Gaelic Games, Irish Nationalist Politics and the Irish Diaspora in London, 1895–1915

Abstract

This article makes an original contribution to the growing historiography on the role of sport, and more specifically, Gaelic games amongst Irish immigrant communities around the world. It does so by shedding light on the origins and early history of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century London. In particular, the article explores the ways in which membership of this organisation allowed sections of the city's Irish population to preserve and express their ethnic specificity and support for Irish nationalism. This reveals that Gaelic games were drawn on by a diverse range of organisations and individuals who sought to utilise these sports to galvanise support for varying shades of Irish nationalism.

Notes

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2. John A. Jackson, The Irish in Britain (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).

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4. Graham Davis, ‘The Irish in Britain, 1815–1939’, in The Irish Diaspora, ed. Andrew Bielenberg (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2000), 19–36; Ruth-Ann Harris, The Nearest Place that Wasn't Ireland: Early Nineteenth Century Irish Labour Migration (Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1994).

5. Graeme Kirkham, ‘The Origins of Mass Migration from Ireland’ in Migrations: The Irish at Home and Abroad, ed. Richard Kearney (Dublin: Wolfhound Press Ltd, 1988), 81–90: 83. There were no accurate records of the number of Irish immigrants in Britain until the Census of 1841. However, local estimates reveal the substantial increase in Irish migration. In Glasgow, for example, estimates of the number of Irish Catholics ‘rose from 8,245 in 1819 to 25,000 in 1821 and 31,000 in 1831’ (Patrick Bishop, The Irish Empire, London: Boxtree, 1999: 120). A similar situation was evident elsewhere with over 100,000 Irish in Lancashire by 1825. Such were the levels of Irish employment in manual labour that by 1828, a witness to the Select Committee on Emigration, established to monitor levels of migration into Britain, declared that in the construction of any major road, canal or tunnel he would ‘not be in the least bit surprised to find, that of a 100 men employed in it, 90 were Irish’ (Ibid., 122).

6. Bishop, The Irish Empire.

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16. Bishop, The Irish Empire; MacRaild, The Great Famine and Beyond; O'Connor, The Irish in Britain.

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19. Davis, ‘The Irish in Britain, 1815–1939’.

20. Roger Swift, ‘The Historiography of the Irish in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, in The Irish in New Communities, ed. Patrick O'Sullivan (London: Leicester University Press, 1992), 63.

21. David Fitzpatrick, ‘A curious middleplace: The Irish in Britain, 1871–1921’, in The Irish in Britain, 1815–1939, ed. Roger Swift and Sheriden Gilley (London: Pinter Publishers, 1989), 35.

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23. Alan O'Day, The English face of Irish Nationalism: Parnellite Involvement in British Politics, 1880–1886 (Dublin: Gill and MacMillan, 1977).

24. O'Connor, The Irish in Britain, 42.

25. Swift, ‘The Historiography of the Irish’.

26. Séamus Mac Annaidh, Irish History (Bath: Parragon, 2000).

27. G. Moran, ‘The National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick in Britain in the 1860s’, Irish Studies Review, 7, no. 3 (1999): 325–36.

28. By the 1880s there were 630 branches of the Irish National League in Britain.

29. T. Edwards and Joseph R. Demartini, ‘Change Agents and Generational Relationships’, Social Forces, 64, no. 1 (1985): 1–16.

30. Donal MacAmhlaigh, An Irish Navvy: The Diary of an Exile Navvy (London: Routledge Keegan Paul, 1964); Mary Tilki, ‘The Social Contexts of Drinking Among Irish Men in London’, Drugs, Education, Prevention and Policy, 13, no. 3 (2006): 247–61; David Fitzpatrick, Irish Emigration 1801–1921 (The Economic and Social History Society of Ireland: Dundalk: Dundalgan, 1984); Liam Greenslade, ‘The Blackbird Calls in Grief: Colonialism, Health and Identity among Irish immigrants in Britain’, in Location and Dislocation in Contemporary Irish Society: Emigration and Irish Identities, ed. Jim MacLaughlin (Cork: Cork University Press, 1997), 36–60.

31. O'Connor, The Irish in Britain, 48.

32. John Hutchinson and Alan O'Day, ‘The Gaelic Revival in London, 1900–1922: Limits of Ethnic Identity’, in The Irish in Victorian Britain, ed. Roger Swift and Sheriden Gilley (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999): 254–76.

33. The London Daily Advertiser, September 28, 1747.

34. Gaelic World, ‘A Proud Record for London Hurlers’, 6, no. 3 (1985): 13.

35. Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England: 1801. (Reprinted Bath: Firecrest Publishing, 1969).

36. Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England: 1801. (Reprinted Bath: Firecrest Publishing, 1969) 100–101.

37. Séamus King, The Clash of the Ash in Foreign Fields: Hurling Abroad (Cashel; Co. Tipperary, 1998).

38. Morning Chronicle, May 31, 1856.

39. Trewman's Exeter Flying Post, May 26, 1869.

40. The Graphic, March 25, 1876.

41. Irish Tribune, July 13, 1895.

42. Hutchinson and O'Day, The Gaelic Revival in London.

43. Irish Tribune, January 2, 1886.

44. Darby, Gaelic Games, Nationalism and the Irish Diaspora in the United States.

45. Mike Cronin, William Murphy and Paul Rouse, eds., The Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884–2009 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2009); Mike Cronin, Sport and Nationalism in Ireland; Gaelic Games, Soccer and Irish Identity since 1884 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999); Marcus De Búrca, The GAA: A History (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999).

46. Freeman's Journal, July 24, 1895.

47. Irish Post, November 3, 1984: 4.

48. Irish Post, September 10, 1994.

49. Fitzpatrick, ‘A Curious Middleplace’.

50. Parnell founded the INL in Ireland in 1882 and it developed a close relationship with the Irish Parliamentary Party lead by Parnell. Following the Kitty O'Shea affair, a rival anti-Parnellite organisation, the Irish National Federation emerged to split constitutional nationalism before going on to capture much popular support.

51. Reynolds's Newspaper, February 23, 1896.

52. Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, December 11, 1895.

53. Irish Post, November 3, 1984.

54. MacCarthy's role in the GAA, particularly in London, led to the GAA in Ireland naming the all-Ireland hurling championship trophy the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

55. Irish Freedom, 1911, The Story of the GAA, January 1911, p. 2.

56. Reynold's Newspaper, March 22, 1886.

57. King, The Clash of the Ash.

58. Reynold's Newspaper, April 10, 1886.

59. The Freeman's Journal, May 26, 1896.

60. Irish Post, September 10, 1994.

61. John Sugden and Alan Bairner, Sport, Sectarianism and Society in a Divided Ireland (London: University Press, 1993).

62. Meaney, Our Name is on the Cup.

63. Irish Post, November 10, 1984: 12.

64. Marcus De Burca, The Gaelic Athletic Association: A History (Dublin: Cumann Luthchleas Gael, 1980).

65. The finals were held as part of a broader Irish Athletic Tournament hosted by the London Board for the Hermitage in Norbury, on Sunday 4 October.

66. The Boy's Own Newspaper, September 18, 1896: 393; King, The Clash of the Ash.

67. King, The Clash of the Ash.

68. Shan Van Vocht, August 4, 1897.

69. Shan Van Vocht, September 6, 1897.

70. King, The Clash of the Ash.

71. Mike Cronin, ‘Enshrined in blood: The naming of Gaelic Athletic Association grounds and clubs’, Sports Historian, 18, 1: 90-104.

72. King, The Clash of the Ash.

73. John Belchem, Irish, Catholic, and Scouse: The History of the Liverpool Irish, 1800–1939 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007).

74. G.R. Searle, A New England: Peace and War 1886–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Alan O'Day, The English Face of Irish Nationalism; E.N. Gladden, Civil Services in the United Kingdom, 1885–1967 (London: Routledge, 1967).

75. Hutchinson and O'Day, ‘The Gaelic Revival in London’.

76. Post Office Archives, 1923, Post 33/1041/Minute 7219.

77. Neil Tranter, Sport, Economy and Society in Britain: 1750–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 35.

78. Michael Heller, ‘Sport, Bureaucracies and London Clerks 1880–1939’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 25, no. 5 (2008): 582.

79. Shan Van Vocht, November 1, 1897.

80. The Boys Own Newspaper, March 21, 1896: 395.

81. Mirroring Liam MacCarthy's position in GAA history, Maguire's role in advancing the nationalist cause and furthering the development of the GAA in London was such that his name was given to the All-Ireland Gaelic Football Championship trophy.

82. Mike Cronin, ‘Sam Maguire: Forgotten Hero and National Icon’, Sport in History, 25, no. 2 (2005): 191.

83. F.S.L Lyons, Ireland since the Famine (London: Fontana, 1985), 387.

84. Irish Post, September 10, 1994.

85. Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, August 8, 1899.

86. Irish Weekly Newspaper, cited in Meaney, Our Name is on the Cup, 57.

87. King, The Clash of the Ash, 47.

88. Meaney, Our Name is on the Cup. 55.

89. Meaney, Our Name is on the Cup. 55.

90. Meaney, Our Name is on the Cup. 55.

91. Hutchinson and O'Day, ‘The Gaelic Revival in London’, 265.

92. The London Irish News, May 14, 1910: 2.

93. Cork Examiner, November 13, 1905: 7.

94. King, The Clash of the Ash, 49.

95. Gaelic Athlete, July 25, 1914.

96. Gaelic Athlete, March, 1915.

97. An estimated 210,000 Irish fought in the War, 35,000 of whom did not return to Britain (Adrian Gregory and Senia Paseta eds., Ireland and the Great War: A War to Unite Us All? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002)).

98. Irish Post, November 17, 1984.

99. O'Connor, The Irish in Britain.