GAA must move away from the past

Thirty-eight years isn't, in many ways, a long time, but the Ireland of 1967 has the feel of a different planet.

Admittedly, the portrait of the country in Peter Lennon's recently re-released The Rocky Road to Dublin was intended to be provocative, a riposte to the comfortable assertions of his friends that Ireland had changed radically by the late 1960s.

Lennon, a Dublin journalist working for the Guardian in Paris, based his 1967 documentary around the theme of what not to do with independence. His film principally assessed the Catholic Church's influence on the country but also rounded on a few more targets and made for interesting viewing.

After a few weeks at the then-modish IFC on St Stephen's Green, the film disappeared, never to be shown outside of Dublin or even on television until now.

Among the themes dealt with is a section on the GAA. An unnamed official (who looks like former association executive officer and Irish Post founder Brendan MacLua, even though he had left that position before the film was screened) gives a calm and assured defence of the old ban on foreign games.

"The Gaelic Athletic Association has a ban on foreign games," he says, "but it is unusual only when taken in the context of pure sport. The rule aims at preventing members of the association from taking an active part in English games, which are soccer, rugby, cricket and hockey.

"The association has a democratic system, which is even more democratic than the normal parliamentary system. This rule could be changed any time that the majority of the members of the association wish to have it changed."

Of immediate interest is he doesn't deem it necessary to define the games in question any further than categorising them as "English" - the modern jargon about "competing sports" not having yet been invented - and that he expands the context beyond sport.

"The Gaelic Athletic Association is of course something much wider than a sports organisation," he continues.

"It was founded for the purpose of utilising sport to inject manhood and nationalism into Irish manhood at a period when the spirit of the Irish people was very low and very weak after the famine and centuries of persecution.

"All the movements which have led to the establishment of the state, which we have, have drawn their members - be they fighting members or active political members - from the ranks of the Gaelic Athletic Association, and as such it has been the reservoir of Irish manhood, who have played their part in the evolution of the state."

Unwittingly or not, Lennon prompts a similar question to that of his film - what do you do once the revolution is over - in respect of the GAA itself.

The notion of the association as a force for rescuing the morale and virility of the nation in pursuit of independence was quite prevalent until the 1970s when political violence caused a fundamental re-evaluation within mainstream nationalism and a consequent toning down of the rhetoric of previous decades.

Faced by the need to find new definitions of patriotism that weren't automatically anti-Brit, the state evolved - for example, as a member of the EEC - and so, ultimately, did the GAA.

Today, with on one hand the constitutional status of Northern Ireland at least stable, and an immensely successful sports organisation in its charge on the other, what should drive the association into the future?

Aside from the substantial benefit they bring to the community at large, as outlined by last month's ESRI report, the games have great cultural value, having played a central role in Irish history for over a century. The GAA is by far the most successful of the separatist organisations founded in the late 19th century to underpin the campaign for independence.

Independence movements tend by their nature to be inward-looking and it took the country a long time to open up to the external influences that all sovereign states have to deal with sooner or later. Similarly, the GAA have long moved away from being forced to play the games to prove how Irish they were, to one where the health and popularity of the games celebrate Irish culture and heritage.

Coincidentally, it was also in 1967 that an embryonic exchange of ideas took place with the arrival of the first Australian Rules team to play against Irish opposition. Organised by a VFL (precursor of the AFL) umpire Harry Beitzel - still hale and hearty in Melbourne two weeks ago - in recognition of the similarity between the codes. It was followed by tours in 1968 and 1978.

These early contests - Meath travelled to Australia in 1968 - were played under the rules of Gaelic football but led to the first official International Rules series in the GAA's centenary Year of 1984.

Although the international project had a bad outing last month, it's unlikely to derail the series as long as top GAA players want to test themselves in elite competition and as long as they can compete.

Something they've managed over 12 series to date (six wins each) but which will be a challenge given the performance (at least in footballing terms) of Australia this year.

Before the Melbourne Test, there was a schoolboy challenge between a local school and a Gaelic-football playing school from Birmingham. The growth of Gaelic games in other countries is another reason to celebrate what the GAA has achieved.

The recreational network inspired by the games has been particularly prominent in the European Board area, but is evident around the globe and has attracted the interest of non-nationals - to the extent that consideration has been given to modifying the official guide for overseas units.

"When you hear of them looking for a rulebook," said GAA director general Liam Mulvihill last year, "you wonder what sense they make of rules one, two and three. It's an aspect that's the subject of a (proposed) motion to this year's congress from Australia, asking that we look at changing the basic aspirations in so far as they apply to units abroad."

As the French philosopher and scientist Gaston Bachelard put it: "One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it."