in Athlone at 4.30pm with the CoS of the DF, Lt.Gen. Jim Sreenan. The [...]

The ROI soccer team slid further down the FIFA rankings following our failure to quality for the world cup. We’re now lying in 23rd behind great soccer nations like Iran, Costa Rica, Greece and Japan! Sad! The Scots have managed to climb one place to 61st, Wales have also moved up one to 72nd, the [...]

I’ve been sitting on the following post for a week or two and wasn’t going to bother posting it at all until I read Gerry’s post on ‘Identity Crisis‘. He raises a very important point that (re)unification would be as painful for nationalists as it would for unionists (by “nationalists” I presume he means all [...]

I popped in to Irishjobs.ie (the job hunt begins) and spotted their press release of 25 October on the launch of their site which is bilingual. The press release presents results from a recent Irish language survey on IrishJobs.ie and interestingly has shown some quite positive attitudes to the Irish language among jobseekers. I contacted [...]

The organisers of last weekend’s loyalist hate fest rally in Belfast are considering brining their hate to Dublin. Ye can fuck off!

Gaelic games are close to my heart. Although I’m not a GAA member or player at the moment (I play handball every week, does that count?) I was a hurler in my younger days and I have had *some* small involvement with the GAA in Europe within the past few years. Still, I’ve always been critical of certain aspects of the GAA, mainly their love of money. They talk about developing the game abroad yet the tight fisted cunts find it hard to part with any money for even a few sticks (personal experience). Then there’s the issue of player compensation for example!

Another area I have a problem with, and this is the purpose of this post, is the links with nationalism. This is obviously most evident in Northern Ireland where the “nationalist ethos” of the GAA is seen to ‘exclude’ half the population there. It’s 2005, there’s no reason for an entire community to feel excluded from our cultural/sporting organisation. And while we can argue that our intention is not to exclude anyone you can easily understand, given the nationalist tone of our Official Guide preamble or the links between the GAA and nationalism in Northern Ireland, why many in the NI protestant community would feel excluded? Isn’t it more than a tad shameful that still today in multicultural progressive Ireland a significant proportion of our island population is unable to participate in our national sports, some of the finest sports in the world? Whether they’d want to or not is irrelevant, there shouldn’t be anything preventing them from participating.

I’d like the GAA to be able to promote Gaelic sports & culture for all, not a single soul excluded. We should be making the GAA a better organisation, an organisation where we can put hand on heart and say that this is an organisation where all are welcome regardless of skin colour, religion or political affiliation. Of course I can easily put hand on heart now and say that all ARE welcome, and I truly believe that but the GAA’s links with Nationalism contradict that claim. So we need changes and I’m going to highlight a few which I believe, if implemented, would make the GAA an organisation we can be more proud of.
Btw, most of these suggestions come from discussions with members of the protestant community in NI, where better to get feedback but from those ‘on the outside’.

The new Reserve Defence Force is being launched [registration cheat] today in Limerick. Yes today is the official inauguration of the new Reserve Defence Force and the formal standing down of an Forsa Cosanta Áitiuil. The new force (na hÓglaigh Cúltaca), which replaces the generally poorly-trained & under-used FCÁ & Slua Muirí, will have exactly [...]

Well that’s according to the report which General John de Chastelain is to hand to the British & Irish Governments tomorrow! What confuses me is Dermot Aherns statement today that he was confident complete decommissioning would happen, and Gerry Adams statement this weekend that it would happen in the “near future”. I just would have [...]