Comeback for the ages at Croke Park

Admittedly, I saw little enough of last weekends hurling matches. Even so it was impossible not to see the massive black banner about ‘bloody Sunday’. To be honest, it distracted me from the action on the pitch. Over the last few days I’ve asked myself what was the objective or the ‘upside’ of such an aggressive banner full of political meaning and history at a hurling match. It’s a given that the gaa either placed or gave their consent. The question i would be asking is did the players give theirs? After all, this piece of political theatre was being done in their name. What about the tv companies? Were they consulted ? They are responsible for anything they broadcast. If a banner is unfurled in a crowd mid match that’s not their fault but that wasn’t the case here. So the obvious question is : who were the target audience? Certainly not the fans of the four teams anyway who have long made up their minds about all the bloody Saturdays and sundays and were fixated on the games in any case.
No. The target audience as any half baked propagandist would know is the younger generation – the type of voter who gave us Davy Cullinane and his two quotas. In America these would be called the ‘know nothings’. Also targeted of course were our new overseas audience courtesy of sky tv. Some might say that as a private organisation the gaa can do as they please but this would be to ignore the fact that this private monopoly has trousered many millions of euro from the taxpayer. So no less than an Irish vote at the UN whether we agree with it or not is irrelevant – it’s our name on the record. Anyway, I can say that I’ve watched a fair amount of all sorts of sports from around the world playing in front of bland images of imaginary crowds or harmless slogans but none come near these antics by an official sport body.
It’s beyond debate that the killing of the footballers at croke park in 1920 was an atrocity. But you could argue that at a time when the islands future is far from secure or guaranteed that resurrecting the ghosts of a century ago with no context is at the very least, self indulgent and irresponsible.