Ellen Coyne: Modern GAA has to unravel almost 140 years of sexism before it can claim to be the place ‘where we all belong’

Ellen Coyne: Modern GAA has to unravel almost 140 years of sexism before it can claim to be the place ‘where we all belong’

Eight men assembled in the billiards room of Hayes Hotel in Thurles at 3pm on Saturday, November 1, 1884, and created the GAA. The vision Michael Cusack had that day for an organisation that would preserve and protect native Irish sports would go on to become the vanguard of 20th-century cultural nationalism, only growing in fervent tenacity in the wake of Irish independence.

Cusack allowed the spirit of the Gael to ‘grow in all Irish people’

Mary McAleese discussed hurling with the late Queen Elizabeth and the impact of the GAA with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, she said on Thursday of last week as she was officially announced as Honorary Patron of the Michael Cusack Heritage Centre, the birthplace of the founder of the GAA. “Over the years I have had the privilege of being able to talk about Cumann Lúthchleas Gael in the strangest of places. Places you would barely imagine, on the ro…