GAA PUNDIT AND ex-Derry footballer Joe Brolly has attacked the prejudicial attitudes which he believes still exist in the GAA.
The pundit, who is renowned for his controversial views on the game, was writing in his column for the Derry Journal.
Brolly pointed to various examples of this attitude and added:
“When northern teams were winning nothing, coming down to get an annual hammering, we were patronised left, right and centre. ‘It’s great to see ye keeping the game alive up there.’ When we started winning and winning regularly in the 90s and noughties, begrudgery was the new theme. Armagh were robots. Tyrone? Puke footballers. Suddenly, we are British b*****ds who should go back to the north.”
Brolly won two All-Star awards over the course of his playing career, and was part of the first-ever Derry side to win the All-Ireland Championship in 1993.
Well i for one would never make such a statement. GAA is one of the only links that wasn’t severed and we should never take for granted the role it plays in keeping the north and south connected.
The rugby, cricket, hockey and golf unions are but a number of examples of sporting organisations that have stayed ‘All-Ireland’ since partition.
If we look at those sports that most divide people in Ireland it’s the GAA and Soccer… There are historical factors behind this but it’s a fact!
Would it not be great to see Shankill GAA Club some day? We have clubs in Hong Kong and South American… Why not East Belfast?
Really that’s up to the people of belfast if they want to set up a club but I do agree that of course it causes divisions but that Is sport. Is there not the same divisions between cork and Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford and take for example the rugby team with northern players who refused to sing the National anthem however it unites people in other ways especially when people from the north travel to Dublin to see matches and vice versa who would not have visited otherwise.
Is the Shankill road in East Belfast?
@Steve, I don’t think the GAA has ever attempted to recruit outside of it’s typical constituency. It’d be good if it did. Was it not only two seasons ago that a protestant Fermanagh footballer left the squad because of sectarian abuse?
The reason the National Anthem of the Irish Republic is not sang by many Northern players is because they don’t see themselves as citizens of that state. If it means listening to ‘Irelands Call’ to have a united Irish team then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Do people really think everything should stay the same if we expect to integrate? Was it not for the very reason of compromise that we have orange on the tricolour?
@Brian, as far as I’m aware the, despite being as loyalist as much of the East, Shankill is in West Belfast… But google maps might be in a better position to advise you.
@winston I totally agree and in my opinion a new national anthem is long overdue. While nobody can deny that sectarianism is prominent in every aspect of irish life even though we don’t like to admit it, the GAA promoted integration. There will be bitterness in NI for some time and I think for some southerners that is hard to comprehend, but the GAA acts as a promoter to integration, and there is little anyone can do to change the minds of biggots who refuse to change their sectarian outlook.
Get that chip off your shoulder brolly
shut up joe
I have first hand experience of GAA prejudices. Despite being the best in my class, and having a family steeped in GAA heritage, I could not play because of an English accent. Despite Irish parents and Irish upbringing in London, they would not. Today I am a rugby fan. My sons will never play for these bigots.
Totally agree with you Mairtin! My sons 7 year old friend is half Scottish, and he was advised by his teachers not to play GAA. Scandalous behaviour in this day and age!
Sorry to hear ye were treated like that,I dont think you can tarnish the whole gaa prejudice.If you were good enough the would of played you,maybe your parents just told you it was the old english accent thing so your fellings would’nt be hurt.Your son’s should play what ever sports the want to play,only a bigot would stop them.
Darran Sullivan grew up in London, ended up captaining Kerry to an all Ireland so that argument doesnt quite stack up
Says the biggest prejudicer of them all. Got a few too many hard shoulders off cork when he was playing and as a result spouts lies and ignorant rubbish about them regularly, gives Dublin a hard time too. The man is a clown, simple as!
Maybe brolly should look at his own prejudice. He hates kerry footballers for a start.
To be fair I think everyone outside of Kerry has that opinion…
Wonder has Joe ever been in the stands when a game is being played between a team from Ulster & Leinster. I have been to plenty of games and the craics great,the fans mingle and chat amongst themselves. So I really don’t know what he’s on about. In my opinion the GAA is like one big family altogether. Ulster Munster Leinster & Connaught
Priests and the GAA! Match made in hell!
Spot on Joe Brolly. Looks like you have unleashed a few more bigots online too. Cuddly tolerant Ireland, where everyone is welcome, as long as you know your place and keep your mouth shut.
Some of the responses to Joe Brolly’s comments are laughable. Quality debate like “Shut up” Brolly and references to Northern Players issuing Southern players with threats from terrorist organisations. Is it conceivable that there could be some truth in Brolly’s assertions? There are a number of individuals who give testimony to this and they can’t all be wrong; or can they? Heads out of the sand people. Let’s not ignore the problem in our midst. Irish society has a tendency to excuse itself of its failings and overlook its rogues. A certain Mr Ahern is proof of that!
I usually enjoy Joe Brolly but he is just trying to stir it here. Joe has named a few incidents and insists it is widespread. It happens both ways and Joe should know that.” Free state bas*****,” and ”traitor” are among the abuse I’v heard dished out from our Northern friends on the field. Using the quote from Tommy Smith is pretty sad too.
Strong argument it happens both ways. Wow! Forward thinking or what! Liked the sincere reference with perhaps just a touch of bile to our “northern friends”. Just a little bit revealing.
Totally agree with your point I have played against many northern teams a the old saying “fuck off you free state bastard ” can be thrown at you, so
In my view it’s a too way street, sad to see in this day and age what hope have we got when we are fighting amongst our own
The same Joe who can barely mention Mayo without a smirk giggle or dismissive laugh. G’lad Joe! That patronising enough for ya?
Everyone its Joe Brolly- he likes to stir things, and to be frank the only time i got abuse hurled at me at a match was “go back to Londonderry” and that was from an under-21 game against Donegal… People at matches hurl abuse, what they hurl will always be controversial no matter what topic.
I dont know if Brolly is right or wrong but he was a great footballer,I played against him many years ago and he was a fair player on and off the field. PS Up the Dubs.
He’s a Derryman who was a super-sub in the 1993 semi-final against Dublin so he’s alright with me! Doire Abú!
Make your mind up Joe. Two weeks ago you said it was a storm in a tea cup..http://www.thescore.ie/brolly-portlaoise-god-save-the-queen-controversy-a-storm-in-a-tea-cup-391564-Mar2012/
Joe Brolly was an under achiever and knows nothing about football, Hes just wants to be in the news G it up merchant.
Ah yes that would be Joe the poor 2 time all star, all ireland winning underachiever…… He lives to stir it up but is one man who gives back to the GAA locally. He came to play in charity match for my local hospice nowhere near where he lives, played, stayed after to do presentations and when he was leaving handed me a £200 cheque as a donation to the hospice. For all the crap he gets and sometimes deserved I can’t think of too many others who would do that.
It’s not a strictly RoI/NI divide. Many GAA folk in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal feel a greater affinity for their fellow Ulsterians from across the border than they do for those from further south.
Its part of the croppy boy mind set
To be honest if there is sectarianism in the GAA it’s the northern teams who bring it. Sectarianism is so deeply engrained in them they think everyone else is like them.
I come from Belfast and since moving to Cork have never suffered an ounce of abuse about being from the north nor my Protestant background.
However I can tell you all sorts of stories about prejudice from the North. A friend of mine wanted to see Antrim play, so a mutual friend who is Catholic brought him to casement park to see the football. My friend was enjoying the match until the local heavies noticed him and started to ask him questions. Wee willy hadn’t the brains to lie and when he admitted he was from east Belfast he was advised to leave while he could as “Huns aren’t welcome” in republican west Belfast.
Another incident happened in cork. My local football team had a mini tournament going for the U14s I think it was. One team was from Newry. They had been given local GAA families to stay with. One delightful kid refused to stay with the Family. Why you might ask. Because the wife of the family had on an orange jumper marking her a protestant.
That is the petty mindset of the Northern GAA, that is why they accuse everyone else of being bigoted because they are themselves.
Hardly generalising there at all are you? You’re pretty much saying all bigotry comes from the north. What utter bullshit!
The fact of the matter is I am from the North, I spend 29 years of my life in Belfast, sectarian incidents are a daily occurance in that place from either side. Northern Ireland is by it’s very nature a sectarial society, the design of it’s government in Stormont is sectarian were you are not just designated by party but by Nationalist or Unionist, oh what a thorn on the side the Alliance must be.
By contrast in 2 years living in Cork I have never once been victim to any sectarian attitude or prejudice. I’ve been made welcome at GAA matches and in the wider community.
The incidents I mentioned above are but a small drop in the ocean. The North is not a normal society. Just because the bombs stopped doesn’t mean it’s over, wars are hot and cold and what we have in the North is a cold war were communities do not mox, do not trust each other and do not want to forgive or forget, they want to wallow in it and accuse everyone not on their side of being against them, it would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
@frankie: call him what you like but he was not an under-achiever. He was an excellent forward….wikipedia him and you will see for yourself.
Brolly you are the biggest dose ever. An even bigger dose than Pat Spillane. And he is a woeful dose.
Too much nationalism and republicanism in sport Just look at Celtic and Rangers. This is real tribal primitive behaviour by so called adults. The GAA promote the tribal behaviour as do SOCCOR clubs which is not healthy. Look at the money spent on football by supporters – thousands per year to attend matched home and away with all the expense attached to afters in the clubs. If the wives asked for the money for college feed for the kids they would be laughed at in most instances. Marraige breakup in the UK is very high because of sport and I quess here the lads prefer the GAA
Ire than their wives and kids. It would be money well spent to equip your children with a good education rather than a great knoledge of the Joe Brolly’s of Ireland.
Frankie faldo first says he played against a great player called Brolly; then says Brolly knows nothing about the game. He was commenting, only last week, about how he got racist abuse in london. Liar liar liar!
if there was a line drawn in eire would carnaross be in the north?i must be on your side so doe jolly,up the wee 16!