Still Hibernia Irredenta? The Gaelic Athletic Association, Northern Nationalists and modern Ireland

Abstract

Literature dealing with the socio-political significance of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in Ireland has typically highlighted the added importance of the organization for its members in Northern Ireland in comparison to their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland. However few academics have sought to go further and explore the reality of internal division within the organization, a fact often overlooked amid the homogenizing rhetoric of GAA sympathizers. Such inconsistencies are important because they question the supposed monolithic nature of the GAA, a belief propagated, in part, by the organization itself. This article tracks the birth, evolution and manifestation of this ideological deviation and the implications such developments have for the GAA, Ireland's largest sporting and cultural body. It concludes by asserting that, against the backdrop of a growing sense of alienation and separation on the part of northern nationalists involved with the GAA, the long-term sustainability of the organization as an all-Ireland entity remains a matter of profound uncertainty. That northern nationalists typically regard the GAA as one of their most obvious links with the remainder of Ireland only serves to accentuate its importance among the wider nationalist populace.