ESRI Sports Report

[micls]

Believing that gaelic games are a more important part of Irish culture than soccer and rugby doesn't make me a bigot, despite what some would like to believe.

It doesn't make you right either though....

Football is as much a part of our culture as GAA is, this is shown by the larger participation in football than in GAA. You're comparison to breakdancing doesnt hold up. There are no where near as many breakdancers in the country as there are Irish Dancers. Therefore Irish Dancers obviously have greater cultural significance.

The english language is just as much a part of our culture as the Irish language. The fact that we didn't make it up doesn't make it any less so.

Culture isn't a set thing, it's not a constant. Culture is the people, it is adaptive.

Was Italia 90 not a large part of sporting culture in this country in recent times?

Maybe at one time, GAA was a far bigger part of the culture than football, when Irish people were trying to hold onto their 'Irishness' because of oppression etc(the forcible banning of other sports also contributed to this). However this simply isn't the case any longer. More people play and watch football(even if it is from a barstool) than play or watch GAA.

Both are integral parts of our culture(present), for differing reasons.

Maybe you have a differing opinion on what culture is than I do. However, despite playing and loving GAA and teaching in a Gaelscoil I dont see GAA or Irish as more a part of our culture than football or English.

Each has its role in our cultural identity, to dismiss any of them is ignoring a major part of our culture.

[Da Real Rover]

Culture isn't a set thing, it's not a constant. Culture is the people, it is adaptive.

Spot on.
The GAA have about as much cultural significance in Ireland as Oagham writing.
The whole self important nature around the GAA is sickening, its just driven with reactionary Nationalist sentiment.
Each generation makes their own culture, and if you rate somethings cultural relevance by its age well then surely head hurling is more culturally significant to the Irish than the GAA. For too long the Irish people have been indoctrinated with the same old cliches about how Irish the GAA is. We make our own culture and Irish football (soccer to avoid confusion) clubs have been molded in the identities of the Irish people, they are just as Irish and culturally significant to the Irish culture as the GAA.

The old nostalgia of diddly Ireland is a lie, there is nothing romantic or distinctly Irish about a a twinkly eyed paddy with a pint of guinneas in one hand and a pig under your other arm. These romantic stereotypes are a lie, and a joke, there is no reality in them and their is certainly no true depiction of Irish culture in them.

[BohsPartisan]

Besides Football games were you can pick up the ball and run with it were played in England, Italy, China among other places and resembled the game that we call Gaelic football. Association football and Rugby are just more refined versions of those old anarchic games. In fact rather than being particularly Irish, what you can say about this type of football is that it is particularly rural. Played predominantly where there were wide open spaces and plenty of space for kick and rush. Association football developed with urbanisation. Some public schools where there was less space devised a dribbling game where the ball could not be picked up. This spread among the working class who too would not have had wide open space to play in. Thus association football became the people's game and it was enthusiastically taken up by working class people accross the world. Its stunted development in this country has much to do with cultural naionalist propaganda and anti-English sentiment around the time of the foundation of the state, right up to the seventies.

[Jinxy]

Soccer is a global brand, but I disagree completely that volume is the sole indicator of cultural significance. It's like saying McDonalds is a huge part of Irish culture because there are loads of them everywhere. Gaelic games are unique to this country. Take a foreign friend along to a soccer match here and I'm sure they'll enjoy it, but it's still the same game they play and watch in their own country. Take them to a hurling game in Croke Park and they'll be like "WTF is this? How come I've never heard of it?" Thats an experience that can't be replicated anywhere else on the planet. Anyone with half a brain in their head can separate notions of "Irishness" from culture. If you're born and reared in Ireland, you're as Irish as anyone else regardless of past-times or hobbies.

[micls]

Soccer is a global brand, but I disagree completely that volume is the sole indicator of cultural significance.
It's like saying McDonalds is a huge part of Irish culture because there are loads of them everywhere. Gaelic games are unique to this country. Take a foreign friend along to a soccer match here and I'm sure they'll enjoy it, but it's still the same game they play and watch in their own country. Take them to a hurling game in Croke Park and they'll be like "WTF is this? How come I've never heard of it?" Thats an experience that can't be replicated anywhere else on the planet.

I still dont see how this makes it more culturally significant. Something doesnt have to be unique to a country to be culturally significant. Of course the GAA is a big aspect of the sporting culture of the island but its certainly not the only one.

I certainly wouldnt be judging me definition of our culture on whether a foreign person thinks 'Wow thats different'

English is spoken worldwide. Does that mean it has less significance for out culture?

I'd argue they are just as significant, simply in different ways. The GAA and Irish gives you the uniqueness, football and English are the more popular choices

For example would you consider rugby a large part of New Zealands sporting culture? And yet they did not invent it and it is not unique to them. What about football to Brazils?

Anyone with half a brain in their head can separate notions of "Irishness" from culture. If you're born and reared in Ireland, you're as Irish as anyone else regardless of past-times or hobbies.

Of course

[Jinxy]

I still dont see how this makes it more culturally significant. Something doesnt have to be unique to a country to be culturally significant. Of course the GAA is a big aspect of the sporting culture of the island but its certainly not the only one.

I certainly wouldnt be judging me definition of our culture on whether a foreign person thinks 'Wow thats different'

English is spoken worldwide. Does that mean it has less significance for out culture?

I'd argue they are just as significant, simply in different ways. The GAA and Irish gives you the uniqueness, football and English are the more popular choices

For example would you consider rugby a large part of New Zealands sporting culture? And yet they did not invent it and it is not unique to them. What about football to Brazils?



Of course

Well now this raises the difficult issue of sporting culture v culture in general. There can be crossover between the two but they are separate categories. Rugby has nothing to do with Maori culture, but has cleverly adopted aspects of it to create a unique identity. Likewise soccer has nothing to do with the culture of the indigenous peoples of Brazil, but is hugely popular among people of portugese/slave extraction. I think we have fundamentally different ideas of what the word culture represents so we may have to agree to disagree on that point. I understand what you mean by culture being the here and now, but I don't see it that way. If that is the case then Bebo is a huge part of Irish culture and God help us all if thats true. When I think of the word culture I think of history, music, story-telling, tradition, uniqueness. I don't think of popularity.

[BohsPartisan]

Culture is not an entity on its own. Culture is the product of its society. In that respect, yes Bebo is a particular part of modern youth culture. Culture by its very nature (consider the usage of the word culture in biology) is a living, changing thing. It transforms itself and is transformed from outside of itself. For example, the games of Gaelic and Association are different in rules and application than they were 100 years ago. They developed from the same base source - Folk football and both had rules drawn up by men who wanted to formalise and codify their sport. In the drawing up of the rules of Gaelic Football, those men created, in conjunction with the cultural nationalists a false picture of the antiquity of their game in order to give it national legitimacy. Gaelic Football has gone continued to play that role and has fiercely resisted the development of other games - primarily Association Football as it was always its biggest threat.

Hurling is a slightly different matter and there are valid claims to its antiquity, though with probably different rules to how it is played nowadays but Hurling is a minority sport, only really popular in certain parts of the country.

[Straightstory]

'Believing that gaelic games are a more important part of Irish culture than soccer and rugby doesn't make me a bigot, despite what some would like to believe'/QUOTE]

I think what you probably mean here is more 'distinctive', not more 'important'. Unless you actually are a bigot.

[Jinxy]

So thinking that gaelic games are culturally more important than soccer makes me a bigot? What if I said gaelic games were culturally more important than badminton?

[BohsPartisan]

So thinking that gaelic games are culturally more important than soccer makes me a bigot? What if I said gaelic games were culturally more important than badminton?

Culturally more important to a certain demographic. And thats the point made in the report. That demographic's cultural needs get disproportionate funding from the government.There are more association football players in this country than Gaelic. Their social lives to a large degree revolve around their clubs.

[HarpoJoyce]

This thread has diverged from the original post. Original post is about the investment of bricks and motar. It is clear to me that in Ireland public investment is not available to every sport.

So thinking that gaelic games are culturally more important than soccer makes me a bigot? What if I said gaelic games were culturally more important than badminton?

Not picking on you Jinxy, only many posters here will appreciate that it appears to be the pioneering athlete to lead the way and then public money follows.

When we have an international standard team or athlete does the public money follow. the athletes in racket sports, the 'Field' side of Track & Field have to compete against each other for public money.

[Terry]

so what has all this Gah rubbish got to do with the ELOI ?

[GavinZac]

Well now this raises the difficult issue of sporting culture v culture in general. There can be crossover between the two but they are separate categories. Rugby has nothing to do with Maori culture, but has cleverly adopted aspects of it to create a unique identity. Likewise soccer has nothing to do with the culture of the indigenous peoples of Brazil, but is hugely popular among people of portugese/slave extraction. I think we have fundamentally different ideas of what the word culture represents so we may have to agree to disagree on that point.

Yes. You think culture means history. History is only part of culture in as much as culture reflects upon it. Culture is the way of life of a people; Right now soccer, mostly English soccer unfortunately, is a larger part of Irish culture than Hurling or Gaelic Football, or De Valera's fair maidens. However...

When I think of the word culture I think of history, music, story-telling, tradition, uniqueness. I don't think of popularity.

Then you misunderstand what culture refers to; you are talking about things that are a unique part of our culture (although the makey-uppy sport of "Gaelic Football" is just a set of codes placed upon the game of football, just as Association Football was. It is a shared feature of Anglo-Irish history!) It may not be a good or unique aspect of Irish culture that a Bebo profile is mandatory for our children, but a formidable part of our culture it is!

Then we have to make a decision. Subsidise that which is unique, for the sake of it being unique? Or reward that which is central and beneficial to our actual culture, especially something as healthy as soccer?

[Jinxy]

With regard to funding, it should be noted that the GAA administers 2 sports (football & hurling, well 4 if you include handball and rounders), and in many clubs there would be lads who playing hurling but not football or vice versa. The capital grants that GAA clubs get don't fund just one sport. People seem to latch onto gaelic football as if it was the only gaelic game. It should also be noted that soccer teams use municipal facilities to a far greater extent than the GAA does, i.e. parks for soccer. I've a number of friends who play soccer and football, and even at Junior level they play soccer for a release from the training and competitiveness of gaelic football (which I think is an issue the GAA have to address). They don't take the soccer particularly seriously as a result though. A lot of soccer teams are just bunches of mates who've got together to form a team. They've no juvenile section, no ladies team, no facilities to call their own and they play because it's a bit of craic and it gets them out of the house and away from the missus (nothing wrong with that). You can't compare the social capital generated in that situation with a GAA club in a rural area with dozens of teams for both genders across all age groups and hundreds of volunteers. If I miss a training session the manager will be on my case looking for a valid reason. Some lads don't like that so it's easier to just kick a ball around with the lads at the weekend and have a rake of pints afterwards. I think the GAA needs to make it easier for lads like that and I believe there is some kind of tag rugby-esque game in the pipeline (shudder). Should be interesting!

[oldyouth]

With regard to funding, it should be noted that the GAA administers 2 sports (football & hurling, well 4 if you include handball and rounders), and in many clubs there would be lads who playing hurling but not football or vice versa. The capital grants that GAA clubs get don't fund just one sport. People seem to latch onto gaelic football as if it was the only gaelic game. It should also be noted that soccer teams use municipal facilities to a far greater extent than the GAA does, i.e. parks for soccer. I've a number of friends who play soccer and football, and even at Junior level they play soccer for a release from the training and competitiveness of gaelic football (which I think is an issue the GAA have to address). They don't take the soccer particularly seriously as a result though. A lot of soccer teams are just bunches of mates who've got together to form a team. They've no juvenile section, no ladies team, no facilities to call their own and they play because it's a bit of craic and it gets them out of the house and away from the missus (nothing wrong with that). You can't compare the social capital generated in that situation with a GAA club in a rural area with dozens of teams for both genders across all age groups and hundreds of volunteers. If I miss a training session the manager will be on my case looking for a valid reason. Some lads don't like that so it's easier to just kick a ball around with the lads at the weekend and have a rake of pints afterwards. I think the GAA needs to make it easier for lads like that and I believe there is some kind of tag rugby-esque game in the pipeline (shudder). Should be interesting!

Now you're just getting patronising. You make it sound like local parish soccer teams put a couple of cones down for goalposts, have a kick about until it rains and then go on the lash. There are hundreds of local clubs run for the kids and adults of the community by people who are both passionate and dedicated to what they do and spend ungodly hours doing so.
I am the 1st to acknowledge that not every person is suited or built to play soccer (or GAA, or rugby or tennis, or hockey etc, etc.) so what you advocate is that GAA is the only CREDIBLE sport to play in a community and everything else is for those not making their grade.

[GavinZac]

People seem to latch onto gaelic football as if it was the only gaelic game.

Its the more popular one though; and counties tend to have their chosen code and stick with it. If it is some reflection of the games that the one that is most similar to the football games codified into rugby and soccer and calcio, I don't know.

It should also be noted that soccer teams use municipal facilities to a far greater extent than the GAA does, i.e. parks for soccer.

I can name you a single Cork club that play on a communal field, and even then only for schoolboy matches (Togher). I don't know the situation in Dublin but why would it be that much different? And out in the sticks, how many "municipal parks" are there?

I've a number of friends who play soccer and football... They don't take the soccer particularly seriously as a result though.... If I miss a training session the manager will be on my case looking for a valid reason. Some lads don't like that so it's easier to just kick a ball around with the lads at the weekend and have a rake of pints afterwards.

I thought you'd mixed up culture and history. It appears you've actually mixed up culture and your life.

I hate to break the news, but the vast majority of the Irish population live in cities and towns. The vast majority are within a few minutes drive of a local/schoolboys soccer club with a few pitch and changing rooms, the same as any GAA club. More and more, the majority are within minutes drive of a women's soccer club, be it senior or schoolgirl or mixed.

The participation figures don't represent the ease with which a few lads can have a kickabout on a Saturday down the park. They are membership and participation in a club. You might reference a few lads you know who have a secondary allegiance to a soccer club but if you do the maths you'll realise that surely for the most part it is vice versa.

[Jinxy]

I had moved away from the cultural significance argument and was discussing the issue of funding and participation levels. If you are going to use this ESRI report to support your argument you can't ignore the previous one which highlighted the huge social capital generated by the GAA. I'm fully aware that there are towns and villages that have their own soccer teams, with juvenile sections, ladies teams etc. and plenty of volunteers, but I simply highlighted the fact that there is a large swathe of people included in the soccer participation numbers who are members of what could reasonably be described as pub teams. Just a gang of lads who got together to form a soccer team. It's just 13/14 lads and a trainer (maybe) on a park pitch. There is no equivalent in the GAA to this (which is somewhat regrettable as I've already said). I recognise the distinction between these teams and the community based soccer teams. The point I'm making is that these teams do not have the same social impact as GAA clubs or even the ordinary community based soccer clubs. How would increased funding be of any use to them?

[GavinZac]

I simply highlighted the fact that there is a large swathe of people included in the soccer participation numbers who are members of what could reasonably be described as pub teams.

I don't think there is. We will have to disagree unless one of us can pull a definition of a club out of the report. Besides...

How would increased funding be of any use to them?

... you can't actually be, in all honesty, telling us you don't see how providing funding to clubs with no facilities would be beneficial to the largest, most important participation sport in the country?

Just a gang of lads who got together to form a soccer team. It's just 13/14 lads and a trainer (maybe) on a park pitch.

That is how any club, including GAA clubs, start. A good example is Na Piarsaigh in Cork, home of Gardiner and O Halpin. A group of lads get together because there isn't a club that suits them so they set up a senior team. Then they get a pitch. Then they get a minor team. And so on, the age group teams cascade downward until they are able to run 'street league' teams. I am guessing this is at least partially what you mean by 'social capital', unless you're reffering to the idea that the only thing making country people talk to each other is meeting up down the club bar.

Compare this to Avondale football club. They went through the exact same process, except in the late 70s instead of the 40s. However they still have 'cascaded' teams all the way down to street leagues, have purchased 2 grounds, in Blackrock and Carraigaline, and even spun off an Eircom League team - Cork City FC.

And somewhere in between (appropriately?) there are Midleton and Glen Celtic. Midleton are adding new under age grades every year, securing their own grounds (going as far as to build a little stand) and growing into their community. Glen Celtic were set up a couple of years ago. They are still worried about making up a senior team and securing their own pitches. They are what you pompously describe as a 'pub team', a group of lads who didn't have anyone to play for so they set up their own club and joined the AUL. Would it be beneficial for them to receive funding to purchase a ground? They aren't so lucky as to come about in a time when farmer's fields, future housing estates, can be had for next to nothing. They need investment, their own and the FAI's. Would you deride them for catering only to adult players, or realise that they are at the point Na Piarsiagh were, except a 5 minute drive and 65 year difference?

Of course, were this a typical European country, we wouldn't need to talk of GAA Clubs and soccer clubs. Through the GAA's bigotry, we live in a society where the idea that a burgeoning club could purchase a field and participate in athletics, basketball, tennis, hurling, football and soccer, whatever they wanted!, is a bizarre notion.

[Jinxy]

Easy tiger. They aren't what I described and you know it. The lads I know that play soccer are the very definition of a pub team and guess what they play in a league full of other pub teams. They have zero aspirations of expanding the operation beyond their own involvement. They could join any number of well organised soccer clubs if they wanted to but the fact of the matter is that they'd rather do it their own way. As a result these teams have a very high turnover of players with lads turning up one week for a game and not being seen for months thereafter. If you want to interpret the conversation we've been having up to this point as me having a go at soccer in Ireland then thats your business. I'm sure you'll have plenty of back up. Its not really the point though. There are GAA clubs being formed at the moment too such as Adamstown in Dublin. The way these clubs start is normally with a juvenile section i.e. groups of parents get together and start organising. Westmanstown Gaels are another example. Castleknock had huge success within a relatively short space of time after forming, with the u-14 hurlers winning the All-Ireland Féile. There's a world of difference between that and the pub teams I described. By the way, the term pub team is commonly used to describe teams arranged on a casual basis primarily for recreational reasons. It's not being used to demean anybody.

[Midlandsred]

Honestly lads but this anti-gaa bull is the reason why a lot of heads stay away from eloi cos judging from this thread callin the gaa bigoted is kinda pot calling the kettle black. I play Gaelic Football with young fellas who also hurl and play soccer but would have no interest in going to a eloi game simply because most of the existing fanbase are elitist and not accepting of Gaa and to tell you the truth reading this thread proves their point.
What i think is that we gotta accept every sport being played in the country as part of our sporting culture but the GAA is a part of our cultural heritage and therefore should remain an integral part of our identity.