McLoughlin, Gerard
(2004)
The G.A.A. a Contested Terrain.
Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) as an organisation grew from an idealised
political ideology prevailing in nationalist Irish politics. Coupled with the Home Rule
movement in which the right of alien governments having any constitutional right to
interfere and infringe on the borders of another where contested. The GAA espoused to
similar ideals, it believed in the right to self-determination and governance of domestic
athletics. The GAA organized itself around the premise that traditional Irish pastimes
where being eroded, that there was a need for these pastimes to be encouraged and
protected from morally corrupting alien influences. The GAA was distinctly organised
around a cultural revolution in which its founding member, Micheál Cusack, sought to
defend traditional Irish cultural landscape from Anglicisation. It was thought that the
increasing interest in Cricket, Rugby, and Football etc was ‘cleansing’ the Irish cultural
landscape of any significant meaning. The GAA acted against this perceived Anglican
naturalisation and organised itself from rural to urban enclaves, which resulted in a
national organisation that recognises only county borders; it is organised around a
parochial regional level, to a county level administration that is accountable to a
provincial administration, four provinces under the umbrella of a central administration
based in Croke Park, Co. Dublin. The GAA is organised around a national ideology and
has direct national policies set out in a Charter with legally binding rules and regulations
that hope to ensure the success of the organisation but also the success of traditional Irish
pastimes, Irish Culture.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(Masters)
|
| Keywords: |
G.A.A.; Terrain; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
5253 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
31 Jul 2014 08:53 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
Repository Staff Only(login required)
 |
Item control page |
Downloads per month over past year
Origin of downloads
Altmetric
Altmetric