CITY SLICKER

GAA legends Dave Barry and David Beggy among the many beneficiaries of call to quash ‘foreign games’ rule 27

THE GAA’S Annual Congress is generally an unremarkable and tiresome affair.

Of the 135 previous stagings (not including the occasional Special Congress), the standouts can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Today’s instalment is unique for the fact that it will be the first to be held in a virtual setting, but undoubtedly the most significant of modern times was the vote in 2005 which allowed for Croke Park being opened to rugby and soccer internationals.

Paving the way for that, however, was the most momentous Congress vote of all in Belfast in 1971, when Rule 27 – the ban on ‘foreign games’ – was abolished after 66 years.

“Any member of the Association who plays or encourages in any way rugby, football, hockey or any imported game which is calculated to injuriously affect our national pastimes, is suspended from the Association,” read the rule which, for a period, was probably essential in allowing the GAA to gain a foothold in the country’s sporting landscape during the Association’s infancy.

At one stage, nobody was too big to fall foul of the rule. In 1938, Douglas Hyde had his patronage of the GAA withdrawn after attending a soccer international at Dalymount Park in his capacity as President of Ireland (above, between Eamon de Valera and Oscar Traynor at the game v Poland at Dalymount Park).

But, by 1971, it had finally run its course after GAA members across the country were allowed to vote on the matter ahead of that year’s Congress.

The die had been cast ahead of the ballot, though then GAA president Pat Fanning remained a staunch supporter.

Addressing Congress before the vote, he said: “You will acknowledge the expressed will of the Association and delete a rule, which for many of us was a rule of life and reflected and epitomised the very spirit of the association. The rule deleted – what then? Do we then reject the past and with deletion, proclaim ourselves a mere sports organisation?”

His worries, while sincerely held, never materialised as the GAA adapted and flourished, but it still took time for the culture around the ban to significantly diminish, with some counties taking longer than others to read the room.

Dave Barry after his iconic Uefa Cup goal for Cork City against Bayern Munich in 1991