As ever, I’m far more interested in what pieces like this say about Irish people than I am in what they say about Ireland’s migrant communities. The problem postulated here, by Denis Walsh in the Irish Times, is an interesting one:
The GAA is acutely aware of the landscape and its contours. By 2011, the number of Poles living in Ireland had grown to over 122,000; five years later, in the next census, that number had fallen by just 70. Clearly, they had come to stay. What did that mean for the biggest sporting organisation in the country? It should have meant a recruitment blitz, but the outreach has been tentative and the response has been cold.
It is not just the Polish community. According to the 2016 census, the number of non-Irish nationals living here is more than 535,000. It is impossible to claim that such a dramatic population shift is reflected on the playing fields of the GAA.
“Despite the population being out there we haven’t made many inroads yet,” said Colm Cummins, when he was chair of the GAA’s community development committee. “My own observation would be that we probably underestimated how broad a church it is in terms of the different cultures and how they perceive the GAA.”
The issue is a straightforward one: The country has a very large population of people from other countries and cultures, but very few of them (with some notable exceptions) are playing Ireland’s national game or joining Ireland’s pre-eminent sporting organisation.
Now, let’s imagine for a moment that the wrong kind of person were to say something like this: “If people are coming here, they must learn our language and play our sports and integrate into our culture”. Such a statement might well be criticised as an expression of Irish cultural supremacy, and a desire to eradicate difference. Some of the more temperamental types on the left would certainly call it racism, or something very close to racism, because it demands that people abandon their own identity and traditions in return for the right to live here.
But the same desire for cultural integration and assimilation exists on the left, for slightly different reasons. The reasoning there is that if a community of migrants were to take part, and, say, lift a local GAA club from the doldrums to county championship contention with an influx of foreign talent, attitudes would shift – much like the attitudes to the Saudi Arabian regime have changed, recently, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
And of course, there’s the other element, which is the Irish desire for flattery: There’s a section of the population which wants nothing more than for our Irishness to be validated and approved of and confirmed in its excellence by the sight of people from other cultures partaking in, and excelling at, our games.
It’s one of the reasons, I think, that you see so few pieces extolling one of the genuine sporting benefits of immigration – the growth of cricket in Ireland. A sport that had been effectively banished, like the snakes, from most of the island, is now seeing a huge resurgence, based mainly on the strength of migrant communities from the subcontinent. Towns like Nenagh in Tipperary now have cricket clubs capable of fielding three or four full strength sides. Based on the increased domestic competition, the national team is going from strength to strength. The connection between immigration and the recent Irish victory over England at the cricket world cup is not hard to spot.
There’s a theory on the right that will not die: The great replacement. Go to any kind of public meeting attended by Telegram-type activists, and you’ll hear some version of it: it postulates that the establishment are involved in a conspiracy to “replace” Irish people with more malleable and agreeable foreigners. Why any Irish liberal would want to replace this population – one of the most progressive electorates in Europe, which reliably votes for whatever it’s asked to vote for – is never explained.
But the other problem with it is that it simply misunderstands the progressive nationalist mindset. Nobody wants to replace Irish people – it’s quite the opposite. If anything, there’s a burning desire to to have Irishness approved of and improved upon. It’s really quite as simple as the following equation: People wanting to come here and be Irish = evidence that Ireland is great.
And that, in turn, explains the desire to get more people playing Irish games, because more people playing those games tickles the need to be flattered by demonstrating that these games are Irish and brilliant.
There’s a reason, after all, that a young fellow born in Poland who turns out to be a GAA prodigy will get banner coverage in the media – it’s not really about him, it’s about us, and how excellent our games are.
It might be better to stop talking about the great replacement, and start talking about the great neediness.
It would certainly be more accurate.