Darragh mcmanus
‘GAA intolerant? Liberals protest too much’
THE ongoing dispute over Páirc Uí Chaoimh’s unavailability for the Liam Miller charity game has displayed a level of hostility towards the GAA which we haven’t seen in a long while.
Personally, I believe an exception to the rules can and should be made in this case, for a likeable Corkman who died tragically young. That said, the decision is the GAA’s to make freely; it’s not my place to issue diktats, and certainly not the place of non-members who feel entitled to order around an independent body.
And the reaction has been hysterical. The amount of coverage alone is remarkable; it’s amazing how so many folks who – in that odd, post-colonial-cringe way – take pride in having no interest in GAA, suddenly feel inspired to jump into the argument, boots first, whenever something bad happens.
Meanwhile, much of the tone is feverish, even vicious. In a way, it reveals more about the anti-GAA prejudice of its critics than any supposed prejudice in the association itself.
The last time a hostile faction got this purple-faced, aneurysminducing enraged about the GAA was, as it happens, during a related debate: over the repeal of Rule 42, in 2005, which banned Gaelic grounds from hosting competing sports.
After several years of hectoring, lecturing and moral bullying from the quote-unquote “progressive” sages of society, Gaels finally relented and opened Croke Park to big soccer and rugby matches. (The reciprocal goodwill towards the GAA didn’t really materialise, as had been promised, but sin scéil eile.)
These days, the same rough insults are hurled around with an enthusiasm to make any county full-back proud. Dinosaurs (hello, Damien Duff, right). Zealots. Hillbillies. Rednecks. Backward. Intolerant. Stupid.
Greedy. Ignorant. Uncaring. And of course, the crème de la crème of modern-day vituperation: bigoted.
Labelling someone a bigot is the nuclear option of debating now. There’s no possible comeback, their voice is rendered mute, their viewpoint is automatically deemed illegitimate because, well… they’re bigots.
It’s a fiendishly clever circular argument that is, in its essence, illogical – and all the more impermeable for that.
I’ve seen the GAA compared to the Orange Order for alleged “sectarianism against Protestants” (in 2018? Really?) and even likened to anti-Semitic Iran. Iran! What does that make the GAA’s director general, some sort of Hibernian ayatollah?
My favourite contribution, for its sheer wackadoodle absurdity, was this tweet from David McWilliams (normally a fairly sound commentator): “In the year when our open, tolerant, understanding and modern country votes to #repealthe8th, the little ‘maneeens’ Cork GAA can’t repeal their tiny, ungenerous mindsets for #LiamMiller game. Get with the times, please.”
I literally don’t understand his point. Is there a link between abortion and Páirc Uí Chaoimh? Does voting to Repeal oblige you to agree with David McWilliams on everything henceforth? Had the Eighth not been removed, would the GAA’s decision then be OK? I have no idea. Much of this, incidentally, is not from anonymous trolls on Twitter: it’s journalists, public figures, mature adults, normally-reasonable people. It’s as if they feel this story has given them free rein to vent their prejudices, like they were waiting for the chance. And it all exemplifies the awful tone of life today, where people can’t just disagree, even strongly, with someone else’s principles. They must decry the other side (especially the one considered to be “against” change) as morally degenerate in some way.
We saw the same thing with Brexit, Trump, the abortion and marriage referendums and elsewhere: anyone with a dissenting opinion is not only damned as wrong intellectually, but also morally.
It’s dismal and depressing, this performative bullying which has sadly become the norm in public life.
By the way, “public money paid for it” is a bulls**t argument. By that rationale, can I insist my child’s hurling training be held at the Aviva Stadium? I paid for it so I own it.
When will Turners Cross be holding the under-fives’ camogie blitz? I paid for it, I own it.
WHY is Tallaght Stadium – where Damien Duff works – only accessible to Shamrock Rovers, not Gaelic games? I paid for it, I own it.
Or is it just the GAA which is held to these standards?
On Duff, incidentally, I find it risible that multi-millionaire superstars are calling for an amateur organisation to facilitate their fundraising efforts. Lads – you’re all loaded.
Among the ex-pros participating in the Liam Miller game are Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand, whose combined worth is somewhere around €200m.
Instead of asking the public to fork out, these guys and other players involved could each sock in a hundred grand towards Miller’s family and cancer research. Hell, they could basically build their own stadium, they’re that rich.
It’s a funny thing: I’ve spent years listening to forward-looking paragons of liberalism who decry the GAA as a bastion of intolerance and narrow mindedness. But now, methinks, perhaps they protest too much.