Rovers Win

[GreenStar]

Well done Shams:D

Explain....????

[deecay]

Explain....????
Ye won yer fight over a greater evil (gaa)

[hoopy]

As a Hoop I'm not as downhearted as I was before the original 'JD'. Seeing as the bigots offered to withdraw their objection yesterday if ourselves and the SDCC paid our own costs, it seems that Kennedy's advisors may well have told him he won't win. Now they could possibly be looking at a) losing their application for appeal, and b)being at the loss of approx 450k. If both scenarios are what happens, it'll be a sweet sweet friday night in Dublin.

[dcfcsteve]

Great post KH.

As someone from the true stronghold of Gaelic football (since Dubs who do GAA are mere culchie wannabes) what do you make of my pet theory, which is that Gaelic football has displaced the Irish language as a signifier of nationality, and in doing so displaced and usurped the role of a far more ancient and fundamental part of our culture?

Would we all, or many of us, be thinking and speaking in our own language, as well as playing proper football, if it hadn't been for Croke & co.? I submit that we would. Or is that completely as an imirt?

Interesting theory BD.

GAA is certainly very closely tied with individual's and the nation's psyche of what it is to be Irish - and much more so then the language is. Possibly because - whilst a large percentage of the Irish population feels some sense of shame re their inability to speak their own native tongue (even though most wouldn't articulate is as such, or possibly even admit it), it is a hell of a loot easier to buy a GAA top and 'tick' the box of reinforcing one's cultural heritage/identity than it is to go through the seriously painful effort of learning a language like Irish to a degree of competencey. Especially as the Irish psyche appears to be ratehr focused upon 'appearances' / ostentatiousness than depth for the display of a lot its traits.

For the likes of Bertie Ahern, being seen at a Dublin GAA match is the new version of the proverbial cupla focal - and it doesn't even require any cognitive preparation.

But it would be wrong to therefore put 2 and 2 together and claim that the GAA has therefore undermined the language. The main blame for the decline of Irish since Independence must rest with two groups. primarily with the early governments, who followed an absurd policy of leaving the responsibility of language re-introduction almost solely to schools, whilst combining it with token favours/restrictions for certain public sector roles based upon language capabilities (e.g. teachers, Gardai) in a way that created resentment. The other group to blame is the Irish people themselves - as we all as individuals have the power to make a direct and powerful contribution to the future of the language by learning and using the language. You can't cajole people into doing something if their heart isn't in it.

Interestingly - through use of the language at stadiums, in programmes, at events etc, and by holding lessons in many club-houses, the GAA has probably done more for the Irish language than any other large national non-linguage-focused body that I can think of !

Contrast the linguistic success of the Israeli nation - taking a language that had been dead since biblical times, and making it the everyday first langauge of c. 5m people. Despite haveing the chance to start 26 years earlier than the Isarelis, and woprking with a language that was and still is alive, we've fared absolutely abysmally. To my mind, it is the single greatest failure of Ireland post-Independence (we've largely made-up for/reversed most of the economic failures and damage they caused).

[oldyouth]

Sorry dcfcsteve, I drifted off there for a while. Can you repeat that please?:D

[GavinZac]

What has the Gaelic language got to do with Irish nationality? Besides, most people wouldn't be arsed having 2 languages, and certainly wouldn't want to have to watch Coronation Street dubbed by an elderly man from Galway.

The sooner people realise that being "Irish" has nothing to do with how well you speak Gaelic or how often you attend GAA matches. In fact, given that the population of native speakers in relation to the number of Irish people who have never spoken Irish beyond schooldays, **** takes or token gestures is minuscule, one could argue its Un-Irish to speak Gaelic.

[dcfcsteve]

What has the Gaelic language got to do with Irish nationality? Besides, most people wouldn't be arsed having 2 languages, and certainly wouldn't want to have to watch Coronation Street dubbed by an elderly man from Galway.

The sooner people realise that being "Irish" has nothing to do with how well you speak Gaelic or how often you attend GAA matches. In fact, given that the population of native speakers in relation to the number of Irish people who have never spoken Irish beyond schooldays, **** takes or token gestures is minuscule, one could argue its Un-Irish to speak Gaelic.

I'm loving the irony in your analogy that if Ireland was an Irish-speaking nation we'd watch Coronation Streeet as Gaeilge...... :D

(Sorry to go off-piste Hoops fans...)

[dcfcsteve]

Sorry dcfcsteve, I drifted off there for a while. Can you repeat that please?:D

Put the kettle on - I'm on me way round to explain it to yee....... :D

[oldyouth]

I don't need it explained to me, I just want to know why you felt the need to share that information with ANYBODY!!!!

[dcfcsteve]

I don't need it explained to me, I just want to know why you felt the need to share that information with ANYBODY!!!!

It was a direct response to a question Boh Diddley posed, if you bothered to read his prior post. It wasn't just a random down-load.

I could retort by enquiring why you've felt the need to enquire about my need.

Cheer up dude- it's a forum..... :)

x

[onceahoop]

It would appear that Thomas Davis are adopting a Sh1t or Bust attitude. Rovers and SDCC must be sure of their ground to reject the overtures of Thomas Davis. Wonder what the ordinary members of TD think about this.

I also wonder what their trustees think about their assets being in so much jeopardy.

[oldyouth]

Football forum dcfcsteve!!

[kingdom hoop]

Great post KH.

As someone from the true stronghold of Gaelic football (since Dubs who do GAA are mere culchie wannabes) what do you make of my pet theory, which is that Gaelic football has displaced the Irish language as a signifier of nationality, and in doing so displaced and usurped the role of a far more ancient and fundamental part of our culture?

Would we all, or many of us, be thinking and speaking in our own language, as well as playing proper football, if it hadn't been for Croke & co.? I submit that we would. Or is that completely as an imirt?

I think I'd like to discuss it over a pint somewhere. :) Failing that, some other section of this site would be good too. Briefly, cinnte níl tú id' lúdramán as you'd have to think that if it weren't for the GAA then Irish would be much stronger given they sate much the same hungers. Maybe it's time to expose your baby to the rigours of public debate!

Oh yeah, Gav, you're cruisin for a bruisin by the way. :D

[mypost]

GAA is certainly very closely tied with individual's and the nation's psyche of what it is to be Irish - and much more so then the language is. Contrast the linguistic success of the Israeli nation - taking a language that had been dead since biblical times, and making it the everyday first langauge of c. 5m people. Despite haveing the chance to start 26 years earlier than the Isarelis, and woprking with a language that was and still is alive, we've fared absolutely abysmally. To my mind, it is the single greatest failure of Ireland post-Independence (we've largely made-up for/reversed most of the economic failures and damage they caused).

While you go off on a crusade, the fact is, that bar TG4 and a few disciples around the country, nobody in this country wants to speak Irish, or would class it as even a second language, never mind a first one. TG4 to their credit, attempt to bridge the divide during their live games, but really, most of the population would probably understand the commentators more if they spoke French or German for 90 minutes.

In any case, Tallaght was never a GAA town, and when we get to play there, we'll have fanatical home support from people proud to have a football club in their area.

[BohDiddley]

I am not an Irish speaker, at least not a proper one, and I am not a historian, but I think the GAA v Gaeilge debate is relevant.

The reason that Thomas Davis's brazen land grab attempt will have the unthinking, kneejerk support of so many is that they are seen as carrying the cultural standard for all that is distinctive about being Irish.

Certainly, there must be more Gaelgeoirs in the GAA than in the population generally, and I think also that most of the GAA probably is well-meaning in its attitude to the language.

However, just as so much of the Irish establishment's treatment of the language has been tokenism, so too has been the association's. Despite all the lip service, the national language of GAA football is emphatically English.

It is arguable how much having a few halting words of Irish in Croke Park speeches adds to the cause of Irish. And having the Irish names of GAA clubs emblazoned in four foot letters on fancy new club houses, when most of those living nearby can hardly pronounce them, is of little value to the language, but of great significance to the GAA.

In all great conquests, the victor absorbs part of the culture of the vanquished. And so GAA's unstoppable machine has enveloped the language, which not too many generations ago had been the essence of the nation. They use the language to make themselves Irish, but it is the language, not the modern invention of Gaelic football, that is essentially Irish.

How can anyone say, as has been said here, that the Irish language is irrelevant to being Irish? Would the equivalent ever be said in Holland or Finland? The great cultural failure of the Irish state has been its failure or unwillingness to protect and nourish its language to the point where people can actually think like that.

(The Israelis might have triumphed where we have failed, but then we haven't been backed by billions of US tax dollars to bulldoze out of their homes anyone who dares to be different. Maybe that is going off-topic. But the Israelis also haven't found the need to concoct a national diversion for themselves, and to my knowledge there is no IAA, and no call for one).

The fig leaf for our cultural failure is the GAA. It promotes its inferior code above and at the expense of the authentic sport of hurling, it ignorantly defines real football as 'English' and foreign, and it dishonestly but successfully has associated this foreign sport with brutal British nationalism.

The other side of that coin, of course, is that if you want to follow football you don't have any truck with the garrison game, but you follow it from afar. You follow English and Scottish football. And so many GAA people also are happy to be fans of Liverpool, ManU, Celtic and the rest. I wonder how many TD members are in that category? Just like the dope in the Celtic jersey protesting outside Croke Park, they want it both ways. They always will.

GAA has given us a game that has everything to do with not being English but actually not very much to do with being Irish, unless you think ludicrously hopping a ball as you gallop along with it is something other peoples would just love to do too, if only they could.

As well as filling our heads with nonsense, it has filled the void left by the language, which is, or was, essential to being Irish, and it has taken up the energy and imagination that otherwise would have gone into our real culture.

We could have been a country that played great football and proudly spoke and wrote in our own language and in English. Instead, we are a country virtually with no language to call its own, that pours its passion into a sporting curiosity in which we can never play an international. What a waste.

[oldyouth]

:DNow dcfcsteve, why couldn't you have said that??:D

[Erstwhile Bóz]

BohDiddley, that's anti-GAA to dizzying new heights of inventiveness. The bar has been set.

The GAA doesn't do enough substantively for the Irish language for my liking, but I'm hard to please like that. Your rant in that direction wouldn't be as ridiculous, though, if the FAI had ever even paid the lippiest of lip-service in comparison. I must assume, therefore, that your picture of a football-playing, bilingual utopia free of the interference of the GAA is meant ironically.

The football-playing demographic in this country is far, far more anti-Irish language than the GAA demographic. You admit as much yourself. Seeing as we know that football has become the number one participation sport in this country, it would be far easier to use your methodology to construct an argument (à la 'decline of pirates vs global warming') that would illustrate the overwhelmingly anglicising effect of playing association football.

In the places where the Irish language remains the vernacular of the people -- where the people have no particular need, you would imagine, to embrace the manufactured sacred cows of nationalism in an insecure fretting about their cultural identity -- the sport of the community is, overwhelmingly, Gaelic football. (There are logistical reasons for this as well -- e.g., the topography of the crap land where the native language and culture survived the longest mitigating against modern hurling -- but the fact remains.)

If there is a central thrust to your argument, possibly to the effect that Irish people are complete chancers, it gets a little bit lost amongst the breathless run of digs against this inferior code, which seems to be your real bugbear (and by the way, people are paid megabucks for ludicrously hopping a ball as they run, in the States in particular, and an international sport has been made out of it -- and they're not even allowed to kick it).

I do like the implication that GavinZac represents the great cultural failure of the Irish state, though.

[sullanefc]

Good post BohDiddly. Can I subscribe to your newsletter?

[GavinZac]

I do like the implication that GavinZac represents the great cultural failure of the Irish state, though.Yeah, me and the four million or so others on this island who do not use Irish every day, i.e. "The Irish", those un-Irish ba****rds.

Lads, Irish culture is no more about the Irish language than England's is about Anglo-Saxon or French is about Gaulish. Languages come and go, cultures evolve. If you can't handle that the Irish language is irrelevant to today's Irish culture I'd suggest moving to the gaeltacht and shutting yourself off for the grant aid the "culture".

When are people going to move on from Napoleonic nationalism?

[kingdomkerry]

While you go off on a crusade, the fact is, that bar TG4 and a few disciples around the country, nobody in this country wants to speak Irish, or would class it as even a second language, never mind a first one. TG4 to their credit, attempt to bridge the divide during their live games, but really, most of the population would probably understand the commentators more if they spoke French or German for 90 minutes.


In any case, Tallaght was never a GAA town, and when we get to play there, we'll have fanatical home support from people proud to have a football club in their area.

Completely false

Nobody wants to speak Irish? Well if thats the case my friends from galway and west kerry must be insane if they think in Irish and consider it their first language.

My post, you are entitled to your opinion but you dont speak for everyone. Maybe alot of people in dublin but theres 31 other counties in this country.

I have been watching TG4 all day (review of the year in football and hurling and pop 4) I understand it clearly.

[hoopy]

I also wonder what their trustees think about their assets being in so much jeopardy.

I'd say most of the funds are Kennedy's own dosh and that of the Dublin County Board.

[khoop]

The reason that Thomas Davis's brazen land grab attempt will have the unthinking, kneejerk support of so many is that they are seen as carrying the cultural standard for all that is distinctive about being Irish

Correct. 95 per cent of journalists (who tell the great unwashed what to think) believe that the GAA can do no wrong, because..... well, because they're the GAA. Hardly very logical - but true. The GAA openly abuse this blind trust stupidly placed in their organisation and are forever pushing out the boundaries of brass-necked, self-serving arrogance to see what they can get away with. It doesn't say much for Ireland that so many journalists go along with this farce. Even a journalist like Pat Kenny who regards himself as being capable of insightful analysis won't allow anyone say anything negative about the GAA. I wonder what's in it for him. Corporate box at Croke Park whenever he feels like it perhaps...?

[gufcfan]

The GAA openly abuse this blind trust stupidly placed in their organisation and are forever pushing out the boundaries of brass-necked, self-serving arrogance to see what they can get away with. It doesn't say much for Ireland that so many journalists go along with this farce.

Agree

[Erstwhile Bóz]

I'd say most of the funds are Kennedy's own dosh and that of the Dublin County Board.
What is the rough extent of this nutjob's personal finances, anyway? Any chance of him bringing himself to bankruptcy or is the DCB underwriting him indefinitely?


If you can't handle that the Irish language is irrelevant to today's Irish culture I'd suggest moving to the gaeltacht and shutting yourself off for the grant aid the "culture".

Move to the Gaeltacht? But I speak Irish every day at home in West Dublin and at work in Dublin City. I consider my daughter and my job to be highly relevant and I interact with both in Irish. I read literature and academic texts in Irish (amongst one and a half other languages); I listen to some music from the Irish-language canon; I listen to decent political and cultural programming in Irish on the radio; and I watch the odd bit of over-rated trash in Irish on the telly -- all from the suburban comfort of Lucan.

Furthermore, the Gaeltacht is, by and large, riddled with culchies and I can't drive.

If you can't handle that Irish is a part of daily life for other people and that they consider it a part of Irish culture then I'd suggest, well, staying wherever it is that you are.

(I was only riling you in the earlier post, by the way. Your noble stance against these sacred cattle has been shown in past debates in the other forum to be absolutely immovable and fair balls to you for that.)

[monutdfc]

Even a journalist like Pat Kenny who regards himself as being capable of insightful analysis won't allow anyone say anything negative about the GAA.
In fairness to Pat Kenny (I never thought I'd type those words!), I heard him have a right go at some GAA head a few years ago about opening up Croke Park - Kenny cut through the bluster and put it to him that it was all about keeping 'the Brit sports out'

[BohDiddley]

BohDiddley, that's anti-GAA to dizzying new heights of inventiveness. The bar has been set.

The GAA doesn't do enough substantively for the Irish language for my liking, but I'm hard to please like that. Your rant in that direction wouldn't be as ridiculous, though, if the FAI had ever even paid the lippiest of lip-service in comparison. I must assume, therefore, that your picture of a football-playing, bilingual utopia free of the interference of the GAA is meant ironically.

The football-playing demographic in this country is far, far more anti-Irish language than the GAA demographic. You admit as much yourself. Seeing as we know that football has become the number one participation sport in this country, it would be far easier to use your methodology to construct an argument (à la 'decline of pirates vs global warming') that would illustrate the overwhelmingly anglicising effect of playing association football.

In the places where the Irish language remains the vernacular of the people -- where the people have no particular need, you would imagine, to embrace the manufactured sacred cows of nationalism in an insecure fretting about their cultural identity -- the sport of the community is, overwhelmingly, Gaelic football. (There are logistical reasons for this as well -- e.g., the topography of the crap land where the native language and culture survived the longest mitigating against modern hurling -- but the fact remains.)

If there is a central thrust to your argument, possibly to the effect that Irish people are complete chancers, it gets a little bit lost amongst the breathless run of digs against this inferior code, which seems to be your real bugbear (and by the way, people are paid megabucks for ludicrously hopping a ball as they run, in the States in particular, and an international sport has been made out of it -- and they're not even allowed to kick it).

I do like the implication that GavinZac represents the great cultural failure of the Irish state, though.

GZ, while stating the profoundly obvious -- well, of course it's anti-GAA! -- you still haven't even managed to get within the corner flag on this.

The thesis is that it is the GAA, which spuriously has taken on the mantle of protector of all things Irish, on balance has done the language more harm than good. The FAI has no role in relation the language, nor, of course, should it, although there is something wonderfully perverse about watching the beautiful game on TG4. Who said postmodernism was dead?

You take issue with the cobbled-together, makey-uppy, rammed-down-our-throats-at-school, massively promoted national sporting onanism (hope that's breathless enough for you) that is GAA football being called inferior. Isn't it?

[Steve Bruce]

Completely false

Nobody wants to speak Irish? Well if thats the case my friends from galway and west kerry must be insane if they think in Irish and consider it their first language.

My post, you are entitled to your opinion but you dont speak for everyone. Maybe alot of people in dublin but theres 31 other counties in this country.

I have been watching TG4 all day (review of the year in football and hurling and pop 4) I understand it clearly.





I don’t mind the Irish language. I don’t know it and have no interest in knowing it, but I do believe it would be a shame for an old minority language like this to be lost in history.

The problem I see with people using this language in work is purely a communicational problem. If I crossed the border into Ireland and went down to Dublin(or anywhere else in Ireland) and they communicated to me in Irish I would have a big problem due to I cannot speak or understand the language at all.(I go to Ireland for work fairly regulary)

As a man from Northern Ireland and a Protestant Unionist, I do no understand what GAA has to do with the Irish language being less and less used. I also do not understand the contempt people have towards the GAA as they are very much a Pro Irish organisation(although from where I am from it is viewed more as an Anti-british organisation more than a Pro Irish Organisation)

[OneRedArmy]

Can a mod please split this thread into off-topic.

[pól-dcfc]

I don’t mind the Irish language. I don’t know it and have no interest in knowing it, but I do believe it would be a shame for an old minority language like this to be lost in history.

The problem I see with people using this language in work is purely a communicational problem. If I crossed the border into Ireland and went down to Dublin(or anywhere else in Ireland) and they communicated to me in Irish I would have a big problem due to I cannot speak or understand the language at all.(I go to Ireland for work fairly regulary)

As a man from Northern Ireland and a Protestant Unionist, I do no understand what GAA has to do with the Irish language being less and less used. I also do not understand the contempt people have towards the GAA as they are very much a Pro Irish organisation(although from where I am from it is viewed more as an Anti-british organisation more than a Pro Irish Organisation)

Good post. I'll pick you up on "old minority language" though. It's an old majority language, but a current minority language.

[osarusan]

Can a mod please split this thread into off-topic.
Agreed.

[GavinZac]

Good post. I'll pick you up on "old minority language" though. It's an old majority language, but a current minority language.

"minority" is generous. More like "novelty".

[pól-dcfc]

"minority" is generous. More like "novelty".

It's not a novelty in some parts of the country.

Novelty implies "newness" anyway. So it is definitly not a novelty language.

[bigmac]

Hmmm, some interesting points being raised, although I'd lump the whole Celthick phenomenon in with the tokenism Irishness/plastic Paddy brigade as well. I think it's valid to say that the GAA has become an outlet for this expression of nationalism/"Irishness", although whether it is directly at the expense of the language is another question. It may even be that without the GAA, the League of Ireland would become the relevant outlet, while personally I would suggest that the language (requiring work and intellectual effort) would be way down the list of the possible expressive media.

On the Irish in GAA point, the organisation should be commended for some efforts to aid the language, although the half-hearted manner in which it is frequently promoted does the language little favours.
For example, the de rigeur acceptance speech (Tá an áthas orm...) is now about as ubiquitous as "An bhfuil cead agam dul amach..." and is an unthinking mantra rather than a genuine acceptance as gaeilge.
As another example, the rulebook of the GAA is available in both English and Irish versions. Should a disagreement over the meaning of a rule occur, then the Irish version shall take precedence over the English version. However, the Irish version of the rulebook is seldom published!

[hoopy]

What is the rough extent of this nutjob's personal finances, anyway? Any chance of him bringing himself to bankruptcy?




Not too sure about his exact wealth(he obviously has a few bob) but the bankruptcy thing is a nice thought :D He works for KPMG so I wonder have they seen any negative publicity over this. I know a lot of Hoops sent emails to them a while back.

[sullanefc]

(although from where I am from it is viewed more as an Anti-british organisation more than a Pro Irish Organisation)
It was set up to compete with the british sports, that were being played here at the time, that the Irish were not allowed to play by british snobs. That could be a bit of both pro-Irish AND anti-brit.

And they way they bang on about "Foreign Sports" (an expression I hate) gives me the same viewpoint as your own. They should just change the term "Foreign Sports" to "British Sports" or "Competitor Sports" as it looks like they want to stage another grid iron game on their hallowed turf.

[Billy Lord]

Just as an aside to the Irish language debate, I was one of over a dozen Hoops in Stockholm the night of the Rovers-Bohs' FAI Cup game two years ago. The Hammarby lads, impressed that we honoured our commitment to go to Sweden for an international fans' get-together despite the fact that we were playing our biggest rivals, organised it so that the TG4 transmission showed in a pub so that we could catch the game and they could support us.
The pub was packed with fans of not just Hammarby and Rovers, but also Spanish, Swiss and other nationals and no one was surprised that the game was covered as gaeilge. Indeed, many of them asked about the language and were shocked when informed that most Irish people can't speak their own language. It was embarrassing, especially in a country where most locals have excellent English but (obviously) use Swedish as their primary form of communication.
I'm proud to be Irish but ashamed that we treat our own language with contempt.

[Erstwhile Bóz]

The thesis is that it is the GAA, which spuriously has taken on the mantle of protector of all things Irish, on balance has done the language more harm than good.
But you didn't show how. You didn't balance the good against the harm at all.

You also said way, way more than that and used some fairly high-level hyperbole. You said that just as all victors absorb the culture of the vanquished, the GAA's unstoppable machine had enveloped the Irish language, the erstwhile essence of the nation. Rhetorical nonsense.

You said "They use the language to make themselves Irish, but it is the language, not the modern invention of Gaelic football, that is essentially Irish". That doesn't make any sense, unless you are praising the GAA: if it is the language that is essentially Irish, then no wonder it is the language that they use to make themselves Irish. The modern invention of Gaelic football is left hung out to dry there in that sentence.

You then make a few good standard points, a few rousing old favourites, about the GAA hierarchy and football, but then you return to the shaky ground of your language theme and say that the GAA "has filled the void left by the language, which is, or was, essential to being Irish, and it has taken up the energy and imagination that otherwise would have gone into our real culture".

Indeed?

Putting aside the dodgy statement that there was any "void left by the language" to fill (the fact that the language has not yet left the building, the fact that the number of counties with any native speakers of athletics-playing age has changed only a tiny amount since the foundation of the GAA, and the questionable extent to which the Irish people viewed the language as essential in the 150 years up to the foundation of the GAA) I'd like to hear more about the opiate effect of the GAA's unstoppable machine on the cultural energy and imagination of the masses, and in particular how its members are less involved in these directions than they would otherwise have been.

How are the rest of the country getting on in that regard, for example? I mean the ones from communities uninfiltrated by the GAA, or the ones who saw that their sham nationalism would detract from their own honest Irishness. Show, or even hint at, the heightened instances of appreciation of "real culture" and/or appreciation of all things Gaelic amongst these non-GAA people and I might believe you. Or is your point that there is no real culture left for the non-GAA people as all the energy and imagination that would have gone into it has been taken up by the GAA?

And all of this, incidentally, coming after you say that there are plenty of Gaeilgeoirs in the association -- more than in the population generally -- and indeed that most of the GAA is probably well-meaning in its attitude to the language!

Was this well-meaning majority part of the unstoppable, all-conquering GAA machine at the time of its enveloping of the language, or were they and the Gaeilgeoirs enveloped along with the language? Or did they develop from within? Are they the ones that enabled the vanquished Irish language to be absorbed...?

Or is it the reality that the majority of the GAA who are (by your estimates) well-disposed towards Irish -- but don't speak it -- are so inclined despite the attitude of the hierarchy of the GAA? Would that not give the lie to your whole argument concerning the insidious effect the hardcore tokenist leadership has had, and indicate that we are dealing in innocent cross-sections of a population in which there are varying degrees of appreciation of the Irish language, independent of the efforts of State or sporting body or cultural institution?

The language of the GAA is overwhelmingly English only because the majority of GAA members you say are well-disposed to the language don't bother their barney learning it or speaking it and they are unmoved by the efforts of the GAA, good and bad, for the language. If this Irish-fond majority wanted to, they would be lapping up every bit of tokenism and craving more.

Would this not indicate that your argument is a spurious but fabulously imaginative stick to beat the GAA with?

Speaking of which, I fail to understand the exact logic of your complaint that the GAA have some cheek putting Irish names on the clubhouses where their members -- of whom you reckon a higher percentage are Gaeilgeoirs than of the population at large and the majority of whom you reckon are well-disposed towards Irish -- gather. Can it really be that you think this is bad because "most of those living nearby can hardly pronounce them"? That is outstanding anti-GAA straw-graspery.

And I'd like -- honestly -- to hear more about how, exactly, we could have been a country that played great football and proudly spoke and wrote in our own language and in English. This is the kind of insight the Department of the Gaeltacht are constantly crying out for, even if it is retrospective. (The revival of Hebrew is unique in history and completely dissimilar to any possible Irish situation, but it was a nice dig at US foreign policy.)



You take issue with the cobbled-together, makey-uppy, rammed-down-our-throats-at-school, massively promoted national sporting onanism (hope that's breathless enough for you) that is GAA football being called inferior. Isn't it?
:D Your breathlessness is adequate.

But I think it is possible to prefer a cobbled-together, makey-uppy sport massively promoted on a worldwide basis to a cobbled-together, makey-uppy sport massively promoted on a national basis without necessarily thinking either to be superior or inferior.

It is precisely the usage of such words unsuited to the description of sports (though not, perhaps, languages ;) ) as 'inferior' or 'foreign' that causes trouble, no?

[John83]

But you didn't show how. You didn't balance the good against the harm at all.

You also said way, way more than that and used some fairly high-level hyperbole. You said that just as all victors absorb the culture of the vanquished, the GAA's unstoppable machine had enveloped the Irish language, the erstwhile essence of the nation. Rhetorical nonsense.

You said "They use the language to make themselves Irish, but it is the language, not the modern invention of Gaelic football, that is essentially Irish". That doesn't make any sense, unless you are praising the GAA: if it is the language that is essentially Irish, then no wonder it is the language that they use to make themselves Irish. The modern invention of Gaelic football is left hung out to dry there in that sentence.

You then make a few good standard points, a few rousing old favourites, about the GAA hierarchy and football, but then you return to the shaky ground of your language theme and say that the GAA "has filled the void left by the language, which is, or was, essential to being Irish, and it has taken up the energy and imagination that otherwise would have gone into our real culture".

Indeed?

Putting aside the dodgy statement that there was any "void left by the language" to fill (the fact that the language has not yet left the building, the fact that the number of counties with any native speakers of athletics-playing age has changed only a tiny amount since the foundation of the GAA, and the questionable extent to which the Irish people viewed the language as essential in the 150 years up to the foundation of the GAA) I'd like to hear more about the opiate effect of the GAA's unstoppable machine on the cultural energy and imagination of the masses, and in particular how its members are less involved in these directions than they would otherwise have been.

How are the rest of the country getting on in that regard, for example? I mean the ones from communities uninfiltrated by the GAA, or the ones who saw that their sham nationalism would detract from their own honest Irishness. Show, or even hint at, the heightened instances of appreciation of "real culture" and/or appreciation of all things Gaelic amongst these non-GAA people and I might believe you. Or is your point that there is no real culture left for the non-GAA people as all the energy and imagination that would have gone into it has been taken up by the GAA?

And all of this, incidentally, coming after you say that there are plenty of Gaeilgeoirs in the association -- more than in the population generally -- and indeed that most of the GAA is probably well-meaning in its attitude to the language!

Was this well-meaning majority part of the unstoppable, all-conquering GAA machine at the time of its enveloping of the language, or were they and the Gaeilgeoirs enveloped along with the language? Or did they develop from within? Are they the ones that enabled the vanquished Irish language to be absorbed...?

Or is it the reality that the majority of the GAA who are (by your estimates) well-disposed towards Irish -- but don't speak it -- are so inclined despite the attitude of the hierarchy of the GAA? Would that not give the lie to your whole argument concerning the insidious effect the hardcore tokenist leadership has had, and indicate that we are dealing in innocent cross-sections of a population in which there are varying degrees of appreciation of the Irish language, independent of the efforts of State or sporting body or cultural institution?

The language of the GAA is overwhelmingly English only because the majority of GAA members you say are well-disposed to the language don't bother their barney learning it or speaking it and they are unmoved by the efforts of the GAA, good and bad, for the language. If this Irish-fond majority wanted to, they would be lapping up every bit of tokenism and craving more.

Would this not indicate that your argument is a spurious but fabulously imaginative stick to beat the GAA with?

Speaking of which, I fail to understand the exact logic of your complaint that the GAA have some cheek putting Irish names on the clubhouses where their members -- of whom you reckon a higher percentage are Gaeilgeoirs than of the population at large and the majority of whom you reckon are well-disposed towards Irish -- gather. Can it really be that you think this is bad because "most of those living nearby can hardly pronounce them"? That is outstanding anti-GAA straw-graspery.

And I'd like -- honestly -- to hear more about how, exactly, we could have been a country that played great football and proudly spoke and wrote in our own language and in English. This is the kind of insight the Department of the Gaeltacht are constantly crying out for, even if it is retrospective. (The revival of Hebrew is unique in history and completely dissimilar to any possible Irish situation, but it was a nice dig at US foreign policy.)


:D Your breathlessness is adequate.

But I think it is possible to prefer a cobbled-together, makey-uppy sport massively promoted on a worldwide basis to a cobbled-together, makey-uppy sport massively promoted on a national basis without necessarily thinking either to be superior or inferior.

It is precisely the usage of such words unsuited to the description of sports (though not, perhaps, languages ;) ) as 'inferior' or 'foreign' that causes trouble, no?
Who are you and where are you keeping Kingdom Hoop?

[pineapple stu]

Just as an aside to the Irish language debate, I was one of over a dozen Hoops in Stockholm the night of the Rovers-Bohs' FAI Cup game two years ago. The Hammarby lads, impressed that we honoured our commitment to go to Sweden for an international fans' get-together despite the fact that we were playing our biggest rivals, organised it so that the TG4 transmission showed in a pub so that we could catch the game and they could support us.
The pub was packed with fans of not just Hammarby and Rovers, but also Spanish, Swiss and other nationals and no one was surprised that the game was covered as gaeilge. Indeed, many of them asked about the language and were shocked when informed that most Irish people can't speak their own language. It was embarrassing, especially in a country where most locals have excellent English but (obviously) use Swedish as their primary form of communication.
I'm proud to be Irish but ashamed that we treat our own language with contempt.
Spot on. Also ashamed that people like GavinZac and mypost decide to speak for all of us when dismissing Irish as irrelevant.

[kingdomkerry]

Spot on. Also ashamed that people like GavinZac and mypost decide to speak for all of us when dismissing Irish as irrelevant.

Well said





I don’t mind the Irish language. I don’t know it and have no interest in knowing it, but I do believe it would be a shame for an old minority language like this to be lost in history.




The problem I see with people using this language in work is purely a communicational problem. If I crossed the border into Ireland and went down to Dublin(or anywhere else in Ireland) and they communicated to me in Irish I would have a big problem due to I cannot speak or understand the language at all.(I go to Ireland for work fairly regulary)



As a man from Northern Ireland and a Protestant Unionist, I do no understand what GAA has to do with the Irish language being less and less used. I also do not understand the contempt people have towards the GAA as they are very much a Pro Irish organisation(although from where I am from it is viewed more as an Anti-british organisation more than a Pro Irish Organisation)



I think you'll find that there is very little contempt for GAA outside alot of dublin, a few other pockets around the country and in Unionist areas in the north.

[SÓC]

I'm proud to be Irish but ashamed that we treat our own language with contempt.


Dont be down hearted Billy, sure ye even had Hoops speaking Irish in Cardiff once!

[khoop]

FINALLY - IT'S ALL OVER!!!

Ladies and gentlemen - Welcome to Tallaght!!!
:D:D:D

[Block G Raptor]

FINALLY - IT'S ALL OVER!!!

Ladies and gentlemen - Welcome to Tallaght!!!
:D:D:D

Let me be the first to congratulate ye

[placid casual]

Rovers win.
GAA lose.

The national league will grow stronger as a result.

and a big hello to ndrog.:D:eek:

[GavinZac]

homeless til ye get there :p congrats, rovers

[Celdrog]

Looking forward to going to Tallaght - will it be ready for any of this season?

And congrats to 99% of Rovers fans;)

[srfc-1901]

Looking forward to going to Tallaght - will it be ready for any of this season?

And congrats to 99% of Rovers fans;)


Start of next season hopefully-yyyyyyeeeeeeeeehhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:):)

[Postman]

It was also judged that Thomas Davis must pay all our and SDCC's costs dating right back to our application to be a notice party. They even have to pay for today. If they had have called it a day last week they would have save themselves 10k+. Ah well, what's 10k when you're simply blowing tax payers' money. One of their top men straight out admitted to a Rovers fan that Croke Park was footing the bill. Incredible.

[gufct]

Delighted for ye.I was at the last game in Milltown and hopefully GUFC will be the first el team to play in Tallaght.

[ForzaHoop]

Shamrock Rovers Press Release


Tallaght Gets Green Light
Press Release Issued : 25 Jan 2008
The Tallaght Community Stadium finally got the go-ahead today when the
High Court rejected Thomas Davis GAA club's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

On December 12 last the High Court ruled in favour of South Dublin County Council and against Thomas Davis GAA club in the Judical Review of the stadium.

This morning Judge Murphy ruled that there were no legal grounds to justify an appeal to the Supreme Court and the two-year legal wrangle has come to an end.

This means that work can resume on the site and Shamrock Rovers can look forward to moving into the stadium for the start of the 2009 FAI eircom League season.

Says Shamrock Rovers Chairman Jonathan Roche: "We're delighted that the matter is finally resolved. It's a relief for us all that we can say Rovers are finally going to have a home.

"I want to thank everyone who supported us along the way, from the South Dublin County Council to the various politicians and the FAI - and of course our great fans.

"We'll be seeking a meeting with the SDCC as soon as possible to get the builders back at the stadium and look forward to seeing the hard hats and bulldozers on site."

ENDS