Irish Hospitality: My trip to St. Johns GAA Club

I am now in Belfast for my independent study portion of my program. I have decided to research whether or not the Police Service of Northern Ireland is really "policing with the community" as they say they are. I am focusing on West Belfast, a heavily Catholic and Republican area. Honestly, it would be a pretty boring post if I wrote about that, and if i hear the term "community policing" or any variation of it one more time I may go insane. So instead I'll write about a more entertaining experience over the last few weeks.

Last week myself and a classmate, John, traveled to the Falls Rd. in West Belfast for a hurling match at St. Johns Gaelic Athletic Club. John is studying the function of sports as political machinery, and the GAA is a great example of that. The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded by Nationalists to preserve Gaelic culture in Ireland. Gaelic games are hurling, Gaelic football, and comogie (female hurling, i find it a little ridiculous that they give the women's game a whole different name). John and I have very little knowledge of the actual games themselves, but if I could describe the hurling match we went to I would describe it as a fight to the death with large wooden clubs in which a ball somehow got thrown into the middle. Although it is incredibly rough, it is also skillful. It was really entertaining to watch someone being battered by his opponent, running full speed, and hitting a tiny ball, on the fly, precisley through the uprights. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if you don't know the rules, it's a great game to watch.

John wanted to speak with some people who run the club to get information for his project and we ended up meeting an older man, Jim, who seemed to be the jack of all trades behind the scenes at St. John's. He was more than happy to speak with us and give us a tour at halftime. He showed us pictures of St. John's teams from the early 1900's when the club was founded and told us stories of his brothers' GAA careers. He told us all about the mission of the GAA as to not just promote Irish sports, but also the Irish language, music, dancing, and value system. There were posters all over the clubhouse/bar about Irish music performances and dancing events, and a lot of the signs around the building were written in Gaelic. The scoreboard also read, Naomh Eoin (pornounced nom von) instead of St. John's. As for promoting the value system and these people's Irish identity there were two values that stuck out to me.

The first was defiance. It is pretty evident through looking at Irish History that the Irish people do not act as push overs. I think the mere fact that this Gaelic club exists in Belfast, or Beal Feirste, the capital of the occupied six counties is defiant in itself. The whole idea for the GAA is to not allow the Irish identity to be Anglicanized and whitewashed away. It is through grassroots community efforts like St. John's that this is achieved. Jim also told us about how Gery Adams' son Gerrard plays on one of their football teams, and many Irish Republicans have been St. John's supporters since it is situated on the Falls Road, the heartland of Republicanism in the North.

The second value I was extremely aware of was hospitality. Coming into this experience I did not know what to expect. I assumed everyone at the game would know each other since it is in a tight knit community, and John and I would be seen as outsiders, this was not the case. Jim made us feel extremely at home and when he realized there were 2 Americans at the club, with an interest in learning about St. John's, he jumped at the opportunity to show us around, buy us a Guiness at the clubhouse, and even gave us souvenier records of some old club theme songs which he had made in the 70's.

The game was very entertaining and I also got the chance to learn a lot about the GAA and its supporters. One thing is clear, sports like hurling and Gaelic football are more than just a game.



Gaelic football


hurling