I know you’re joking when you say the Dubs are nice people ;-)

Unfortunately my experiences with all things GAA lead me to believe that they and the Catholic church are one and the same. So I can’t but help think that the GAA are a homophobic organisation too.

what experiences are they?

Ah yeah. The usual baseless shite doled out. ‘One and the same’. sweet Jesus. Although John Paul 1 was a nifty corner forward.

C’mon rodrigo spit it out what are your experiences till we all get a chance to pass judgement

I’m not sure that actually happened as described. I gather from the tone of Cusack’s comments that it was a metaphor for a loud mouth, rather than someone with an actual megaphone.

I think MEP Pedgergast picked it up wrongly too. This was a typical incident rather than a specific one. I guess Donal Og is best placed to clarify himself. Either way she is making big allegations against the GAA on the basis of second-hand information which was probably intended to demonstrate that type of thing that can happen at sports matches. Had she actually witnessed a homophobic incident herself she would be on stronger ground. This just seems reactionary.

“And, shockingly, maybe the MEP in question is on the make with his statement. He is a politician after all.”

Phil is actually a woman! But I agree completely.

Apologies and it is rather sexist to assume the politician in question was a man

Who got out the wrong side of bed this morning?

Well this is an Irish site so it shouldn’t be too much to ask for the proper spellings to be used. That said there is a tip/correction button for a reason. Use that instead of the comment section where you look just a bit arrogant.

@ John Murphy – Both versions are acutually acceptable and the ‘z’ for was generally used in British English prior to the ‘s’ version. It became less used in British but the American English version retained it for the most part. Therefore, both are correct in British English.

British English using -ize is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary. The Cambridge University Press, on the other hand, has long preferred -ise and many reference works, including the Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage, prefer -ise. Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often seen in the UK as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers,including The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Economist. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement.

In any case, get your facts straight before you go on a grammatical crusade.

I’m entitled to my opinion as well as every one else I shouldn’t need to send a tip/correction on poor punctuation or basic spelling and I did add with respect. We expect better from those who chose to write as a career.

@ John Murphy

John, using the ‘z’ as in ‘criticize’ etc., is not incorrect in this context and the author is entirely correct in using it. It can be used in both British, American and Hiberno English.

You are in the wrong here. Your ‘opinion’ in this instance is based on a mistaken assumption that you are now passing off as a ‘fact’. We expect better……

@ John– ‘With all Due Respect’… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af-Id_fuXFA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

There’s no correct usage as long as you’re consistent, I personally prefer ‘ise’

I use -ize these days to avoid red squiggles in spell checkers. Criticize all you like, I’m never going to arsed to reconfigure them all!

Oh well were meddling in the realm of pedantic, why not go the whole hog and make a formal request behalf of the self appointed spelling police for the entirity of this Irish site to be written ‘as Gaeilge’ (in Irish). Thank you so much for your outstanding and relevant contribution to the subject matter of this article.

Well ya can’t really say its way ahead of other sports if it’s the only one you’ve any real experience of

Hence the reason I emphasised “FOR ME” ;-)

You may have emphasised “FOR ME” doesn’t alter the fact that you can’t realistically make that sort of observation if you’ve only experienced one sport.

Their is no “me” in team, broaden your sporting horizons before making comment, their are plenty of other sporting organisations in the Royal County other than the GAA you could try out to allow you make a more rounded opinion

Because this was direct criticism of the GAA itself, just because some prominent members of the GAA independently attend a rally doesn’t mean that the GAA is involved in Quinn. Why should they have responded to that, nothing to do with them

Nice i.r.f.u. badge on your profile pic by the way.

Wow…just….wow. Did you just compare an amateur sports person to a paedophile priest?

Don’t know anything about the MEP quoted in the article but to compare the GAA to soccer hooligans is laughable. I’m presuming he has an agenda

@John Daly – FYI, I can honestly say I’ve met more open-minded, lovely people, treating each other with respect in The George than any day in mass. To use your terminology, I “dislike” the attitudes of pious Christians, quoting phrases like “den of iniquity” in order to disparage other sectors of the community. By the way, you have read the bible, right? Who were the people Jesus hung out with the most? Tax collectors, prostitutes, disliked members of society. I would say he would have been a regular round at The George. Not before throwing you “dislikers” out of the chapel for being the unchristian, judgemental and using his name as a weapon in your narrow-minded vendetta.

@Alan Forbes
Careful on that high moral ground Alan, it looks very slippery up there

Ridiculous and obviously biased statement full of unjust comparisons and blatant lies. Why do you comment on an organisation like the GAA when you so blatantly know nothing about it

Interesting observation

Well you bowled us all over with that insightful contribution

Increasing popularity of Rugby? Leinster win back to back Heineken Cups and don’t even have a homecoming due to a lack of interest. That’s a team that represents 12 counties.
Dublin win the All Ireland and their homecoming is attended by 50000 people. They represent one county.
I don’t think anyone involved in GAA circles is overly concerned by the ‘popularity’ (fad) of rugby in this country. Already we see Munster are beginning to struggle to ell tickets now they’re clearly not as dominant and as a man who lives in Leinster I fail to see any great inroads rugby has made in my local areas.

Believe you and me the success of the GAA has nothing to do with the relative lack of success at international level of soccer and rugby over the years, and good lord don’t dare pin the continued failure that is the league of Ireland on the GAA, rugby and particularly soccer has been beset by poor administration and organisation over the years with little or no foresight and almost zero investment. The GAA put their money back into their games by way of coaching, facilities and stadia, if soccer and rugby had continually done the same then they might have had more success. If you think Croke Park is jealous of rugby then you are mistaken

I think the homecoming argument is a bit weak. Dublin winning the All Ireland for the first time in 16 years was always going to have a huge turnout. The province structure of rugby isn’t necessarily representative of all the counties in the province, it’s just a convenient administration structure. Leinster is largely representative of Dublin and Munster is largely representative of Limerick and Cork. Rugby is not that popular in Kerry or Tipp for example. I often put this question to GAA fans, would they rather see their county win the All Ireland or their country win a world cup in soccer or rugby? I’ve only had one person choose their county and that’s because it was a Mayo fan. They’ve waited long enough!

Leinster is largely representative of Dublin and Munster the same with Cork and Limerick, I feel it is that type of thinking that has deprived rugby of more success. If rugby wants to win over the minds of people it needs to get in to all the counties, establish itself and work hard to build up local teams and a support base and then represent the entire province instead of focussing on the elite core in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. The rest of us are Irish too you know and surprising as it may seem we do support the rugby team and delight in it doing well

People tend to forget that with rights comes responsibility.

What has two men having sex in public got to do with gay rights? Gay rights is all about preventing discrimination two people having sex in a public toilet is already illegal. Why did you feel the need to mention it was two men at it in a discussion about homophobia in the GAA? Rather irrelevant don’t you think?

“So if we listen to people today everyone is entitled to their rights” Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, but you actually think it’s a bad thing! So if everyone isn’t entitled to their rights, who do you think is entitled and who isn’t? I’d love to hear you expand on that. And should people not be allowed to do whatever they want without consequences when they’re not harming anybody?

So you saw two blokes come out of a toilet together and you’re worried about your kids seeing that. Bravo – an admirable attempt on your part to shove in a “think of the children” argument, the oldest trick in the book. Except of course, kids don’t jump to the same conclusions as you, because it’s way over their heads. I don’t think people should be having sex in public toilets, but at least it’s relatively private. I have more than once seen straight couples quite obviously engaging in sexual activity right on the street in front of everyone. Some people have sex in inappropriate places – sexuality doesn’t come into it and it can’t be used as an argument to deny rights to the demographic to which they belong.

What kind of rights aren’t “invented”? If gay rights are “invented”, then so are yours.

“A woman in New York wants the right to go topless down the street.”

And that’s a problem, why exactly? If you ask me, all women should have the right to walk around outside topless. Who – other than sexually repressed conservatives who think anything sexual is bad – could oppose such a measure? Nudity rocks!

“What about my right not to have my children exposed to that??”

Imprison them in an opaque bubble. It’s people like you who are holding the rest of humanity back.

“compete” – sure ye have never got last the last 8 in a sport played competitively by about 9 countries.

Careful slating the GAA, remember who has all the stadia and is helping the IRFU with their 2023 bid.

Regrettably, this MEP is trying to score some cheap points. It is not an issue in the GAA aside from the very rare isolated issue.

Eye gouging, biting, spear tackles…all part of your game. Dylan Hartley for 6 weeks last year for biting Ferris, and he is a multiple offender??? Lawless rubbish??

Were you going to claim it as an expense?

Great story, thanks for sharing :-)

I saw a bird on the way to work this morning.

Anyone with any other pieces of useless info?

I see dead people

And he was right to laugh