Champions
Posted by Jim on July 25, 2022
About the GAA
Posted by Jim on July 23, 2022
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is Ireland’s largest sporting organisation. It is celebrated as one of the great amateur sporting associations in the world.
It is part of the Irish consciousness and plays an influential role in Irish society that extends far beyond the basic aim of promoting Gaelic games.
It was founded on November 1 1884 at a meeting in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, by a group of spirited Irishmen who had the foresight to realise the importance of establishing a national organisation to make athletics more accessible to the masses and to revive and nurture traditional,indigenous sports and pastimes. At that time, it was largely only the gentry and aristocracy who were allowed to meaningfully participate in athletics.
Until then all that was Irish was being steadily eroded by emigration, intense poverty and outside influences.Within six months of that famous first meeting, GAA clubs began to spring up all over Ireland and people began to play the games of Hurling and Gaelic Football and take part in Athletic events with pride.
The Association today promotes Gaelic games such as Hurling, Football, Handball and Rounders and works with sister organisations to promote Ladies Football and Camogie. The Association also promotes Irish music, song and dance and the Irish language as an integral part of its objectives. The GAA has remained an amateur Association since its founding. Players, even at the highest level, do not receive payment for playing and the volunteer ethos remains one of the most important aspects of the GAA.
The organisation is based on the traditional parishes and counties of Ireland.As a community-based organisation, it is often stated that it is difficult to determine where the community end sand the GAA club starts as they generally overlap and are intertwined. The GAA has over 2,200 clubs in all 32 counties of Ireland.
Every summer the inter-county All-Ireland Championships in hurling and football capture the attention of the Irish public, and regional towns heave with the arrival of large numbers of supporters and the colour, noise and excitement that they bring. In the region of 1.5 million people attend the GAA Championships from May to September.
However, by far the two biggest days in the GAA calendar are the All-Ireland finals in hurling and football. A sell out attendance of 82,300 is guaranteed in Croke Park and the quest for tickets is intense as Ireland’s top counties do battle for the right to be All-Ireland champions.The finals are broadcast around the world.The GAA has developed abroad amongst the Irish Diaspora.The Irish who emigrated brought their national games with them and both regional and club units are now well established in the United States of America, Australia,Britain, Canada, China, mainland Europe and many other parts of the world.
400 clubs promote the activities of the GAA around the world.As with all aspects of Irish society, the GAA has undergone many changes in the past 40 years. Among the first major changes to take place was the removal of ‘the Ban’ in 1971,which had prevented members of the Association from playing or attending a number of other sports such as soccer and rugby.
In more recent times changes have been made to the rule which prevented members of the Security Forces in the north of Ireland from becoming members of the Association, and the rule which limited the playing of games at Croke Park and all other Association venues to only those controlled by the Association. At the 2005 Annual Congress a vote was passed to allow international rugby and soccer matches be staged at Croke Park for the first time for the duration of the redevelopment of their traditional venue at Lansdowne Road.
Both amendments were viewed as contributing positively to the emergence of post-’Troubles’ modern Ireland.
Huge changes have also taken place in the structure of the GAA’s inter-county Championships. For 110 years, the All-Ireland Championships had been run on a purely knockout basis. In 1997 a new system meant that for the first time a team who had suffered a defeat could still win the All-Ireland hurling title, as losing provincial finalists were re-entered in the competition.
In 2001, the Football Championships adopted a similar approach. The result was the most exciting Championship in years and a dramatic increase in the number of quality games at national level for GAA fans.
With a marked increase in attendances and the need to market the games more fervently, the GAA invested heavily in the development of its grounds. Indeed it has been estimated that the GAA has invested (in current purchasing power) the equivalent of €2.6 billion in its nationwide infrastructure at national and local level in the past 50 years. The result is that the vast majority of GAA clubs, even in the most rural areas of Ireland, have developed and enjoy ownership of their own grounds and associated facilities.
However, it is the Association’s Headquarters at Croke Park which has been the subject of the most dramatic redevelopment. The stadium has been thoroughly modernised in a rebuilding project that took place between 1993 and 2005 and the stadium’s capacity was increased from 64,000 to 82,300 and is now considered to be among the most modern stadiums in Europe. It stands today as a monument to the selfless work and dedication of the GAA’s enormous legion of volunteers.
Further change for the Association has followed the publication of the Association’s Strategic Vision and Action Plan 2009-2015. It charts a path for the Association across the wide spectrum of its activities and many of the goals set out have already been realised. Many of Ireland’s most prominent personalities over the years have been well known for their exploits on the GAA fields.
Former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Jack Lynch wona record six All-Ireland medals-in-a-row, five in hurling(1941-44 and 1946) and in 1945 in football with his native Cork. John Wilson, a former Tánaiste (Deputy PrimeMinister) won an All-Ireland football medal with Cavan at the Polo Grounds, New York in the only All-Ireland final played outside Ireland.Several current members of Parliament also played the games at the highest level and Minister of State for the Diaspora, Jimmy Deenihan T.D., won five All-Ireland football medals, and captained the Kerry team in 1981. The father of An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Henry Kenny, won an All-Ireland football medal with Mayo in 1950.
IN MEMORY
Posted by Jim on July 22, 2022
In Memory
July 22, 2022 by Irish Echo Staff
Pic of Day: Pictured is artist Paula Stokes in St. Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle where former president of Ireland Mary Robinson launched a Memento Mori, a memorial installation dedicated to the victims of the Great Hunger. The stark, simple, banquet table holds a representation of an inedible crop of 1,845 hand-blown, ghostly white, glass potatoes created by Stokes. The artistic rendering is laden with symbolism and meaning as Dublin Castle served as the center of opulence and power at a time of starvation, mass emigration and misery in the Ireland outside the Castle’s gates. Photo by Leah Farrell Photocall Ireland.
Posted by Jim on
A Letter from Ireland
The Personal & The Political
a Chara,
This week’s Letter from Ireland is still coming to you from our tour. Last week I attended the AOH/LAOH Biannual Convention in Pittsburgh with Michelle Gildernew. This week it’s Washington with Michelle O’Neill.
The convention was a celebration of Irish American identity and a shared common experience. The welcome was second to none. Discussions centered on political developments in Ireland, the rise of Sinn Féin, the British Government breaching international law with their proposals on Legacy and Brexit, and the potential of Irish Unity.
This was mirrored in our engagements with political and civic leaders in Washington. There were detailed discussions on the legislative process in Westminster and what could be done next to protect and promote the Good Friday Agreement as we mark its 25th Anniversary next year.
The agreement is just as relevant today as it was in 1998. It is the framework for managing the political challenges of today and planning for tomorrow.
At a meeting in Washington, one Congress Member remarked that “no one has to lobby for Ireland – we get it”.
Such a simple statement. Such a profound truth. The relationship with political leaders is not based on a political calculation. It is personal. It cuts to the core of identity.
It’s an intergenerational pride in being Irish-American. The same pride that was evident with the Hibernians was evident in Washington. In typical, cut-to-the-chase fashion, the question was not whether to help but what can be done to help.
The US has been a guarantor of the agreements and steadfast in asserting the primacy of politics. We face a British Government that has no respect for agreements, acts unilaterally, and makes a virtue out of breaking international law.
At a time when international law is under attack with a war in Ukraine, British government policy on Ireland continues to undermine relations between Britain and Ireland, the EU, and the US. It also does untold damage to the political process and the rights of citizens.
The US stands resolute behind the Agreements, the protocol, and re-establishing the government and institutions.
At some stage, Britain will listen. The demands are reasonable: honor the agreements and respect international law. Irish America will endure, it is both personal and political.
Have a great weekend and special thanks to all those who made us feel so welcome.
Is mise,
Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
EDITORIAL: Very Secret Indeed
Posted by Jim on July 21, 2022
Joseph V. Cuffari
Opinion July 20, 2022 by Irish Echo Staff
A government watchdog has accused the U.S. Secret Service of erasing texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after his office requested them as part of an inquiry into the U.S. Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week.
So was the opening paragraph in a report in the Washington Post. And if it be a true reflection of the matter, a murky day in the history of the United States just got murkier still.
Stated the report: “Joseph V. Cuffari, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees indicating that the text messages have vanished and that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were being hindered.
‘The Department notified us that many U.S. Secret Service (USSS) text messages, from January 5 and 6, 2021 were erased as part of a device-replacement program,’ he wrote in a letter dated Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post. The letter was earlier reported on by the Intercept and CNN.
“Cuffari emphasized that the erasures came ‘after” the Office of Inspector General requested copies of the text messages for its own investigation, and signaled that they were part of a pattern of DHS resistance to his inquiries.”
Institutional resistance to outside scrutiny is nothing new. And it’s not confined to the Secret Service or its controlling agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
Interestingly, the Post report offered up this instance from the past. It stated: “The Secret Service has had a history of important records disappearing under cover of night and agency staff members refusing to cooperate when investigators came calling seeking information.
“When a congressional committee was investigating assassinations and assassination attempts, it sought boxes of records that reportedly showed the Secret Service received ample advance warnings and threats before President John F. Kennedy’s death that white supremacists and other organizations were plotting to kill Kennedy using high-powered rifles from tall buildings. The Secret Service told investigators the records had been destroyed as part of a normal culling of old archives — days after investigators had requested them.”
Well there you go.
The Echo, together with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, have experienced the kind of wall of silence that can surround agencies like DHS. And this stems from the case of Malachy McAllister.
On a number of occasions since McAllister was deported from the U.S. in June, 2020, the Hibernians and the Echo have separately sought clarification on the precise circumstances surrounding the Belfast man’s removal from the U.S. – this despite significant political support on Capitol Hill and the clear preference of the Irish American community that he be allowed stay in the U.S.
Indeed, there were indications that then President Trump had no problem with McAllister continuing to live in New Jersey.
As the Echo reported around that time, the Hibernians expressed frustration in a letter to GOP Senator Ron Johnson.
The report stated that questions continued to swirl around the precise role that DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf had in McAllister’s removal from the U.S., the Belfast native’s home for more than two decades. The Hibernians saw the hand of Mr. Wolf in McAllister’s deportation.
In the letter, penned by Neil Cosgrove, AOH National Political Chair, the Hibernians stated that they had “serious questions regarding this nomination, questions that Mr. Wolf, as acting Secretary, has not answered.”
Added the AOH letter in part: “On June 9, 2020, one of our members, Malachy McAllister, a law-abiding, tax-paying resident of the United States for over two decades, was deported by Homeland Security at Acting Secretary Wolf’s direction.
“Mr. McAllister fled to the United States with his family, seeking the traditional promise of safety and new beginnings that America has offered generations of political refugees. No less a personage than President Trump’s sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, wrote in an opinion that current law did not anticipate the circumstances of the McAllister family. Senior Senate and Congressional leaders wrote to DHS to exercise discretion in the McAllister case until legislative redress could be made. Mr. Wolf chose to ignore the petitions of the people’s elected representatives.
“Such was Mr. Wolf’s hurry to get Mr. McAllister out of the country, that when informed that Mr. McAllister had recently broken his collar bone and that Doctor’s had advised that he should not travel, DHS chartered, at considerable taxpayer expense, an Air Ambulance and crew to deport Mr. McAllister rather than letting this man who had lived here for two decades the necessary time to heal so he could use a scheduled commercial flight.
“The only logical conclusion we can draw from this rash act is that Acting Secretary Wolf feared appeals on Mr. McAllister’s behalf would be successful. Mr. Wolf, therefore, took it upon himself to violate the rules of compassion, common sense, and the fiscal responsibilities of his department to get Mr. McAllister out of the country as quickly as possible to avoid this possibility for his own reasons.
“The Hibernians currently have an FOIA request, 2020-ICFO-56457, with DHS that is already fifty days overdue from DHS’s target response date.”
It’s a lot more overdue now – like those January, 2021 tapes.