A nation's identity and its sport

One of the Jesuit fathers charged with my education once explained to us that to be a cultured person (a rapt classroom naturally ensued), it was not enough to sit down and force yourself to read improving literature, but that if you were a cultured person, it was likely you'd be the sort of individual who would enjoy such material.

The distinction goes to the heart of Dr Mike Cronin's Sport and Nationalism in Ireland - Gaelic Games, Soccer and Irish Identity since 1884 (Four Courts Press, £14.95). Is playing football and hurling a way of asserting nationalism, or does the fact that the games are played so widely naturally affirm a sense of Irish identity?

It is the author's belief that the GAA represents a traditional nationalism, and that "although a highly successful sporting body, (it) is struggling to come to terms with an outdated and idealised notion of what it means to be Irish and what the nation should be".

This he contrasts with the "profound effect" that soccer has had on notions of Irish identity since the appointment of Jack Charlton as manager of the Republic's team in 1986. Whereas he acknowledges this as an evanescent nationalism, "its existence represents fundamental shifts within Irish identity".

There are other key points made by the author but they are far less contentious. For instance, he draws attention to the neglect of sport in academic histories and the tendency to elevate the "high culture" of literature and language over the "low culture" of sport when treating of social trends and changes.

As my colleague Tom Humphries once observed, you could cheerfully tell an interview panel when applying for the job as editor of a national newspaper that you don't know much about sport and not expect to suffer too much. Yet such a cheerful admission in respect of business or the EU would be inadvisable.

In historical terms, Cronin believes that the nationalism in which the GAA is enmeshed is something of an invention, that the ancient games which were codified by the GAA bore little resemblance to hurling and football as administered by the association; and that the impetus behind the GAA was more the result of the British trend towards organised sport and the nationalist desire to counteract it.

This point is somewhat laboured. It is likely that the stick-and-ball games of antiquity were only distantly related to their modern descendants, but no more distantly than is generally the case with evolving games. Yet this hardly punches too many holes in the GAA's desire to conceive of hurling as an ancient pastime still played.

Similarly with football: according to the author, "to suggest, however, that Cusack is building Gaelic football on an identifiable game of the past that has shared features is doubtful".

Aside from the fact that Maurice Davin is credited with codifying football (and in his definitive biography by Seamus O Riain, it is accepted that "the probability is that football was introduced to Ireland from England sometime in the 17th century"), the obvious consideration is who defines "shared features".

Virtually all codes of football evolved from the rough-and-tumble variations of the past. At what stage they become identifiably of their locale is probably hard to isolate, and is of no enormous relevance in asserting the GAA's Irishness, given the impact of the association since its foundation.

If there is an over-eagerness to disprove the antique claims of the GAA, the argument is sustainable. When drawing comparisons between the "mobile, forward-looking and inclusive" nationalism represented by soccer and the "traditional, outdated" type associated - by the author - with the GAA, Cronin makes a number of dubious claims.

Firstly. in order to synchronise the emergence of Irish soccer with wider changes in society, he tends to rubbish international teams of the preCharlton era. This may be a relative argument, but it is so central to the author's theory that it needs to be examined.

To state that crowds at soccer internationals before the mid-1980s couldn't compete with attendances at "the major Gaelic games events or Rugby Union internationals" isn't really true. If the international team was going well - or if they were playing sufficiently attractive opposition - they attracted capacity crowds.

As the capacity at Dalymount was smaller than at Croke Park or Lansdowne Road, smaller crowds were inevitable. When the bigger soccer internationals switched to Lansdowne Road, attendances at major fixtures were comparable with those at rugby internationals.

To say that the record at international level was "awful" and "getting worse" by 1986, and to illustrate the fact by referring to Eoin Hand's managerial record of winning only 11 matches out of 40, ignores the fact that the team only lost out on qualifying for the 1982 World Cup on goal difference.

A link is also made between the phenomenon of soccer players qualifying for Ireland under the parentage rule and the arrival of Charlton. In fact, this practice was well established by 1986, and of the six non-natives who played against England in the famous Euro 88 match in Stuttgart, as many had declared for Ireland pre-Charlton as had subsequently.

Finally - and this is important in terms of the relationship with the GAA - it is incorrect to link the televising of soccer in the 1970s with the rise of the game in Ireland. This process was acknowledged even by the GAA (at 4.32 of the Commission Report in 1971) to have begun with the broadcasts from the 1966 World Cup in England.

The point of these contentions is to suggest that the "forward-looking" nationalism inspired by soccer did not happily coincide with the election of Mary Robinson or the manifestation of the Celtic Tiger (dubiously described as encapsulating "the creation of Ireland's first non-agricultural and non-rural economic success").

The chapter dealing with the role of the GAA in Northern Ireland is somewhat confused. Last year's refusal to abandon Rule 21 in the aftermath of the Belfast Agreement referendums represented clear support for his argument that the GAA is struggling with "an outdated and idealised notion of what it means to be Irish".

Yet it is one issue on which he equivocates: "In 1998 the GAA appeared out of step once more with the spirit of reconciliation. It is possible to argue that while such sweeping judgements are understandable, they are only valid if the GAA is seen as an outdated organisation representing only one version of Irish nationalism."

This is an interesting book, superbly anotated, with a provocative theme by a respected sports historian. A pity then that it's undermined by the author's lack of familiarity with the GAA and its contemporary environment - outside of the association's more obvious political entanglements.

E-mail: smoran@irish-times.ie