On the other hand, according to an article in the Irish Times yesterday, the GAA is thriving in China, of all places, and a weekly league has just been set up in Hong Kong, the first of its kind in Asia. Interestingly, it seems that not only Irish people are playing over there.

I had heard that the GAA was trying to spread to college campuses. That report about Boston College makes it pretty clear that they haven't done a good job there.

As the article sort of hints at, the GAA suffered a lot of lean years after legal immigration was cut off in the mid 60s. I was at college in the Bronx near Gaelic Park when the surge of illegals in the 1980s started repopulating Gaelic Park. I used to meet inter-county players in the bars. They were over in the US playing under psuedonymns and getting very well paid to be painters' assistants or whatever.

The key question is whether Irish immigration to the US is over for good. I think it may well be, but we can't be sure until the next economic downturn hits Ireland.

A little off-topic but when on holiday in Croatia last year, I was amazed to see one of those people giving out flyers for restaurants wearing a Dublin GAA top. Being Croatian, he didn't know that much about it since he thought that Derry would win the Sam!

An erstwhile camogie playing colleague once remarked that GAP, the clothes shop stood for "Gay And proud". "Oh really?" I replied, "and what does GAA stand for?"

The GAA complaining about how allowing garrison sports inside Croker will be to the detrement of their popularity should concentrate on making their own sports more fun to watch. Gaelic Football is like watching paint dry. I'd rather stand next to a freezing cold river and watch a rowing race.

By the way, the IARU allow canoeists to use their facilities at the National Regatta Centre near Cork.

AP Wrote:

"The GAA complaining about how allowing garrison sports inside Croker will be to the detrement of their popularity should concentrate on making their own sports more fun to watch. Gaelic Football is like watching paint dry. I'd rather stand next to a freezing cold river and watch a rowing race. "

Have you ever been in a packed Croke Park on a Championship Sunday?

Fraggle,

I met that boy in Dubrovnik. He also had Cork, Antrim and Wexford Jerseys. It seemed to be a good angle for him to pull in the Irish punters.

No, I have only been to the excellent Croke Park conference centre thingie. It really is a world class stadium that the GAA can be justifiably proud of, and when it is filled to capacity, I am sure that the atmosphere is very exciting. However, the events on the field would have me in a coma.

Have you ever stood on the Quincentenial Bridge in Galway during the big boats race at the Tribesmen Head?

"another_pleb"

You said "Gaelic Football is like watching paint dry"

I take it you don't watch Gaelic football often then?

If you had seen the National League finals you wouldn't say that.

The Munster Hurling final last year was also fantastic as was last weeks Tipp and Limerick.

Soccer is a boring game as is cricket.

The Gaelic games are anything but like watching paint dry
game

'Another_Pleb'

To answer your question, No I haven't but I'm sure it's terribly exciting to those of a Rowing bent and I'm sure most sports fans would appreciate the event. Personally I've always been more partial to canoeing but whatever floats your boat.(unpardonable pun......)

The only issue I would have with you is your contention that Gaelic Games would have you in a Coma. If you do attend a live championship match and and then come away with the same view then fair enough, I won't say I'd understand how you feel that way but at least it's an informed opinion.

I am one of those rare beasts - a northern prod who has been to a Gaelic Football game. It was an Ulster semi-final between Down and Armagh. I can confirm it is like watching paint dry. Hurling is a more intersting sport, but not interesting enough for me to consider watching it.

During the recent Six nations, I was out of action due to a stomach virus (nasty business, but I digress) and I had reason to spend a lot of time watching television, for the sake of comparison, I watched all of the rugby matches and loved them but became distinctly 'dubh doite' after just a few minutes of GAA "action". Maybe if I were in the stadium it would have been better but there waqs nothing I saw on the magic lantern that made me want to hang up my oar and go to GAA. I was tempted by rugby though, I reckon I'd make a pretty good "right wing".

Mrs Solice's Gardener

Down V Armagh in an Ulster semi final? Do you mind if I ask when this game was? And where it was played?

(I happen to know when and where Armagh and Down last met in an Ulster semi, and it was not recently. True, it was a brutal game played in gale force winds, but as Armagh eked out a narrow victory I have fond memories of it. It was, however, a replay. The drawn game a week earlier was a classic, with Armagh dominating for long periods before being hauled back sensationally by two quick goals from an up-and-coming star. That star has since completed a long and distinguished career, and retired from the game: which gives you some idea of how recently the game we're talking about was. In fact, one of Down's star men at the time is sadly no longer with us.

Which leads me, MSG, to wonder at the veracity of your rare experience of attending a GAA match.

(I was accompanied to the 2003 Ulster final replay in Clones by a Presbyterian friend from Co Down. Down and Tyrone had played out a rip-roaring draw the previous week but Tyrone completely outclassed the Mournemen in the replay, with Peter Canavan delivering a masterclass. I was pretty bored by proceedings but my friend loved every minute and I know he has been back to see a number of games since then. He just loves sport.

Interesting new gambit this: GAA used to be evil. Now it's just crap.

(This year's Six Nations WAS brilliant though, there's no doubt about it.)

Billy

The game was in Newry about 13 years ago. Down won. Why would you doubt the veracity of my rare experience, or believe that my statement was a "gambit". I went with a few workmates. Sport is a matter of taste. I have friends who like Formula 1, Horseracing, and Athletics. These sports bore me rigid as well. Manny people disagree with me, but others agree.

Dont give in to paranoia. Enjoy your sport, without worrying about what others think.

Why would you doubt the veracity of my rare experience, or believe that my statement was a "gambit".

To be fair to Billy - There have been some fibbers on this site, especially since the system changed and we have had quite a few sock puppets and people misrepresenting themselves.

That's the sorry thing about the internet Davros. I would prefer if people are given a psycholocial examination before being let near a computer.

Probably the 1991 Quarter final clash you are referring to. Down beat Armagh that day and the legend goes that people were heard remarking that the pick of the two teams wouldn't go anywhere in the championship that year. So of course Down went on to win the thing.

From what I've heard of the game down the years, (I wasn't deemed old enough for matches for another 2 years!) it was a poor match. That said generally i prefer a poor Gaelic match to most games soccer can produce.

Gaelic games aren't for everyone, some people like them and some don't, such is life. My missus loves figure skating, i'd sooner watch bulls being castrated. The point is ... each to their own.
HOWEVER anyone who declares GAA is crap after one or two games is being unfair. Like all sports, you have to give it time to at least learn what is going on.

Eagle,

I agree future patterns of Irish-US emigration are hard to predict but I think things are even more complicated now than in the past where your acid test of "..waiting until the next economic downturn hits Ireland" would have clinched it.

First off, most young Irish people -far better educated and informed about whats now happening in the world than earlier generations- are repelled by and now give a wide berth to the US ; if you doubt it check out and compare the change in Irish student J1 visa stats for the past few years for example. Rightly or otherwise, the US is'nt seen as the welcoming place it once was.

Second there is every chance that a major economic downturn is more likely earlier in the States than in Ireland ;that would increase the present reverse flow.

Another no-no could be added if theres a military draft stateside when next months Iran invasion gets underway as recruiting for the Iraq garrison next door is already coming up badly short!

I've never been a big fan of GAA but recognised its existence as a sport until Peter Canavan appeared with a few other Tyrone players on a Sinn Fein/IRA election leaflet a few years back. Since then it has just sickened me. Interesting to note also that whenever a controversial vote comes up, ie "shall we allow the Brits to play" or "shall we allow other sports on our grounds" that it is the Northern Counties who always almost unanimously favour the status quo, I seem to recall some geriatric bigot from the Antrim board being interviewed about the recent Croke Park debate. Not the most inclusive game up here one suspects.

The one thing you get with GAA that you dont get with any other sport is the the sense of community. Whether its watching your local parish team on a friday night or your county on a Sunday theres hardly a game goes by that 90% of the fans there dont know at least one player personally. Consequently GAA isnt about hero worship its about supporting your local stars and this brings a complete new dynamic so the sport

"The one thing you get with GAA that you dont get with any other sport"

"Any other sport" David, what utter balderdash. There are plenty of other sports in Ireland (and I'm not just talking about rowing) that have community involvement at a high level.

I appreciate your point that GAA has this quality too but to bandy about silly percentages really just detracts from your argument.

I am sure that parochial cricket/rugby/soccer/hockey etc. teams have a large proportion of the spectators who are known personally to the players.

MSG Wrote:
'I am one of those rare beasts - a northern prod who has been to a Gaelic Football game. It was an Ulster semi-final between Down and Armagh. I can confirm it is like watching paint dry. Hurling is a more intersting sport, but not interesting enough for me to consider watching it.'

If the game in question was the Down -v- Armagh in 1991 then you may not be aware that another 'northern prod' was in the Ground. He was on the pitch playing Full-Forward for Down that afternoon. Not that it matters a whole heap.

I got into the habit of watching quite a bit of gaelic football and hurling of an afternoon on the telly when I was in Dublin - and while I found hurling gripping, I thought football was tremendously disappointing as a spectacle. The pitch seemed over-crowded, there wasn't much continuity in passages of play, tactics were in short supply, and the fitness and conditioning of a lot of players left a bit to be desired..

It's possible that if I was more knowledgeable about the game, I would find it more enjoyable - but I found it a crashing bore, and after a few weeks I gave up on it, and stuck to hurling...

[In anticipation of any protestations from prickly GAA fans who I may have offended, I AM real, all of this DID happen, I watched both sports with an open mind etc etc]

Can someone explain what the fuss below is about ?

Fury as players drink to a bonus

Some sad old men who begrudge "amateur" players a few quid.

It's interesting that this year's 6 Nations has been positively commented upon - I enjoyed it immensely, as usual, (well except for Ireland's mostly abject performances..) but it was pretty widely considered to have been one of the worst 6 nations championships ever in terms of quality!

So tune in next year when England will turn out a team that's at least half-decent, Ireland will (hopefully) have shed some dead wood and look a bit fresher, France will operate in more than 2nd gear for the WHOLE competition, Wales will keep on doing what they did, and Italy and Scotland may be rejuvenated under new caoching regimes.. (I should be paid for this..)

I am in total agreement that on the whole gaelic football is pure shite! I am a fully paid up member of the GAA and I would rather watch paint dry. Obviously if your team is involved it makes it a little more exciting. However, there is nothing more exciting than a good hurling match.

Hurling has problems in that it is totally dominated by no more than 6 teams but when these teams are on song the games are pulsating. When the football is on there is very little flowing play and the match is punctuated with fouls, free kicks and general boredom!

This is only my opinion though :-)

MSG

Fair enough, just checking.

The last time Armagh and Down met in a semi was at Casement Park in 1990 - Armagh won the replay by a point in awful, blustery conditions, with Mickey Linden crashing a goal chance off the crossbar and safely over for a point right at the death. The previous week Armagh had given Down a footballing lesson for the first 65 minutes of the games, only for wee James McCartan to come on as a sub and, with about five mins to go, crash in two unbelievable goals and a point in the space of two or three minutes. Pugnacious wee bastard looked more like a barrel-chested middleweight than a footballer, but God did he have Armagh on the ropes. We had been cruising to our first championship win over Down after decades of oppression under the red and black jackboot, playing with verve and style. Suddenly we're a point behind, run ragged, and every Orchardman in Casement is groaning, `here we go again'.

(Wee James was only about 19 or 20 at the time, and his All Stars and All-Ireland medals were all ahead of him. Though of course he had starred on Down's All Ireland minor winning team in '87, and as the son of James Snr, his pedigree couldn't have been better. Still, it was one hell of a way to announce his arrival on the intercounty scene.)

Luckily one of the Armagh players - I believe it was the great Neil Smyth - launched a monumental equaliser over the bar from midfield and Armagh lived to fight another day. Won by a point a week later despite a fantastic performance in midfield by Down's classy veteran Ambrose Rodgers. Poor Ambrose died some years ago, not sure what his illness was. He was a graceful, classy operator.

Now, the first round game in Newry the following year, to be fair, was without a shadow of a doubt the poorest championship match I have ever seen. It was played in swamp-like conditions and was memorable only for Armagh's Jim McConville missing an open goal and James McCartan losing the head after one of the umpires signalled a wide when he had clearly scored a point - clear to everyone in the ground except the umpire, it seems.

It's a real shame that, if you went to one game in 1991, it had to be that one. In the same year you would have been immeasurably more impressed by either of Down's epic tussles with Derry in the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. Down won narrowly after a replay against an up-and-coming Derry team two years away from an All Ireland. Or you might have seen Down's wonderful, free-flowing beauty-contest of a match with Kerry in the All Ireland semi. (And see a good Ulster Protestant, Peter Withnell, give a man-of-the-match performance and bustle his way to two decisive goals.)

Or you could have gone to see any of the adjective-defying games between Meath and Dublin in the Leinster championship the same year. Two of the top three or four teams in the country, they had to play out four of the greatest games ever played before a winner emerged. In each of the three drawn games the Dubs had the Royals beaten, or so it seemed. (Thus creating the aura of invincibilty which the Royals enjoyed throughout the 90s. Even teams with comfortable leads over them always remained hesitant and fearful of the obligatory Meath backlash - which had the self-fulfilling result of inviting said backlash, thereby adding to the legend of Meath as the corpse that couldn't be killed.)

In the fourth game Meath stole an astonishing victory with a breath-taking late goal from wing back Kevin Foley, after being three points down in injury time. Foley started the move in his own full-back line and was on hand in front of John O'Leary's goal, 120 yards upfield to finish it. It was gaelic football's equivalent of Carlos Alberto's goal for Brazil in 1970, and after all that had gone before it, nothing less would have sufficed to settle the tie. (Alright, I know David Beggy's point a moment later was the actual winner, but it was Foley's goal that was decisive.)

Or you might have gone to the All Ireland final that year, when Down met the bedraggled, magnificent Meathmen, the GAA equivalent of Alexander's Phalanx, who had staggered their way to the final, reversing deficits in every game along the way.

Down played with zest and abandon. Five foot seven James McCartan stood toe to toe with the gorgons of the Meath defence (as a kid, when I had nightmares the monsters had names like O'Malley, Harnan and, above all, Lyons) while the artist Mickey Linden just danced and darted around them, making some of the finest defenders of the age look ordinary. Ross Carr punished fouls by sticking frees over the bar with metronomic precision. Barry Breen was towering in midfield while the incomparable Greg Blaney sprayed passed into the forward line like Beckenbauer.

Ten mins into the second half and underdogs Down were eleven points ahead of the unbeatables. Then, the inevitable fightback came. Injured superstar Colm O'Rourke - bandaged up and sent on like a metaphor for the battle-scarred Royals - scored a smashing break-away goal and the familiar, remorseless reeling-in began.

Luckily for Down, the gap was too big and the clock beat Meath. The inspired Linden tagged on a couple of late points to stem the tide, and Down held on to win by just two - the first time an Ulster team had won the Sam since '68.

Yep, '91 was a good year. It's just a pity that the one game you went to was such a poor one. I hope you'll consider going to a game this year? Tyrone v Down in Omagh on Sunday, or Armagh v Donegal in a few weeks should be good. As the summer progresses and we start to see the really big guns (Armagh, Kerry, Tyrone, Galway, Dublin, Mayo, at a stretch Derry and Cork) squaring off against each other, there should be some cracking tussles. Hopefully you'll get along to a game or two - maybe even one of the big games at Croke Park at the business end of the championship - which could help you understand the appeal of the game better than that dire first-round match in the swamp in 1991.)

Short and sweet as ever Billy ;)

It may surprise some people, but I do have a TV, which does on occaision show Gaelic Football. I still have to say, that it isn't my game. I find football a much more exciting sport, but I do recognise that it is a matter of personal preference. I have the same feelings about Rugby as I do about Gaelic football, but I put that down to my grammar school education.

ANother_pleb
"There are plenty of other sports in Ireland (and I'm not just talking about rowing) that have community involvement at a high level."

You are right to a certain degree. But there are no other sports, which I can think of, which get the level of community support which GAA games does.

MSG
"I still have to say, that it isn't my game."

It isn't my game either. BUT college football is great, it's fast, exciting and there is a much better display of skills than in the senior games, IMO.

'Football' is good at high levels, but at low levels football can be among the worlds most dire games.

Soory Another pleb I will just clarify my comments I was a bit tired when writing them. You dont get same sense of community in any other sport at the top level probably because of the international dimension the sports your mentioned have, take for example in cricket how many players competing in the ICC Champions final did you know? In Rugby how many world cup winners does any one fan know personally? Not quite sure what soccer is as i am not American or Canadian (please note these are not racist comments but rather reflect on the fact that there association football governing bodies refer to soccer) but I can imagine that at the top level of that sport there isnt that sense of community involvement. As far as club level goes I have had family involvement in Irish League football and that sense of community is not as strong as it is in the GAA. I couldnt possibly comment on what club level cricket or hockey or at grass roots rowing is like as I have no experience in this area.

David
"that sense of community is not as strong as it is in the GAA" because soccer is not based around the community in the same was GAA is. LOI teams are drawn from anywhere & everywhere, GAA teams are drawn from the local community.

Thank you Thats the point I was trying to get at Macca, and undoubtedly this element adds a new dynamic to the sports. Just as a matter of interest, can anyone name the sports which are overseen by (excuse my spelling) Cummann Luchleis Gael to make up the sports of the GAA?

It's Cumann Luthchleas Gael.

And the sports are (to the best of my knowledge)

Hurling

Football

Handball

Rounders

Not ladies football or camogie as they are run by seperate but closely linked organisation, though i believe there are those looking to integrate the three associations.

Well done PS thanks for correcting my spelling you know what its like, but yes those are the four sports although one could also make a case for international rules and shinty. Oh and congratulations one of the very few people I know to actually remember about rounders

I could be a fecker and point out that it's actually Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ... but I won't ;))

Camogie is run by the Cumann Camógaíochta na nGael, football by the Ladies Gaelic Football Association of Ireland, rounders by the Rounders Council of Ireland (Comhairle Cluiche Corr na hEireann) and handball by the IHC. Though, as PS pointed out, rounder and handball are two of the 4 official GAA sports.