Meath GAA central to the removal of ‘the Ban’

The last 12 to 14 months has seen so much upheaval in the world because of Covid that things might never be the same again and that is especially true for the GAA.

Hopefully many of the changes in fixtures and structures that have been forced on the GAA because of the ongoing pandemic remain in place and like the removal of 'the Ban' in 1971, 50 years ago, the association can grow from strength-to-strength.

Only 50 short years age it was seen almost as a mortal sin to engage with 'foreign' sports if you were a member of the GAA - an affront to your patriotic symbolism as an Irishman, a strike at the very heart of Irish nationalism.

Punishment pre-1971 for associating with other activities outside of those approved by the GAA was expulsion from the association and denied the opportunity to be a fabric of your local GAA community.

Many members of the GAA did dip their toes into playing rugby, soccer or cricket, many weren't caught, but it wasn't from a lack of whistleblowers who hid in hedges and up trees to find offenders.

A simple act of escorting someone to a rugby dinner dance or a soccer presentation night, or attending a Republic of Ireland international soccer match would often lead to expulsion from the GAA - people associating with 'foreign' sports were not welcome in the GAA. As time wore on and the GAA hierarchy stood still people became tired of the ban. In 1971 the proposal to remove the rule on the 'ban on foreign games' was brought before Congress In Queen's University Belfast and had strong support, but then GAA President Pat Fanning spoke adamantly against removing 'the ban'.

"Congress ’71 is fated to pass into GAA annals as one of the most critical, decisive and indeed historic assemblies since the dawn of the Association in 1884. In a short while now you will acknowledge the expressed will of the association and delete a rule, which for many of us was a rule of life and reflected and epitomised the very spirit of the association. The rule deleted – what then? Do we then reject the past and with deletion, proclaim ourselves a mere sports organization?"

Fanning was supporter of the Ban, but a plebiscite held across the GAA’s clubs through 1970 had left him with no choice. Almost every county in the Association had recorded a vote in favour of removing the rule and by that decree there was no vote needed at Congress to remove the old rule - times were indeed changing for the GAA.

The ban, proclaimed by Fanning as being the epitome of the very spirit of the GAA, was introduced in the early 1900s when a motion at the 1901 Congress read that the GAA was much more than a “mere sporting organisation”, it was instead engaged in a “struggle to crush English pastimes” and a “patriotic effort to make young men more thoroughly and essentially Irish and self-respecting.”

Between 1901 and 1905 the GAA at national level introduced a set of rules which ultimately decreed that anyone who played, promoted or attended ‘foreign games’ (the listed ‘foreign games’ were cricket, hockey, rugby and soccer) could not participate in the GAA.

Later, it was added that anyone who was a member of the police or the British army was prohibited from membership of the GAA. Further, no GAA club was allowed to organise any entertainment at which ‘foreign dances’ were permitted, and any GAA member who attended dances run by either the British security forces, or by ‘foreign games’ clubs, was liable to a suspension of two years.

There were many who stuck rigidly to the rules, enforced them with an iron fist, but the simple facts were that many members of the GAA had no interest in such extremist views of nationalism or Irish cultural revival, most members of the GAA just wanted to play sport - especially hurling and football.

In the '50s Tom Woulfe began a campaign to remove the ban. He was motivated by his work for the Dublin County Board Vigilance Committee that led to a member being banned for being suspected of playing a 'foreign game' and that member never returned.

Woulfe raised the Ban at Congress in 1962, '65 and '68 (such matters could only be debated every three years), but with no budging from the hierarchy until '68 when they agreed to re-examine why the rule was so important.

Woulfe was a Kerryman living in Dublin and a member of the Civil Service GAA club. He rapidly became a hate figure for the pro-Ban contingent, but was made of sterner stuff and stood his ground.

Out of the blue at the 1970 Congress in Galway, Meath put forward a motion, passed unanimously, asking that every club in the country call a special meeting to decide its attitude on Rule 27 in time for the 1971 congress.

Little or no attention was paid to the Meath motion as it was assumed that a large majority of the counties would oppose the motion anyway, as had always been the case. The motion that went before the Meath GAA convention came from the Dunshaughlin club.

“The original motion to have every club in the country hold a meeting to discuss the ban came from a Dunshaughlin club meeting,” recalled the late Dunshaughlin historian Patsy McLoughlin when talking to Eugene McGee for his book, ‘The GAA In My Time’.

“A lot of us at that time were fed up with Rule 27 as several young lads from our club were going off playing soccer illegally and it was obvious that something had to be done.

“The motion was passed at the Meath county convention, but not before the chairman, Fr Tully, made a very strong attack on it. It got through anyway, and within the year, the Ban was dead and buried.

“I remember a well-known member of a nearby Meath club calling me a renegade after the motion was passed, but we got over it,” said McLoughlin.

Every club in the country held a meeting to discuss the rule and by 1970 and early '71 in each county the vast majority of clubs agreed that the Ban should be removed.

Irish men and women were allowed play, attend and support all sporting organisations throughout the country - although the GAA were ferverous that their grounds and facilities would not be used for the gain or support of 'foreign sports' - that was an argument for another day.

Imagine if the Ban had been in place we might never have had David Beggy playing for Meath.

Beggy was a rugby man. His dream was to play rugby for Ireland and he maintained that dream throughout his time with Meath. However because the ban had been removed he was allowed throw his lot in with the Royals despite his rugby background and reaped rich reward.

“I consider myself a sportsman and I’d have loved Gaelic just as much as rugby, but rugby was in a little bit of the DNA. If the ban was in, I would have been a rugby player,” admitted Beggy.

Imagine what a loss he would have been to Meath GAA if the Ban had remained in place.

Only Antrim and Sligo were mandated by their clubs to vote against the removal of the ban. Antrim's insistence to inforce the ban remained until the end. In the weeks leading up to the Congress two local schools St Malachy's and St Mary's were due to meet in the McRory cup semi-finmal in Casement Park.

However, because St Malacy's included in their ranks a well known soccer player called Martin O'Neill, the Antrim co Board refused to allow their ground be used for the semi-final. Instead the semi-final had to be played in Tyrone.