GAA

The GAA and Rugby Football in Kerry 1885-1905

'Degenerating, from sterling Irishmen into contemptible West Britons'

Kerry is the most successful county in the history of Gaelic Football. Since its inaugural victory in 1903, the county has retained the All Ireland championship on average, every 2.9 years. However this staggering success was not preordained. Indeed, for the first two decades of the GAA, rugby and not Gaelic football was seen by many as the county's pre-eminent sport. This paper will chart the relationship between the two codes in the first twenty years of the Association in Kerry. It will examine how rugby football was able to profit from the vacuum left by the decline in the GAA in the 1890s. Finally it will look at the re-establishment of the GAA here, under Thomas F O'Sullivan and his campaign against 'garrison' sports, particularly rugby, which culminated in the re-introduction of the Foreign Games Ban.

That rugby should have attained popularity in Kerry is not surprising given that the traditional game of Caid or 'rough and tumble' was popular with the Kerry peasantry throughout the nineteenth century. The game was often played between teams of men from two neighbouring parishes, the ball being thrown in at an agreed central point.[2]. As late as 1885, a team from Ballymacelligott was issuing challenges for a match of 'rough and tumble' with any parish in Munster.[3]

Rugby's spread into Kerry in early 1880s was greatly facilitated by the characteristics it shared with the traditional game of caid. Both games used imperfectly rounded footballs. Likewise both involved scrimmages of men attempting to gain possession, before passing to the more fleet footed players hovering on the wings, who ran with this ball in hand. [4] It seems likely the rules for rugby as they evolved were having a growing effect on caid. Increasingly the game began to forgo its cross country element and became confined within a select playing field, between two even number teams. In a letter about the origins of the Laune Rangers club, Patrick Begley wrote that from early 1880s Caid had given way to rugby in areas like Killorglin.[5]

Rugby was quick to spread into the larger towns of Kerry, Tralee Rugby Club being founded in 1882. Sometime after, it officially affiliated with the sports new governing body, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU).[6] Tralee RFC took part in the inaugural Munster Senior Cup, in 1886.[7] One of its member, Dr John Hayes, seems to have been Kerry's star player throughout the 1880s.When the Munster interprovincial team was picked for their clash with Ulster in January 1889, Hayes was picked as one of the out-Halves.[8]

Based on newspaper reports of the Kerry Sentinel and Sport in the 1885-1890 period there is evidence of seven separate teams or clubs playing matches between themselves and clubs outside the county.[9] With the exception of Listowel and Castleisland most of the large towns in the county had a rugby team of some sort. How the game was introduced to Kerry is difficult to establish with accuracy. The growth of the game in towns like Tralee could be attributed to graduates like Hayes, who while attending university, were introduced to rugby.[10] It is possible, just as was often the experience in Britain, that former pupils of such institutions, once they moved home, brought with them knowledge of the sport to local men in the area. Another factor in the spread of the game was the presence of foreign companies, such as the Anglo-American Cable Company, in areas like Valentia from 1860s on. British employees, familiar with the game may have introduced it to the islanders to form a local club. This is further supported by Begley when he referred to Laune Rangers beating 'the telegraphers in Valencia'.[11]

The first branch of the Association in Kerry was formed in Tralee on Sunday, 31 May 1885.[12] On 17 June the GAA here hosted its first athletic sports. Over 10,000 spectators attended and the meetings success established the GAA's predominance in the control of popular athletics in Ireland.[13] However this initial blooming of Gaelic activity in Kerry quickly withered, leaving rugby to continue its spread. It was only in early 1888; part influenced by the domination of the GAA's Central Executive by the IRB, but more likely because of the improving agricultural and socio-economic situation in Kerry[14], that steps were taken for a county wide establishment of the organisation. Kerry's first annual GAA Convention was held in Tralee on 7 November 1888 when nineteen separate clubs were represented and Kerry's first county board was formed.[15] The following year the inaugural county championships were held, and Kerry made her debut in the Munster championship, represented by Kenmare in hurling and in football by Laune Rangers. The success of the GAA can be seen in that the latter club, in October 1888, held a meeting at which under influence of their captain J.P. O'Sullivan they decided to forgo rugby and declare instead for Gaelic Football.[16]

Though the GAA in 1886 passed a rule which stated that members of other sporting bodies could not become members of the Association-the relationship between Gaelic football and rugby in Kerry, in these first years of co-existence, remained ambiguous. This is not surprising given the similarities between caid, rugby and early Gaelic football. . For example ten players played for both Killorglin rugby in February 1888, as well as for the Laune Rangers football team in the 1890 county championship.[17] Rugby was popular enough that at a meeting of Tralee Mitchels GAA club in October 1888, some members enquired about forming their own rugby club in the town only to be reminded the constitution of the GAA did not allow this.[18] Evidently this did not deter some from the attractions of the game. At a meeting of Mitchels the following February a charge was brought against four members for playing rugby in the town.[19] Killarney's Dr Crokes were guilty of fielding a player in the county championship in 1890 who had already been expelled for playing rugby by the County Board.[20] The Sentinel dryly observed that Crokes must be 'very accommodating indeed' allowing this man, who played for them in the championship last year, to resign as soon as the rugby season starts in winter, 'and then was taken back when the Gaelic season returned'.[21]

Despite the presence of rugby, the GAA in Kerry witnessed remarkable growth. Soon after its second convention, the number of affiliated clubs had reached thirty-three.[22] However this success proved illusionary. As early as mid-1890, with the effects of a long term agricultural depression already evident[23], GAA activity in Kerry suffered notable decline. This should not be surprising seeing as Hunt, in his study on social structure of GAA clubs, showed that at least 61.8% of GAA members were involved directly with agricultural.[24]

The decline was exasperated by the fall out over the Parnell split in December 1890. Throughout 1891 this would lead to bitter and heated arguments in the Kerry GAA, between pro and anti Parnell supporters. That January a resolution of confidence in Parnell, proposed at a board meeting, was opposed by the county chairman Thomas Slattery and treasurer M Hanlon, despite wide support for it among club delegates.[25] The clergy who already considered the GAA suspect, due to the domination of its ruling body by known IRB members, turned its back on the association.[26] Without clerical support, the GAA nationwide was robbed of a natural ally and local promoter. In addition, during the 1890s the flow of emigration, which had slowed to a trickle in the late 1880s, became a torrent. Census reports showed Ireland's population decreased by 5.3% in the decade after 1891.[27] The Sentinel reported that 83.7% of those who emigrated in 1896 were aged between 15 and 35. This was exactly the age group of young rural men which GAA membership depended on. The combination of these factors almost destroyed the GAA as an organisational body. The Association sought to bolster its membership by first removing the ban on RIC members joining the organisation at its convention in April 1893.[28] Then in 1896 the organisation revoked its ban on foreign games.[29]

Only a strong and driven county board could have hoped to keep Gaelic activity going during these desperate times. But the GAA in Kerry received an almost mortal blow in March 1897 when Thomas Slattery, who had been president of the County Board since its inception in 1888, declined to allow his name to go forward for re-election.[30] Robbed of his energetic and forceful leadership, the GAA in Kerry practically ceased to exist. No conventions were held in 1898 or 1899, and in the latter year no board meeting was recorded. As a result the county championships were left lapse.

In the midst of these difficulties rugby survived principally in larger towns like Tralee. Tralee RFC continued to play seasonal challenge matches with senior clubs in Limerick and Cork, and competed in the Munster Senior's Cup. Likewise the club was able to augment its regular season of fixtures by playing home and away matches against local teams.[31] Players from the club were of sufficient standard to impress in a provincial trail game between North Munster and South Munster in January 1895.[32] That same year Dr William O'Sullivan of Killarney captained Queens College Cork to victory in the Munster Senior Cup and also won an Irish cap against Scotland.[33] The removal of the foreign games ban led to a definite upswing in rugby's fortunes in the county. No longer affected by any stigma associated with the sport, and in the absence of Gaelic activity, those young men who were in a position to, crossed over.

This significant uptake in rugby, despite the harsh economic conditions, can be explained by examining the social profile of rugby players in Kerry. By selecting a pool of 40 players from various Tralee and Killarney rugby combinations from 1897-1902 and matching them to census material from 1901, the results prove illuminating.[34] Broadly the same class categories employed by both the 1901 census and Hunt in his study on the social composition of GAA clubs were used.[35] Thus we find that Class I, or professionals amount to 17.5% of rugby players in this sample. Class II, which were defined as those engaged in various commercial activities such as merchants, clerks etc, amounted to 42.5% of players. Class III, those involved directly in agriculture amounted to 2.5%. Class IV was defined as those in Industrial labour of which 2.5% were unskilled and 30% skilled. The remaining 5% of players in this sample were still in education.  

If we corroborate these findings with Hunt's study, we find an enormous disparity between the 61% of GAA members engaged in agriculture as opposed to equivalent 2.5% in rugby. Likewise those in commercial activity were more than double there equivalents in the GAA who amounted to 21.8%. Eight times as many professionals were involved in rugby as opposed to the 2.2% in the GAA. Finally both skilled and unskilled industrial labour amounted to 32.5% as opposed to 14.2% for GAA members.[36] While, considering the small sample and the fact we are talking of mostly urban dwellers, the limitations of this survey need to be given due recognition; the simple fact remains, rugby players were less likely to be directly affected by the harsh agricultural situation. They were also higher up on social echelon, and had a more stable income compared to GAA members of this period. Thus they could afford to play sport, even in economically bleak times. It is interesting to note in the above survey only 15% of players were Church of Ireland, the rest being Catholic. With no organised Gaelic activity men in large towns, who may otherwise have palyed GAA, turned to rugby. Towards the end of 1898, public meetings were held in Killarney and Dingle to re-form rugby clubs here.[37] It is fascinating to note that St Brendan's Seminary Killarney, now the celebrated ''nursery'' for Gaelic football in Kerry, actually played rugby as its principal sport during this time, it being introduced under R Cruise, a Garryowen player who taught there.[38]

The status rugby had attained in Kerry can be seen when Tralee was chosen as the venue for the inter-provincial test between Munster and Leinster in January 1900. Reports of the game noted the large crowd which turned out and that gate receipts proved 'beyond all expectation'. The town was selected by the Munster branch 'which urged that such a match would tend to stimulate Rugby in the County of Kerry.'[39] Directly after the game four Tralee men were selected on the Munster team to play Ulster.[40] Such was the local enthusiasm for the sport that for the first time the railway advertised special excursions trains from Tralee and intermediate stations to Dublin, in connection with the international against Scotland.[41] That April, Tralee caused the shock of the Munster Cup by beating Cork Constitution in the semi final.[42] They therefore qualified for their first final appearance losing to Queens College 17-0.[43]

Rugby was revelling in a new found popularity in Kerry. Unchecked this may have completely altered the sporting history of the county. However one young man, sickened by the growth of the 'garrison' game put his energy into re-establishing the GAA and leading a campaign for the re-introduction of the foreign games ban. His name was Thomas F O'Sullivan.

O'Sullivan became the Sentinel correspondent for his native Listowel after leaving St Michaels secondary school. His formative years came at a time of great change and upheaval in Irish society, which witnessed a general move towards a new kind of political nationalism.[44] O'Sullivan, because of his very occupation would, more than most, have come into contact with the new political and cultural movements developing in Ireland in the 1890s. He became heavily involved with the Listowel '98 memorial committee, the Gaelic League and the local IRB.

His interest in the GAA was almost immediate. At 19 he became secretary of Listowel Temperance Football Team.[45] O'Sullivan was horrified by the growth in foreign games, especially rugby. Commentating on the situation in December 1901 he stated that six or seven years ago rugby had been almost an unknown entity in Ireland. Now, however, it had supporters in most towns and it was necessary that decisive action should be taken before it spread into rural districts 'bringing with it the pestilential spirit of Anglicisation.'[46] A likely catalyst for this stance was that during his last days in St Michaels its principal, Fr Timothy Crowely, had introduced cricket and rugby to the college. These quickly became the schools official games, the latter being most popular among students.[47]

Ruefully observing the utter lack of organisation in Gaelic activity, O'Sullivan took it upon himself to keep the flame of the GAA burning around north Kerry. In 1899, as secretary of the Listowel GAA, he organised a football tournament in which fifteen teams from north Kerry and west Limerick participated.[48] In early 1900, he moved to awaken the county from its lethargy in Gaelic affairs. Through a letter he made an appeal to club secretaries to reform the County Board.[49] The Central Council, anxious that Kerry should be brought back into the GAA's fold, dispatched two officials to help O'Sullivan organise the county. Circulars were issued to all clubs to attend a Kerry GAA Convention in Tralee on 26 May. This proved a huge success with a new county board being elected and O'Sullivan being appointed its honorary secretary.[50] By July, twenty football and four hurling teams had formally affiliated to the new board. At the annual GAA Convention that September, O'Sullivan attended as the Kerry representative.[51] 

Having re-established the GAA here on a sound footing, O'Sullivan next turned his considerable rhetorical and journalistic skills to crushing the threat of foreign sports to Gaelic games. A product of the new political nationalism of the time, this outlook coloured everything O'Sullivan said or wrote. For him the GAA represented the nationalist cultural and political bastion in an ideological battle for Ireland's sportsfields. Against it stood rugby which, to O'Sullivan, embodied foreign British rule in a guise that through his Gaelic activities, he was daily in contact with. He argued, the GAA's responsibility lay 'not only to develop Irish bone and muscle, but to foster a spirit of earnest nationality in the hearts of the rising generation...saving thousands of young Irishmen from becoming mere West Britons'.[52]

From 1901 the GAA found itself caught up in the 'snowball effect' of the new political nationalism.[53] O'Sullivan thus found a ready audience within the GAA for his nationalist views. At the adjourned meeting of the Annual Convention in December 1901, delegates voted in favour of O'Sullivan's motion:

That we the representatives of the Gaels of Ireland, in Convention assembled, pledge ourselves to resist by every means in our power the extension of English pastimes to this country as a means of preventing the Anglicisation of our people. That County Committees be empowered to disqualify or suspend members of the Association who countenance sports which are calculated to interfere with the preservation and cultivation of our distinctive National pastimes. That we call on the young men of Ireland not to identify themselves with Rugby or Association football or any other form of imported sport which is likely to injuriously affect the National pastimes.[54]

O'Sullivan as a journalist was aware of the immense potential of the press to reach and influence a far wider audience than at any time in Irish history. Having secured the moral force of GAA opinion, O'Sullivan, now the Sentinel's GAA correspondent launched a campaign, through the press, to undermine and destroy the popularity of 'English pastimes' in Kerry. In response to a letter in the Cork Examiner arguing against a foreign games ban, O'Sullivan wrote to its editor;  'In my humble opinion the persons who are promoting the extension of Rugby, Association, and the other anglicising agencies...are doing more to blot out our Nationality than the British Government.' He argued that if Gaels drew inspiration 'from native and not from foreign sources...[and instead of] aping foreign manners and customs, and as a result degenerating from sterling Irishmen into contemptible West Britons,...there would be no fear of the ultimate triumph of our National cause'.  Defiantly he ended; '[We Have] every desire to prevent our young men from becoming anglicised cads.'[55]

To counter any detractors over his stance on foreign games he argued; that if the GAA were a purely sporting body and not a nationalist organisation it 'would not justify its existence for twenty-four hours'.[56] Further espousing a militant nationalism, he declared it would be from the membership of the GAA that 'the material may one day be drawn for striking an effective and manly blow at the whole accursed system of British domination in this country of ours.'[57]

Following Tralee's defeat in the Munster Cup in early 1902, O'Sullivan, with unmistakeable glee, inserted a mock obituary into his column stating that the Tralee Rugby team had succumbed and 'died' on 17^th March in Markets Field Limerick, 'after an hour's painful illness. Regretted by a large circle of shoneens –R.I.P.'[58] The patrons of rugby in Kerry, lacking the countywide organisation of the local GAA, and without a voice in the increasingly nationalist popular media, could not hope to fight off such a determined attack on its status. Rugby followers found it impossible to defend the sport against the charge of it being another extension of the 'British garrison' in Ireland. The game was unable to win the battle for the minds of an increasingly nationalistic, local population.

In December 1902, O'Sullivan was influential in a more stringent resolution on foreign games being passed by the Central Executive. This rendered it obligatory and not optional as was previously the case, for county committees to expel Gaelic players 'participating in, or encouraging in any way West-British pastimes like Rugby or soccer which are calculated to interfere with our national sports.'[59] In 1903 his efforts earned him the position of president of the Munster Council. In a final triumph for his crusade, at the delayed 1904 Convention, in January 1905, a large majority of delegates decided to enforce from 1 February, a rule suspending members for two years caught playing soccer, rugby, hockey, cricket and other such imported games.[60]

Thanks in large part to the press and administrative campaigns of O'Sullivan, the GAA was in position to annex Kerry's sporting heritage. On 15 October 1905, Kerry won its first All Ireland football title, after an epic three match saga with Kildare. The games smashed all previous attendance records and captured the imagination of the Irish sporting public, going a long way to securing the leading position of the GAA in Ireland's sporting psyche. The foundation stone of the Kerry tradition in Gaelic football was laid. Rugby, condemned because of its origins in this new 'Irish Ireland' found little support. Among the nationalist press in Kerry the reporting of the game virtually ceased after late 1902. Rugby quietly slipped away into the background of Kerry's sporting history.  

Epilogue

It would be twenty years before rugby to any degree would resurface in the county. However its re-emergence in 1926 in the main towns of the county, so soon after the upheavals of the previous ten years, is testament to its resilience and popularity among a small, but core group of supporters.[61] In essence, the same echelon which supported the game two decades before, were there to do so again.[62] From 1929 onwards the McElligott Cup was inaugurated for competition among senior clubs in Tralee, Dingle, Listowel, Castleisland, Killorglin and Killarney. The same year the MacGillycuddy cup was offered for competition between junior teams. This time, rugby did not have to contend with any concentrated campaign against it. Indeed, throughout the later 1920's there was a push at Annual Congress to remove the ban on foreign games, many feeling it had served its purpose and was unneeded in an autonomous Irish state.

The Gaels of Kerry could rest secure however, the battle for the county's sporting tradition had been won for Gaelic football and rugby would remain obscured, behind its long shadow.

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