Most of those who wear the jerseys know little of him, not even that he was born in Clonakilty in the county of Cork. Yet, the prophetic words of the 1916 leader, Patrick Pearse, delivering the graveside oration for Rossa, have reverberated down the years. Not so long after Pearse spoke stirring words in Glasnevin cemetery, in 1913, in the city of Dublin, he, James Connolly and others were facing a British firing squad in the stone breakers' yard of Kilmainham Gaol.
At Rossa's graveside, Pearse explained the Corkman's significance to the burgeoning Volunteer movement thus: 'Almost alone among the young men of his generation, O'Donovan Rossa saw Ireland as we of today would surely have her - not free merely, but Gaelic as well, not Gaelic merely, but free as well...'. Pearse was, of course, a member of the secretive revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), who were the real organising force behind the 1916 Rising.
Almost from its inception in Hayes's Hotel in Thurles, in the county Tipperary, the Gaelic Athletic Association was strongly influenced by IRB members. Three out of the seven men present on that historic occasion in Thurles were members of the IRB. Names from history that have become familiar again to a new generation, through the cinema - Harry Boland and Michael Collins, for example - were members of both the IRB and the GAA and personify the linkage we are talking about. While Pearse may have handled a revolver from time to time, it's not known if he ever took a hurley in his hand (a possibility when he attended Westland Row CBS in Dublin) but certainly in his model school, St Enda's in Rathfarnham, boys were encouraged to play hurling and girls likewise with camogie.
The foundation of the GAA was but one aspect of a multi-facetted movement towards Irish freedom and the revival of Irish culture in the latter part of the 19th century. Others included the Gaelic League, the Abbey Theatre and the broad literary revival. The founders of the GAA made it clear they saw it as going beyond being a 'mere' sporting body. The Dublin Castle authorities certainly saw it in that way, because the monthly reports of District Inspectors of the Royal Irish Constabulary are peppered with references to GAA activities, almost in the same breath as the IRB and the Volunteers. (Shortly after its foundation in 1909, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union earned similar attention from the Castle's 'eyes and ears').
Therefore, the GAA has always seen itself as having a particular role in the promotion of the 'revival' of the Irish language and of Irish-made goods and services. The Association was enthusiastically identified with the Irish Free State's policy of making the study of Irish compulsory in our schools. This support was taken to extreme lengths by insisting that letters of objection to illegal players (for example) were not valid unless they were submitted on 'Gaelic watermarked notepaper' and there was many's the row years ago over the validity or otherwise of such an objection, because of this requirement. Players' names, often names not of a particularly Irish origin, were laboriously translated into hilarious versions for inclusion in match programmes and - of course - no self-respecting GAA occasion worth it's salt was without it's mandatory, ritualistic 'cúpla focal' from the Cathaoirleach or Rúnaí. At least in the recent Offaly v Kildare match programme, someone had the good sense to leave Anthony Rainbow's name the same in both languages, though there was a time he might have been called 'Antóin Bogha Ceatha'!
No more than many years of 'compulsory' Irish by the state, none of this GAA activity did much for the 'revival' of Irish, but nor did it do too much harm either. In recent years, however, An Fear Rua has become increasingly concerned that - far from being a friend of the language - the GAA's slipshod approach to Irish is doing serious damage to it. Match programmes and other GAA documents at both national and local level are profusely littered with grotesque misspellings, execrable grammatical errors and a general disdain for the grammatical gender of nouns and adjectives.... Errors of a type that were they to occur in English language documents, the authors would be laughed out of the relevant meeting and immediately sent on an Adult Literacy course.
The obvious riposte to AFR on this one is that he is being a pedant or is simply carrying on the old 'Gaeilgeoir' tradition of intolerance towards people who make valiant efforts at speaking Irish, but who make mistakes in so doing. Nothing could be further from the truth. AFR respects and will always encourage people who are genuinely trying to recall the 'cúpla focal' to use them. Even among the wide boyos of Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds there are a few of them who will occasionally make the effort to order their 'laarghe' bottles of Phoenix Ale in Irish from Ma Molloy, in the back 'shnug' of her famous drinking emporium.
Ah no. The GAA is a different matter. This is not some poor fella trying to remember the few bits of school Irish drummed into him by the sharp, hairy knuckles of a 'Christian' Brother. This is a body - 'Dis Great Association Of Ours' - that sets itself up as a defender and promoter of Irish and all things Irish and so must be judged by a much more rigorous higher standard. Without wishing to single out a particular county - because all fail miserably on this issue - AFR's patience on this finally snapped when he recently saw the Ulster senior football champions, Armagh, togged out in jerseys with not one, but two grammatical errors in the Gaelic name of the county! The name carried on their back was 'Ard Maca'. Even the kids in school know that the Gaelic name of this county is 'Ard Mhacha'. That great Gaelic scholar from South Armagh, the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, must be spinning in his grave. But for how long would the likes of Oisín McConville, Diarmuid Marsden and Kieran McGeeney be allowed to run around a pitch if the county name on their backs was spelt 'Armah' 'Ermagh' or even 'Ormaugh'? Ah but, then, tis' only oul' Irish and anything will do for that!
The GAA's Leinster Council managed to mark their centenary year by murdering the Irish language version of their name. Instead of the correct version 'Comhairle Laighin' they used the grammatically nonsensical 'Comhairle Laighean'. Now, again, An Fear Rua is the first to concede that Irish is not a simple language. Generally, the more frequently and more widespreadly a language is used the simpler are its grammatical rules. Reflecting its particular history as a language in historical decline, Irish has a bewildering array of grammatical rules that seem illogical to the unwary learner, but are designed for ease of pronunciation and consistency. Indeed, if anyone thinks the Irish language of today is complicated, they have not encountered it in its full complex glory before an official attempt was made to standardise the rules and spelling in 1960. But complexity is not confined to Irish as many a student of the subjunctive in French can tell you or even a misfortunate foreigner grappling with the spelling of English words like 'tough' or 'plough' or 'furlough'.
So, complexity of the language is no excuse for getting it so badly wrong so often. For a language to survive, one of the elements it needs is standardisation and consistent application of those standards in public. To the extent that the GAA chooses to, it has an important role to play in this. If it goes on the way it is unchecked,