Joseph M Bradley

University of Stirling

This article reflects on the historic cultural and political cleavage between Irish Gaelic sports and the British sport of soccer. In nationalist Ireland soccer, a British innovation and largely British dominated game during the 19th and early 20th centuries, was traditionally known as `the garrison game'. This was due to its popularity within British garrison towns in Ireland while that country was part of the British Empire in the period up to 1922. Although still used by a few older stalwarts of the G.A.A., the description of soccer as `the garrison game' has virtually passed as Gaelic sports have come to dominate in much of Ireland while soccer has become a globalised sport.

The contextual setting for this paper is viewed through the sporting experience of the Irish diaspora in Scotland. Brief reference is made to Irish Catholic immigration into Scotland as well as Irish cultural resistance to British hegemony in late 19th century Ireland. The native Irish experience is compared with the differing sporting encounter of the Irish in Scotland. In Ireland, Gaelic sport eventually re-established itself throughout the country while for the Irish in Scotland, Gaelic sport struggled as soccer became the sporting avenue for social integration and national and cultural distinctiveness. Some of the reasons for this development are explained here, while this work also considers some later manifestations of antagonism between both sports and determines why the soccer-gaelic conflict has not been a significant issue in the Scottish diasporic context. This paper concludes that despite historical antagonisms between both sports, Celtic Football Club has served the Irish in Scotland in a similar way to which the G.A.A. has traditionally given shape and expression to ideas of Irishness in Ireland itself.

Irish Catholic immigrants in Scotland

In 1755 Alexander Webster estimated there were 16,490 Catholics in Scotland: just over one per cent of the population. Most lived in parts of the Highlands and the Western Isles. Despite most Catholics in Scotland living in the Glasgow/Lanarkshire areas by the turn the millennium, several commentators have noted the presence of few in these areas at the end of the 18th century: only two in Lanarkshire and thirty-nine in Glasgow in the 1790s. Indicatively, there were also sixty anti-Catholic societies in Glasgow in the same period.1 By the middle of An Gorta Mor, the great Irish Famine of the mid of the 19th century, the ethnic, social and religious composition of large areas of west-central Scotland was to change significantly as an estimated 100,000 Irish Catholic Famine refugees fled to Scotland.2 In subsequent decades, the attraction of employment meant many other Irish migrants choose to start a new life in Scotland as the pull factor of industrialisation began to re-shape the condition of the economy, the Irish providing an important source of the raw labour required for Scottish progress.

Throughout the post-Famine years of the mid-19th century, especially during the first quarter of the 20th, and more erratically for the rest of the century, substantial numbers of immigrant Irish entered Scotland, most eventually settling the west-central belt, in and around Lanarkshire and the greater Glasgow area. Here, many towns and villages changed in their religious and social composition as the Irish poured in. Political life too was affected as the Irish brought their own experiences to mix with many Scots, particularly those of the working classes. In relation to the economic, social and political development of Scotland, the Irish and their offspring have to be considered especially if looking at such things as the Catholic Church, poverty, wealth, the British Labour Party and sport: especially soccer and gaelic sports in Scotland.

Sport and the G.A.A. in Ireland and Scotland

The long term political, linguistical, cultural, economic and social colonisation of the Irish people resulted in varying degrees of opposition to British hegemony. Sometimes violent, opposition has more frequently also meant that native ways have been actively preserved or re-invented to symbolise Irishness as opposed to British or English domination. In Ireland in 1884 and 1893 the Gaelic Athletic Association (Cumann Luthchleas Gael) and the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) were founded. These became two of the most significant responses to a perceived growing cultural domination. The Gaelic Athletic Association was set up to preserve and promote native Irish games while the Gaelic League sought to stem the decline of Irish as a spoken language as well as promote Irish literature. Although neither organisation was explicitly political, and despite some historians over-stressing the political dimensions of the G.A.A. in particular,3 national and nationalist ideals have been crucial to the G.A.A.'s development and significance and during the first few decades of its existence, many members were political as well as cultural and sporting activists.

Early G.A.A. rulings against its members playing British sports, as well as the disbarring of British military personnel in Ireland from participating in gaelic sports (the latter remaining in place in 1999 as Rule 21), is viewed by the organisation in the context of this perceived hegemony. Sugden and Bairner state:

While British domination had always been challenged by the indigenous population, only gradually did this resistance take an overtly nationalist form. Sensitive to the threat of emergent Irish nationalism, the British endeavoured to suppress expressions of Gaelic culture. Part of this programme included the discouragement or prohibition of Gaelic games. At the same time distinctively Anglophile sports, introduced into Ireland by settlers and the agents of the Crown, and encouraged by British landlords, grew in popularity. In addition to these factors the devastating effects of famine pushed Gaelic games nearer to extinction.4

Although many of the Irish who immigrated to Scotland were politically and culturally active, it has not been Gaelic sports but soccer which has dominated the Irish sporting scene.5

In Glasgow in 1897, the first G.A.A. club, Red Hugh O Neill's was set up in the east end of the city, about a mile or so from the ground of Celtic Football Club. Although little seems to have come of the team, by early 1901 the Rapparees Hurling Club had also been formed in Glasgow, one which was to become amongst the most significant of all of those founded during the course of the 20th century.6 As was the case with the Rapparees, during this period many if not most Gaelic athletic clubs in Scotland became closely linked with the Gaelic League, indeed, members of the League often founded them. At the turn of the century this was already a thriving organisation in Scotland with seventeen branches in the Glasgow district as well as in Paisley, Blantyre, Motherwell, Hamilton, Wishaw, Coatbridge, Carfin, Renton, Kilsyth, Barrhead, Denny, Johnstone, Dumbarton, Ayr, Port Glasgow and Greenock.7

As G.A.A. clubs emerged in Scotland hurling, as opposed to Gaelic football, dominated. Although players with no hurling background played the game, at the time there were also a number of skilled hurlers involved. This is clear from contemporary reports. Indeed, a recognition of the skills of the ex-patriot hurlers in Scotland came in 1913 when Glasgow played host to the previous winners of a number of All-Ireland Hurling titles, Kilkenny. The match took place at Celtic's stadium in front of a crowd of five thousand people and the Scottish representatives were beaten by a score of ten goals and five points to four goals and two points.8

This game was viewed as having the potential to promote the sport amongst the Irish in Scotland but its prospects were hampered when the occasion met with competition. On the same day, at Coatbridge in Lanarkshire, the annual demonstration of the Irish National Forresters took place. This friendly society, which also incorporated nationalist and Irish cultural identities, contained branches all over the west central belt in which many Catholic families had members attached. Many thousands of Irish Catholics attended this particular demonstration.9

An important point can be drawn from this event. Despite the many positive signs of Gaelic revival, Gaelic games amongst the ex-patriot community were continually qualified by set backs. Gaelic sports in west central Scotland did not suffer from a lack of Irishness, for Irish activity remained plentiful. The Irish Forresters, the Irish National League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, with thirty-four divisions in the central belt of Scotland, were some of the clearest signs of Irish activity. However, Irish identity during this period simply did not translate into a buoyant G.A.A.. As was the case in parts of Ireland during this period, the G.A.A. in Scotland struggled to acquire the status and vibrancy required for its good health and promotion. Irish activities and identities in Scotland did not look to the G.A.A. but to other areas for expression.

De Burca notes that in 1889, many Ulster counties either did not have a functioning Association or where they did so they were severely weak; in Monaghan, Derry, Antrim and Down insufficient clubs existed to form a county committee, whilst in Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone, there is little if any record of activity. By 1891, there was not a single club in Louth, Monaghan and Tyrone, whilst Mayo had only three and Clare one.10 Overall, the Association was inchoate in many areas. Again, during the troubled times of the Parnell era, the First World war, 1916 and the Irish War of Independence as well as during the period of the Irish Civil War, pastimes and cultural activities were negatively affected. In particular, counties where many G.A.A. activists were also volunteers with the nationalist movement often became athletically weak as individuals and communities had little time to pursue recreational activities. In Scotland, the Irish were amongst the most politically active of all the groups in the wider diaspora and this inevitably affected some cultural pursuits.11 In addition, many immigrants to Scotland came from Ulster and Conaught, where it took the Gaelic Athletic Association several decades to become established: it was the 1930s before it made much impact in Ulster.

The surnames of many of the participants involved in hurling matches in early 20th century Scotland imply that a majority of those playing the game probably originated from the hurling counties of Munster and the southern half of Ireland in general. For example, one historian suggests that many of the Rapparees had played with Tipperary and Cork teams before immigrating to Scotland.12 Numerous references had been made over the previous few years to Tipperary players in particular making their mark on the game in Glasgow. In addition, anecdotal evidence from the offspring of immigrants in west-central Scotland who originated from the Irish midlands, shows that some immigrants occasionally practiced hurling in and around local streets and public parks.13

The popularity of Gaelic sport (hurling in particular) in Scotland at this time, often reflected the counties from where Irish people had come. Although many immigrants originated from the southern half of Ireland where gaelic games had become steadily better organised over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much of this phase of immigration took place before or during effective organising on the part of the G.A.A. in Ireland. Therefore, the sporting and cultural infrastructure in Ireland, which might have helped promote the game abroad, was not in place. As the century progressed, many immigrants from hurling counties aged without being replaced by significant younger males from those counties. In the inter-war period, Irish immigration to Scotland rapidly declined as many pull factors, which had attracted previous waves of migrants, diminished. In addition, this period was a particularly hostile one in relation to anti-Irish and anti-Catholic feeling in Scotland and many immigrants and their offspring perceived a need to be discreet and make quet social and economic progress.14 Thus, the circumstances required for the advancement of Gaelic sports in Scotland simply did not exist at this time.

Soccer: The game of the Gael?

Although it remains an aspect of Irish culture and identity in Scotland, the conditions that gave rise to and sustained the Association in Ireland were not replicated in Scotland. Some were fed by similar historical factors, but Irish life outside of Ireland was also a differing experience. Even in the 1990s in the U.S.A., although having some vibrancy where recent Irish immigrants reside in large numbers, the G.A.A. also encounters similar difficulties in being viewed as a primary focus for Irish identity.

Since American-born Irish have traditionally shown little interest in the games of their fathers, the G.A.A. in America has always depended upon Irish immigrants to keep the games alive....As a matter of fact, were it not for Irish students who come to America during the Summer to work and line up with G.A.A. teams in various cities, the games of the Gael would be for all intents and purposes dead in many cities.15

Many of the things which today give life to the G.A.A. in Ireland, especially a sense of identity in the shape of parishes and counties, local tradition, history and bloodlines, added to coaching as a part of the modern educational curriculum, never existed in Scotland. The sociology of Gaelic sports that exists in Ireland does not constitute any real influence amongst the diaspora. In its island of Ireland context, for Humphries:

That the Gaelic Athletic Association succeeded at all is due to the manner in which the fare it offered fitted perfectly within the culture, rituals and aspirations of our society. On an island where native culture had for centuries been subordinated to political imperatives, the games became a passionate and rugged expression of a people's soul. When all other forms of Irishness had been stamped out, the spirit burst out of captivity in the form of play.16

If Humphries is correct, the spirit he refers to did burst through in Scotland, not significantly through Gaelic sports, but in a quite unique and distinct way from the gaelic revival in Ireland: that is, through the emergence of Celtic Football Club, the Irish club that played `the garrison game'.

At the time of the founding of Celtic in 1887/88, almost all Catholics in west-central Scotland were from Ireland and the words Catholic and Irish were interchangeable. All the club's founders were expatriate Irishmen or of Irish antecedents and the new club's support was drawn largely from the swelling Irish community in the Glasgow area. Part of the rationale behind the founder's beliefs in the requirement for an Irish soccer club was a need for charitable donations to assist the poor Irish in the area. These donations frequently included some to causes such as the Evicted Tenant's Fund, then an important aspect of Irish nationalist politics. Off the field, the national question was of crucial importance to Celtic's founders as it was to many in the immigrant community. Club officials, players and supporters alike, were often involved in politics. This involved supporting Irish Home Rule, campaigning for the release of Irish political prisoners, opposing what they viewed as British imperialism in the Boer War and South Africa and supporting the contentious petition for Catholic schools to be maintained within the state system.

In Scotland, soccer has become one of the most obvious of mediums for Irish identity. In similar fashion to Barcelona and Athletico Bilbao in Spain, Celtic Football Club possess a cultural, religious and political identity which has become a symbol of a community.17 Despite the G.A.A.'s historic antagonism towards British sports, Celtic Football Club's identity has similar features to that of the G.A.A.s. This, in as much that the club draws mainly on the offspring of Irish immigrants, and these members of the diaspora have become amongst the foremost of conveyors of Irishness in Scotland. This links with the G.A.A. as a chief conveyor of Irish identity in Ireland.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Irish immigrants and their offspring in Scotland have encountered economic, social and political opposition. For the most part, hostility has revolved around the religious, national and often the political character of the immigrants. Overall, Irish and Catholic immigrant identities have frequently been considered pernicious within Scottish/British societies and have often been viewed generally as deviant influences and forces. In the face of antipathy shown to Irish immigrants in Scotland, expressions of Irishness have often been problematic for that community. Although Celtic has historically attracted and included many non-Catholic employees and supporters, for many Catholics, football, and Celtic in particular, have provided an environment in which to make known otherwise repressed or unarticulated political attitudes, cultural affinities and national allegiances.18

Although historically an Irish club, Celtic's involvement in Scottish football also allowed for the participation of the immigrant Catholic community in a popular facet of the larger society. Football and Celtic became avenues for interaction and integration with the host community, despite the ethnic competitiveness of the game itself. For many members of the immigrant community who retain a sense of Irishness, Celtic is the greatest single ethno-cultural focus providing the social setting and process through which the community's sense of its own identity and difference from the indigenous community is sustained in and through a set of symbolic processes and representations. Many emotions, sentiments and passions that might have been displayed elsewhere, or indeed were diminished in other contexts, became central to the character of the Celtic support. For many Irish immigrants in Scotland, supporting Celtic has been `a powerful strategy of identity building'.19 In Scotland, football is bound up with the process of individual socialisation and community construction. The history of Irish-British relations has meant that for the Irish in Scotland, as well as for those of an anti-Catholic and anti-Irish disposition, Celtic Football Club has emerged as a definition of Irishness itself.

Conflict?: Soccer versus Gaelic Football

In the past, within the native Irish frame of reference, soccer and Gaelic have clashed. This is unsurprising considering the political, social and cultural context in which sport developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, in Scotland, although some Gaelic enthusiasts have frowned upon contact with anglicised sports, soccer has progressed uninhibited amongst the Irish and their offspring. Therefore, as the cultural context of the G.A.A.-soccer cleavage has varied beyond the shores of Ireland so the sporting development of the diaspora has also diversified. Nonetheless, in more recent times, some elements of tension have emerged. Ironically, this has recently taken place in a G.A.A.-Celtic context.

At the Celtic versus Dunfermline game played at Celtic Park in December 1998, the Sam Maguire, the All-Ireland Championship Gaelic Football trophy was displayed at half time. A few weeks later a Dublin-based letter writer to the Celtic View, the Club's newspaper, informed his audience that:

if the boot was on the other foot, how many fans would know that the Scottish FA Cup would not be allowed inside Croke Park in Dublin, because, the G.A.A. operate a no compromise apartheid policy against the game of soccer in Ireland.20

In Scotland, soccer has enjoyed unrivalled success throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. Many Celtic fans in Scotland have little knowledge of the historic conflict between soccer and Gaelic sports in Ireland. Other fans note with pride that two of Celtic's Irish born star players of the 1980s and 1990s, Pat Bonner and Anton Rogan, played top class Gaelic football when living in Ireland. The Dublin correspondent to the Celtic club magazine had given little indication of the significant cultural or historical differences between Ireland and Scotland. A Kildare correspondent duly answered the letter. He wondered if the initial writer could explain:

the myriad of soccer shirts worn by G.A.A. players at training sessions; the fact that many gaelic football teams play soccer matches as part of their training routines; the fact that so many G.A.A. clubs have opened their club houses and held social events in conjunction with Irish international soccer matches.21

Further, could he explain `the array of G.A.A. shirts on view around Celtic Park on match days'. The writer finished by arguing that the G.A.A., like any other leisure organisation, has to protect as well as sell its sports in a competitive atmosphere for both the time and money of today's sports enthusiasts.

Considering that some Celtic supporters wear Gaelic sports replica shirts on Celtic match days, it seems that the historical conflict between Gaelic sports and soccer is almost ignored in its Scottish context. In addition, Gaelic enthusiasts in much of Ireland have laid to rest former antagonisms. This is highlighted by many Celtic replica soccer jerseys on view amongst spectators at Gaelic matches in Ireland, particularly in Ulster where the nationalist perspective has been at its sharpest since the late 1960s. For a number of G.A.A. and soccer enthusiasts in Ireland and Scotland, Celtic is in fact a point of cultural and symbolic convergence, the Irishness of these institutions being the most significant factor common to both.

At the beginning of March 1999 a Celtic View journalist entered the controversy when he celebrated the signing of a young player from County Cork who had also been a promising Gaelic footballer. The journalist wrote:

it will do little to appease the stuffed shirts of the G.A.A. code who spend their lives resisting the relentless march of soccer on the Emerald Isle but Healy is the one who well and truly got away....gaelic football eat your heart out.22

A week later the journalist was answered by a Celtic-G.A.A. supporter. The correspondent from Sunderland wrote to the Celtic Club newspaper stating that he wished the young player well in a game which might give him financial rewards beyond his dreams, declaring that he himself had played both codes. However, the writer took issue with the journalist's condemnation of the G.A.A..

For Mr McGowan's information, the G.A.A. is the largest amateur organisation in the world covering football, hurling and handball. Only a handful of men at the top are required for administration purposes. Those at small clubs do it for the love of the game....If Mr McGowan would look up his history he would see that 70 years ago a number of players were shot dead playing the game they loved. Hardly `stuffed shirts' I would say.

The journalist replied believing that countries had a right to ward off what he termed `anglicisation'. However, he also believed that in an effort to prove to the English that soccer was a global game and didn't belong to them, the G.A.A. should offer its facilities to soccer clubs and international teams in Ireland.23

For G.A.A. activists, it had taken many decades to become the foremost cultural body in Ireland and to establish itself in the shape of thousands of sports grounds and clubhouses around the country: this despite a variety of financial, social and political pressures against expansion of the institution. From a G.A.A. perspective, the journalist displayed little historical knowledge of the cultural, social and political situation in Ireland. The G.A.A. believes that to encourage, promote and strengthen its own sports in Ireland, it should not be required to encourage, promote and strengthen a game which in the global terms spoken of by the Celtic View journalist, can, despite its attractions, be viewed as a cultural, even hegemonic threat to many other sports and pastimes.

Developments within the G.A.A.'s membership reflect the changing contexts of expressions of Irish cultural and nationalist identities. In contemporary Ireland and Scotland, many Gaelic sports and soccer enthusiasts show how both codes co-exist for playing and spectating. This combination is frequently the norm, as soccer has become a global game and the rule barring G.A.A. members from playing soccer was officially dismantled in 1971, although it was already obsolete in many areas. In addition, Gaelic sports have retained a dominance in Ireland despite pressures to the contrary. This has reflected in a massive expansion of G.A.A. facilities, unprecedented support in stadium and television audiences and G.A.A. games becoming one of the most marketable commodities for the world's sports media.24 In relation to its strength, membership and appeal, and in terms of its cultural influence throughout the country, by the turn of the 21st century, the G.A.A. in Ireland has become totally transformed.

Conclusion

For the G.A.A. in Scotland, the paradox which emerges from this situation is that a club, playing a sport marginalised and for so long banned by the gaelic authorities in Ireland and amongst the gaelic fraternity abroad, has for over one hundred years been the primary vehicle for Irish identity in Scotland. With many Famine immigrants in Scotland being present before the founding of the G.A.A., with others migrating during the first decades of the G.A.A.'s existence in Ireland, before the organisation had become fully established, with many more moving from Ulster and Conaught, where the Association was for a long time either poorly constituted or did not exist, soccer within the context of Celtic, has attracted the energies and emotions of many Irish in Scotland.

Although Irishness is a principal identity of the supporters of Celtic Football Club, this has been to the dismay of a few traditionalists amongst the G.A.A. in Scotland who have believed that these loyalties should be directed towards the G.A.A. rather than Celtic.25 Certainly, it may be argued by some observers that Celtic has been too dominant in terms of Irishness, so much so that other Irish bodies and organisations have suffered numerically and in terms of loyalty, affinity and expression. However, supporting Celtic has also allowed for the maintenance and expression of Irish identity in circumstances and in a context where Irishness has frequently been viewed with hostility. In this context, without Celtic it is questionable if Irish identity could have expressed itself through any comparable public institution. Its vigour, vitality and daily relevance have been sustained by the institution, which is Celtic Football Club. In 1999 one Celtic supporter stated, ` Celtic might not play in Ireland, but they play for Ireland.26

Ironically, over the course of the latter half of the 20th century, the maintenance of Irish identity through Celtic Football Club by many of the offspring of Irish immigrants, has been a factor allowing for the re-emergence of Gaelic football in Scotland. Indeed, in 1999 a significant number of G.A.A. members in Scotland, including several members of the County Board, were season ticket holders at Celtic.27

Contemporary media accounts, Irish diasporic literature and empirical observations show that it is less prohibitive for 2nd and 3rd generation Irish in expressing Irish identity in Britain than previously perceived.28 It has also been of interest to some observers in Ireland the phenomenon during the 1990s of young members of the diaspora being attracted to play Gaelic football as an expression of Irishness. Corresponding with terrestrial television coverage and an active youth coaching scheme the game has spread into a number of Glasgow and Lanarkshire schools and the Irish connection or link is an important core of attraction for many of these children.29 It might also be argued that the hype created by the Republic of Ireland's international soccer squad's successes during this period has brought many of these people together outwith the context of Celtic, thus creating another avenue for Irish expression: the Irish team containing a significant diasporic influence. This might also be viewed in a context of the rise in the popularity of Irish traditional and popular music. A public acceptability of Irish culture not previously recorded has also been evident in the emergence of the Irish theme pub around Britain, which despite its plastic nature, has also given an extra dimension to Irishness. Lastly, the decline in Troubles-related violence and the development of the peace process in Northern Ireland have created an improved social context for demonstrating Irishness. Such changes have contributed to Irish identity gaining a currency that the experience of negative encounters on the part of many immigrants in Britain had previously helped prohibit. For many people, Irish identity has been modernised whilst retaining much of what many consider to be the richness of its past.

Although a comparatively weak organisation, and despite being a minority sport in Scotland, the history of the G.A.A. in Scottish society reflects that it has been an important focus of Irish identity for some of the diaspora in Scotland. The crucial factor in the contemporary involvement of most second and third generation Irish in Scotland in the G.A.A., has been in viewing Gaelic sport as a channel and vehicle for Irishness. Since 1984, the G.A.A. in Scotland has played a small, but notable role in maintaining and introducing ideas and images of Irishness amongst those with Irish antecedents in Scotland. Further, its also allows 2nd and 3rd generation Irish to move in social circles involving those born in Ireland but who live in Scotland, thus often reinforcing ties and links with Ireland. For some activists, it provides an authentic, incontestable manifestation of their Irishness.

Those who play Gaelic games and organise its activities see in the G.A.A. a means of consolidating our Irish identity. The games to them are more than games....30

As in Ireland, gaelic games for G.A.A. enthusiasts in Scotland,

epitomise the spirit and the personality and the character of the Irish more than anything....31

The organisation of sport and its functions in society are important. In addition, the purpose of individual involvement in a specific cultural context, in this instance Scottish society, has been primary in linking current G.A.A. activists in Scotland (and amongst the Irish diaspora generally) with the Association in Ireland: this in a frame of reference which invokes its early years. Perceived struggles to maintain and express Irish identity in Scotland have some parallels with attempts to express the same in Ireland in the last century as well as in earlier parts of the 20th century. Myths of descent, historical memories, territorial association with Ireland and a sense of solidarity, provides many G.A.A. activists in Scotland with their cultural and sporting motives. Ethnic and national consciousness is maintained through the G.A.A. in Scotland. With three quarters of a million adults in membership within Ireland and the diaspora, thousands of children and many more people tied simply by emotion or occasional experience, the G.A.A. forms an important dimension of the Irish diaspora, in addition to old and new conceptions of Irish identity. It also helps gives `Irishness' a heterogeneous quality and outlook.

As in Ireland, the G.A.A. in Scotland contributes to a distinctive identity. This distinctiveness is a primary reason for the survival of the Association in Scotland as well as the rationale and motivation for those who maintain its existence as a valuable dimension of their cultural identity. The G.A.A. in Scotland provides an organisational locale for the idea of common descent, a shared history in Ireland and common experience in Scotland. It provides for a concrete link with the country of birth or origin. It is an expression of diversity and a symbol of identity. Overall, historically and in its contemporary setting, the culturally active and conscientious element within its membership have been primarily concerned with reawakening elements of the diaspora in Scotland to their Irish heritage. In this sense, the G.A.A. is viewed as a celebration of Irishness in circumstances where many people of Irish origins have often felt compelled to embrace negative images of Irishness. Despite being an historically small organisation in Scotland and, although largely peripheral to the Irishness of the vast majority of those of the immigrant diaspora in Scottish society, the G.A.A. and gaelic sports have provided an important expression of Irishness over one hundred years.

Nonetheless, the primary sporting and secular focus for Irish identity in Scotland has been through soccer. Conflict between Gaelic sports and soccer is now passing, and has generally disappeared, as a point of significant antagonism. This is as true for many people in Ireland as it is for the G.A.A. membership in Scotland. An irony for many observers is that in Scotland, the establishment and success of Celtic Football Club and the prominence of the Republic of Ireland soccer squad during the 1980s and 1990s, have had the consequence of being partially responsible for the revival of G.A.A. fortunes amongst the diaspora there.

References

Bradley, Joseph M, Ethnic and Religious Identity in Modern Scotland: Culture, politics and football (Aldershot, Avebury (1995)

Bradley, Joseph M, Facets of the Irish Diaspora: Irishness in 20th Century Scotland, in Irish Journal of Sociology, vol 6 (1996), pp. 79-100

Bradley, Joseph M, Wearing the Green: A History of Nationalist Demonstrations among the Diaspora in Scotland, in Fraser, Tom G (ed), We'll Follow the Drum: The Irish Parading Tradition, (Dublin, Macmillan Press, 1999), (forthcoming)

Bradley, Joseph M, Sport, Culture, Politics and Scottish Society: Irish Immigrants and the Gaelic Athletic Association (Edinburgh, John Donald, 1998), pp. 24-27

Rev Canning, B.J., Padraig H Pearse and Scotland (Published in Glasgow by Padraig Pearse Centenary Commemoration Committee, 1979)

Cronin, Mike, The Nationalist History of the Gaelic Athletic Association and the English Influence on Irish Sport, in The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol 15, No 3 (1998), pp 36-56

De Burca, Marcus,The G.A.A.: A History of the Gaelic Athletic Association (Published in Dublin by Cumann Luthchleas Gael, 1980)

Feeney, Sean, Conradh na Gaelige (Gaelic League) in Scotland, 1895-1995: A centenary celebration (published by the author, 1995)

Handley, James E,The Irish in Scotland (first published as The Irish in Scotland 1798- 1845 (1943) and The Irish in Modern Scotland (1947) by Cork University Press) (Glasgow, John S Burns, 1964)

Hennessy, Patrick,The Gaelic Athletic Association: a century of service, 1884-1984, (Dublin, G.A.A. 1984)

Humphries, Tom, Green Fields: Gaelic Sport in Ireland, (London, Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1996)

Rokkan, Sten and Urwin, Derek, Economy, Territory and Identity: Politics of West European Peripheries, (London, Sage, 1983)

Sugden Alan and Bairner John, Northern Ireland: Sport in a Divided Society, in L Allison (edt) The Politics of Sport, (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1986)

Notes

1 Bradley, 1995, p. 133

2 Handley, 1964, p. 198

3 See Cronin, 1998, pp. 36-56

4 Sugden and Bairner, 1986, pp. 90-117.

5 Bradley, 1999, (forthcoming)

6 Bradley, 1998, pp. 24-27

7 Canning, 1979

8 Kilkenny Journal, 28/6/1913

9 Bradley, 1998, pp. 38-39

10 Burca, 1980

11 See Bradley, 1998, pp. 38-39

12 Sean, 1995

13 For example as played by some immigrants from Offaly in Glenboig, Lanarkshire. Taken from personal interviews

14 Ibid

15 Hennessy, 1984, p. 79

16 Humphries, 1996, p. 2

17 Bradley, 1995, pp. 19-22

18 Bradley, 1996, pp. 79-100

19 Rokkan and Urwin, 1983, p. 89

20 Celtic View, 20/1/99, p. 21

21 Ibid, 3/2/99, p. 21

22 Ibid, 3/3/99, p. 8

23 Ibid, 10/3/99, p. 18

24 Quoted by G.A.A. President, Joe McDonagh at `Celtic Connections through Sport', a one day conference, Isle of Skye, 12th March 1999

25 Interviews, Owen Kelly and Rory Campbell, present and former member of the Glasgow/Scotland County Board

26 Celtic View, 5/5/99, p. 17

27 The G.A.A. is divided into Counties for competitive and administrative purposes. County Boards are the local units charged with handling local affairs

28 The Irish Post, a newspaper of the Irish community in Britain, has charted this change over the course of the past quarter of a century. Also, information gathered via ongoing interviews

29 Some coaches have also noted the relative ease of access to many schools in the 1990s which they viewed as previously having dissuaded them from pursuing things Irish in a school environment

30 G.A.A. Handbook 1992

31 Quoted by Liz Howard, Tipperary County Board, on Shinty: Sport of the Gael, BBC Scotland (television), 1993

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