The GAA is to collaborate with University College Cork (UCC) in the latest of the university’s acclaimed Atlas series. Cork University Press will publish Atlas of the GAA to coincide with the association’s 145th anniversary in 2029.
The series has already commemorated the Famine, the War of Independence and the Civil War with a combination of expert academic texts, new research, maps, archival documents, paintings and photographs.
Announcing the collaboration, the GAA has called on clubs to submit items of interest that can help map “the scale, reach and cultural significance of the association.”
The volume, which will draw on the data for a selection of maps, will be co-edited by regular Atlas Series editors Dr John Crowley (UCC School of the Human Environment) and Dr Donal Ó Drisceoil (UCC School of History), who previously collaborated on Atlas of the Irish Revolution (2017), which was recently voted one of the top 20 Irish books of the last two decades.
READ MORE
They will be joined by Dr Liam O’Callaghan (School of Health and Sport Sciences, Liverpool Hope University), Dr Richard McElligott (School of Business and Humanities, Dundalk Institute of Technology, author of Forging a Kingdom, a history of the first 50 years of the GAA in Kerry), and cartographic editor Charlie Roche (Mobile GIS).
The Atlas will also cover the role of women in the history of the GAA and include the growth of camogie since 1904 and women’s football since 1974.
GAA president Jarlath Burns welcomed the joint project, which was suggested by the association.
“Since 1884 the GAA has grown to occupy a pre-eminent place in Irish life, as synonymous for our community cohesion as we are for our thrilling games. Mapping and charting this journey through an academic lens will be a milestone and I’ve no doubt it will be a most sought-after publication.
“In addition to the resource that will be the printed Atlas, we are hugely excited about the digital mapping project, which will allow us to preserve for posterity the stories of all 1,600 GAA clubs dotted throughout Ireland and the more than 500 operating around the globe. I look forward to every one of our units engaging and telling their story when the time comes.”
