{"id":471413,"date":"2026-05-28T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471413\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T14:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:35:10","slug":"lets-talk-about-the-gaa-and-a-dangerously-stupid-culture-of-violence-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471413\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s talk about the GAA and a dangerously stupid culture of violence \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Say what you want about last Saturday\u2019s Kerry<\/a>–Donegal<\/a> ballyhoo, but a lot of it was lightweight compared with what goes on in adult club games most weekends. <\/p>\n

Safety seems generally well preserved in children\u2019s games but, speaking as someone who has watched club clashes in Dublin at senior and intermediate level regularly over the last few years, I could count on the fingers of one broken hand the number of adult games I\u2019ve seen that didn\u2019t feature at least one brawl. They\u2019re so frequent a visitor might think the GAA has introduced pauses in play for melees the way other sports have introduced water breaks, although here it\u2019s not just a summer thing: blood is always boiling on a GAA pitch.<\/p>\n

At least brawls capture everyone\u2019s attention. The most sinister violence is more sneaky, and even more common. If you know an honest adult Gaelic footballer, ask him how many times he\u2019s played a club game in which he didn\u2019t give or get a sly dig in the ribs, a jab in the kidneys or an off-the-ball running shoulder-charge to the back. How about a punch to the side of the head? And then to the other side? Often these things look co-ordinated. You might even call them training-ground moves. If they happened on the street, you\u2019d call them assaults.<\/p>\n

Most of my evidence comes from Dublin. But I\u2019ve yet to meet anyone who has dared claim club games are cleaner in the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

Violence seems a bit rarer at intercounty level but there\u2019s no escaping that all players must come through the club scene, where GAA may also mean Guerilla Ambush Attacks. Not dark arts, just daylight thuggery. Picture a player being wrapped up by one opponent while another lumbers over and delivers an uppercut to his face before scurrying off to hide in a \u201cshemozzle\u201d. This is learned behaviour. <\/p>\n

Read Darragh \u00d3 S\u00e9 description in these pages<\/a> on Wednesday about why Donegal manager Jim McGuinness<\/a> might have been riled by what happened to Ryan McHugh against Kerry on Saturday \u2013\u201che saw his player get split open, with one fella holding him and the other boxing him in the head\u201d. <\/p>\n

Outrage has flowed since last Saturday about McGuinness\u2019s pitch invasion and his pushing of a Kerry player, and he was accused, fairly, of being disingenuous when interrogated about that in the postmatch press conference. Did anyone ask Kerry manager Jack O\u2019Connor<\/a> why his players approached the match the way they did? You already know the answer.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe TV cameras move in to get footage of the half-time melee during the Kerry v Donegal All-Ireland SFC game in Killarney on Saturday. Photograph: James Lawlor\/Inpho <\/p>\n

When it comes to referees and their reports, it seems worse than hit-or-miss. The general standard of refereeing at club level is lower than any of the blows we saw in Killarney. The GAA is struggling to attract new refs and those in situ are not helped by the fact they are now expected to watch play unfold at one end while counting the number of bodies still in the other half; if you think players don\u2019t exploit that impossible arrangement to land cheap shots, then congratulations on your recent birth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often the most talented player who gets targeted. Nothing like a couple of on- or off-the-ball muggings to reduce a lad\u2019s influence, or force him off the pitch. Good for the opposition, rubbish for the sport.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, the belligerence can be comical, like when a substitute sprints on to the pitch and rams straight into an opponent, who responds in kind before both barge into each other a few more times with the ball nowhere near either of them. It\u2019s nothing scandalous, just a caveman choreography that helps set the tone for the violence to come. <\/p>\n

A bit like, come to think of it, when Louth and Meath began systematically bumping into each other before their league tryst in February and lost the run of themselves to the extent that four players were black-carded within 10 seconds of the match actually starting: amid the mayhem one Meath player was somehow stripped to his GPS sports bra. Fine, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re into. But don\u2019t call it football.<\/p>\n

\"AA scene from a Louth-Meath league match in February. Photograph: Nick Elliott\/Inpho <\/p>\n

In fairness, throw-ins generally tend to be more orderly these days, since the GAA ruled they had to be contested by one player from each team rather than two. That reflected an acceptance that only two of the previous quartet had been competing for the ball anyway, while the other two manhandled each other for kicks. <\/p>\n

That confirms that rule changes can alter players\u2019 behaviour, as we have also seen from the way dissent has abated, even in the club game, since referees were allowed penalise a team by moving the ball forward for backchat.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no point introducing a rule if there\u2019s insufficient will or way to enforce it. The most grievous offences at club games are already outlawed, but they keep happening. So, referees\u2019 performances aside, we must wonder how many people actually want to stop the violence?<\/p>\n

The strangest thing might be that often even the victims of violence, and their friends, don\u2019t seem minded to stamp it out. You seldom hear of a player taking an opponent to court for an on-field assault. In some cases that seems to be because they would prefer to dispense justice themselves at the next opportunity. That might be why so many GAA club fixtures take place on a spectrum between blood feud and holy war. <\/p>\n

\"PaudiePaudie Clifford of Kerry holds onto Finbarr Roarty and Michael Langan of Donegal during the All-Ireland SFC Round 1 game at Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney. Photograph: James Lawlor\/Inpho <\/p>\n

But in other cases it\u2019s harder to explain. After all, it shouldn\u2019t be difficult to build a case: not only are there usually witnesses, but many clubs record all their games for analysis. And so every week footage circulates on team group chats not just of fine scores and moves, but also of fights and assaults, some of which leave amateur players needing medical attention and\/or time off work.<\/p>\n

How much of such footage ever gets forwarded to on-duty garda\u00ed? Not much, apparently. Which is all the more curious when you know many of those group chats must include schoolteachers, social workers, doctors and, yes, garda\u00ed. Would you be shocked if sometimes such people also appeared in the footage?<\/p>\n

People who know right from wrong, who know the damage a punch or ill-intentioned kick could do, especially to a blindsided victim, but who nonetheless remain silent. Because they\u2019re afraid of being branded soft or treacherous? Of not being supported by their friends, clubs or association? Because of some cultural sense that it\u2019s just not the done thing? If so, what a dangerously stupid culture.<\/p>\n

Have your say: Does the GAA have a violence problem?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Say what you want about last Saturday\u2019s Kerry–Donegal ballyhoo, but a lot of it was lightweight compared with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6937,45,6342,110979,4183,61,60,180648,13018,112],"class_list":["post-471413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-donegal-gaa","tag-football-championship","tag-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jack-o-connor","tag-jim-mcguinness","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}