As the intercounty Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) season comes to a close, there is no shortage of sporting drama to celebrate. Kerry’s demolition of Donegal secured a record-breaking 39th All-Ireland Gaelic football title, while Tipperary’s stunning comeback against Cork delivered them the national hurling crown. These moments should define the summer. Yet once again, the GAA finds itself unable, or unwilling, to step away from the island’s politics, as its off-field conduct threatens to reopen painful wounds in Ireland’s north.
Founded in 1884 as part of the Gaelic revival, the GAA is Ireland’s largest sporting and cultural organisation. It promotes traditional Irish games such as Gaelic football and hurling, hosting annual tournaments which are participated in by teams from 32 counties. Prior to the football final, GAA President Jarlath Burns spoke at a commemoration held for the Tipperary-born IRA leader Seán Treacy. Killed by British forces in October 1920 during Ireland’s War of Independence from Britain, Treacy is still held up by many as one of Irish nationalism’s great patriots.
A distinction is often drawn by nationalists (supporters of a united Ireland) between the IRA forces in the War of Independence and its later incarnation during the Troubles. This, however, is largely irrelevant to Ulster’s unionist population, who want to remain within the United Kingdom; a volunteer then is a volunteer now – a viewpoint that has been made abundantly clear by unionists throughout the Casement Park debacle. Treacy’s involvement in the assassination of two police officers in the Soloheadbeg ambush in January 1919 only heightens the discomfort. For unionist communities, historical nuance means little when the outcome is the same: violence committed in the name of Irish nationalism, and celebrated by the GAA.
Burns’ adulation of Treacy, portraying him as the embodiment of “the indomitable spirit of people who refuse to be broken” may well evoke pride amongst Irish nationalists across the island. However, for loyalists, a community made up of Protestant unionists who endured the Provisional IRA’s terror campaign throughout the Troubles, such words of praise are unwelcome.
Prominent loyalist commentator Jamie Bryson, director of the Northern Irish think-tank Unionist Voice Policy Studies, summed up the unionist backlash on X (formerly Twitter), labelling the GAA as “a sectarian and pro-terrorist organisation.” This incident comes at a time when loyalist patience with the GAA is wearing particularly thin. Féile an Phobail, the annual Gaelic arts festival held in Belfast, recently held an under-14s GAA tournament named in honour of Joe Cahill, a founding member of the Provisional IRA and former Belfast Brigade leader. Cahill oversaw the horrors of Bloody Friday in July 1972, where 20 bombs exploded across Belfast, killing nine and injuring another 130.
To host a children’s sporting tournament in honour of such a man affirms what most loyalists already know to be true; there is no place for loyalists in the GAA. Furthermore, the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternity advocating for Northern Ireland’s continued existence within the United Kingdom, was recently criticised by leading politicians in Northern Ireland following its objection to a cross-community sports summer camp in the unionist town of Comber involving children from a local GAA club. Alliance MLA Kellie Armstrong branded the Orange Order’s opposition to such an event as “unacceptable,” adding that “denying children the right to play sport together for purely sectarian reasons is not acceptable.” To nationalists, the objections look like petty sectarianism. Yet from a unionist perspective, the complaints are far from baseless.
The GAA’s presence in strongly unionist areas is often seen not as outreach but as encroachment. The involvement of children only heightens suspicion that sport is being used as a vehicle for political soft power. Prominent nationalists, including First Minister Michelle O’Neill, were quick to frame the controversy as evidence of unionist intransigence, condemning it as narrow-minded opposition to shared space. But this narrative ignores a deeper unease. For many in the unionist community, the GAA carries with it a set of cultural and political loyalties that are incompatible with their own. What nationalists present as a neutral sporting initiative, unionists interpret as a subtle effort to normalise nationalist identity in areas historically resistant to it.
So why does the GAA so often choose a path that alienates? The organisation continues to straddle a cultural identity that is both sporting and political. While this duality may serve well in areas where nationalism is dominant, it becomes a barrier in communities that associate the GAA not with sport or unity, but with political exclusion and cultural hostility. This perception is not without foundation. Chapter 1.2 of the GAA’s official rulebook states that its “basic aim” is the “strengthening of the National Identity in a 32-County Ireland.” If the GAA genuinely wishes to foster integration and reach into Protestant, unionist, and loyalist communities, then it must do more than invite participation. It must also confront its symbolism, its heroes, and its politics.
The more critical view, however, might reach a different conclusion. The GAA’s repeated refusal to accommodate loyalist concerns is not an oversight. It is by design. Its cultural identity is not merely shaped by nationalism, but it is sustained by it. Inclusion, if it comes at the cost of diluting that identity, may simply not be part of the plan. Movement into loyalist communities is not perceived by residents as an olive branch. Rather, it is another reminder of nationalism’s acceptance of republican extremism. The GAA’s position on a 32-county united Ireland directly contradicts the constitutional reality of Ireland; divided into the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland and the six counties of Northern Ireland. The GAA’s refusal to acknowledge partition underscores its fundamental aversion to Northern Ireland’s Unionist community.
While Kerry’s David Clifford further cemented himself as one of the game’s greatest ever as he led The Kingdom to their 39th Sam Maguire Cup, the GAA, and nationalism as a whole, must be under no illusion as to why their northern neighbours refused to tune in. If the GAA is serious about becoming a force for unity rather than division, it must first confront an uncomfortable truth: that the sport’s cultural project, as it currently stands, leaves no room for those who do not share in its past. The GAA was not, is not, and never will be for the Ulster Protestant, and that is exactly why it thrives.
Words by Harry Campbell
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