Stories from across the Pond
#1 The Langers’ Revolt
By Colin "The Wild Rover" Mooney
February 21, 2008
Stories from across the pond - #1 The Langers’ Revolt
Greetings from the Emerald Isle! This is the first of many stories from across the pond (that’s Ireland for those of you who don’t have a passport). Tee invited a bunch of us here to keep you Yanks up to date with the goings on here. Following long negotiations (and a strongly worded threat from Dr. Old School), we agreed.
This first post is about the great debacle that has unfolded over the last few months with the Cork Gaelic football and hurling players striking and refusing to lace up the boots. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Gaelic football and hurling are part of the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association), which is a large amateur association that governs the two national sports here in Ireland. You can read all about the GAA on their website, but here’s a quick excerpt so you aren’t lost for the rest of the article:
Founded on November 1st 1884, by a group of spirited Irishmen who had the foresight to realise the importance of establishing a national organisation to revive and nurture traditional, indigenous pastimes (Fighting, & Drinking).
The GAA has over 2,500 clubs in Ireland alone (including my home club of St. Fechin’s of Termonfeckin, Co. Louth). The playing of Gaelic Games is based on the GAA Club, and each of the 32 Counties in Ireland have their own Club competitions, culminating in County Winners in championship and league. Club units outside of Ireland have their own league and championship competitions with the format dictated by the number of players and clubs available.
Clubs are generally based in a specific geographic area (usually a parish), and draw their players from that area. In certain cases, e.g. universities, the club will represent an organisation or institution and will draw their players from the members of that organisation. http://www.gaa.ie/page/about_the_gaa.html
So, back to the Cork debacle – there had been a much publicized dispute between the Cork players and the members of the county board (which has all the power), over how the manager was selected. The county board had insisted it would choose the backroom staff (known as selectors), but the players had somewhat understandably wanted the manager of the team to be able to do this himself, believing a team with a manager and selectors on the wrong page is destined for trouble. Failing to reach an agreement, the players decided to strike.
In an association like the GAA, a player strike is very unusual. The very basis and success of the game is the pride of wearing the colors to represent your county. (Take Tee, for example: he is proud to wear the colors of every county in Ireland!) Even though the players train like professionals and play in front of crowds of 80,000, they receive no payment for their performance. The GAA, by law, is a strictly amateur sport. It’s all about the pride for one’s club and county.
After reading Tee’s Weekly, (and having Tee blabber on and on after a few Jamesons about college basketball) I think there might be just a few similarities between NCAA basketball and the GAA. For instance, it wouldn’t be that uncommon to get paid for a job that you never show up for, or get a bit of assistance from school if you are a promising player. I was once a promising Gaelic footballer myself before I tore the cruciate ligament in my knee seven times and discovered the wonders of McDonald’s and Burger King; but before that time, I got off from my fair share of traffic violations. I also got into concerts for free and was never expected to pay taxes.
Despite the elevated status of Gaelic players in society, they are also expected to keep their heads down and stay humble. The strike by the Cork players was an affront to the elders of the GAA and the Cork county board, who think they survived the famine in Ireland and have personally lived under English oppression for the past 800 years. These men are stubborn in their ways and have no time for young lads “acting the bollix.”
However, you must understand that Ireland is not a monolithic place; it’s full of very different creatures. A person from Dublin is about as different from a culchie from Connemara as is a New York City stockbroker to a Kansas farmhand. Perhaps the strangest and most unique (to put it politely) place in Ireland is its southern-most county, the Rebel County. It’s a county that produced our greatest patriot, Michael Collins, as well as our greatest sporting hero, Roy Keane.
Both of these men took directions about as well as a nihilist with attention-deficit disorder. They were also belligerent drunks who got into more fights than Brad Pitt in Snatch. The bottom line is that the Cork players weren’t backing down from their demands.
Anyway, it all came to a close last week when the Labour Relations court brought the two sides together to resolve the dispute. The players are back playing and the county board lost out by having to sack the current manager and drown their sorrows (such is the way in modern Ireland).
P.S. There are five of us degenerates coming to America to celebrate national drinking St. Patrick’s Day in NYC. To mingle in with the locals, we will be wearing leprechaun suits, drinking heavily, and claiming to be Irish.