Madam, - In his Locker Room column of April 11th, Tom Humphries quotes Archbishop Croke and "his rousing letter" at the foundation of the GAA on December 18th 1884.
I thought it might be of interest in the present debate to quote from a letter the archbishop wrote just one year later to the Freeman's Journal dated 2-11-1885 and headed "Athletic Toleration". This letter was his reaction to the banning by the GAA of athletes who had competed for prizes in other sports organisations. I think he also took the opportunity to clarify the original letter in relation to "foreign games":
"When I ventured to connect my name with the GAA, I really felt pained and so had felt for many a long day previously at seeing all our fine national sports and pastimes dying out one by one and English and other non-native games introduced and almost universally patronised instead.
"Not that I am or was in the least opposed to foreign games as such, if manly and becoming, but only in so far as they were favoured by a certain class of our people to the exclusion of those well-known Irish exercises which were formerly so common here and in which when young I was proud to take a part myself. It did not therefore occur to me when becoming a Patron of the GAA that there was to be any substantial, much less a bitter and persistent antagonism, except on the point just referred to, between it and any similar body already in existence or that may be called into existence afterwards.
"All I wanted and aimed at was to encourage national sports and thus revive them; but it did not strike me at all at the time, nor does it strike me now, or form any part of my design, absolutely to discourage, and even denounce, all sports and pastimes that are not national. Still less did I think that a society or association formed for the promotion of one class of game should boycott all other similar bodies, to the extent, at all events, of not allowing a man who had competed for a prize or championship under one set of rules to contend for a like prize if offered by an athletic association whose rules were different.
"Anyhow, as a Patron of the GAA, a lover of fair play all round, and the enemy of every species of needless strife and estrangement among Irishmen, I would respectfully suggest to the Committee of Management of the GAA the advisability of modifying their rules in the above particular, so as to allow all qualified athletes to compete for their prizes, without any regard whatever to the fact of their having previously entered the lists for the prizes given by other athletic associations whose rules and views differed in some points from their own. This will set an example of tolerance and moderation to all other athletic schools and let us hope that they may have the manliness and good feeling to follow suit."
It would not be valid from a historical point of view to say how Archbishop Croke would view the motions before Congress on the opening of the stadium named after him to other codes. What is certain is that, as soon as our national games got on their feet, he was most anxious to avoid divisions within the GAA and antagonisms towards other sports bodies. He worked to promote good relations between the GAA and "any similar body already in existence or that may be called into existence afterwards", particularly when these games were "manly and becoming". - Yours, etc.,
DERMOT CLIFFORD, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Patron, CLG/GAA, Archbishop's House, Thurles, Co Tipperary.