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Didn't the Hogan Stand always have a VIP section?  You'd hardly put the President and the Taoiseach on the hill now, would you?

And didn't the sale of corporate boxes in Croke Park pay for the majority of the work done in rebuilding the stadium?

As for sponsors, why shouldn't you give them a few perks like preferential seating at the games?  God forbid if we ever have to go back to standing on muddy hills and urinating up against the nearest wall at half time because the stinking jacks aren't big enough. That's what we'd be doing if it wasn't for sponsors. It just makes good business sense to take care of the boys that take care of us.

Oh, and that rule about translating names into their Irish equivalents doesn't apply to foreign names that don't translate.

It's still a silly rule though. Pedro Delgado the cyclist was never called Peter Thin in the anglophone media. Your name is what your name is in whatever language your parents used to name you.

My old club used to do Irish lessons, I found them deadly handy when I was at primary school.  Gave me a great head start when I went to secondary school and had a year up on everyone else that was starting Irish.  That said, things fell apart five years later when I got a vicious and abusive incompetent teacher who put me off it for a long time. I've forgotten over half of what I learned.

Some people talk about the GAA in terms of "them", "those other people, over there."  If you feel strongly enough about promoting Irish, go and get a bit of teacher training and then run an Irish class at your local club. It's a volunteer association, you're free to volunteer to do your bit to help the language.  I used to "wish" the GAA would produce videos to explain what Gaelic games are, and when they finally did, they did an awful job.  I could have bitched about it, but instead I eventually took matters into my own hands and made my own movies.  I took positive action.

This business of pointing fingers and blaming people for the sorry state of the Irish language isn't going to do much good.  Some of this thread reminds me of when I was in school and teachers would give out to us and tell us we were "a disgrace" because we knew so little about our own country. Well excuse me Mr teacher sir, but how do you expect us to know this stuff if we're not taught? 

Ever go to a football match in the north?  Listen to the sound of the crowd singing the national anthem.  There is no sound. People don't know the words to it. Why? Because they're not taught anywhere. Parents think it's the schools' job to teach that sort of thing. Schools think it's up to the parents. GAA clubs don't think it's in their remit, or if it is they're too busy thinking about winning this year's championship to bother with such things.  Everybody looks at everybody else, waiting for someone else to do the work and then we wonder why it doesn't get done.

So if you want to see something done, take positive action. Don't just bitch about it and complain that somebody else didn't do it for you! Come up with a plan for teaching Irish, even if it means paying a teacher to come to your local club or clubs for a couple of hours a week.  Set some goals, like getting class members qualified to sit the Junior Cert (or GCSE in the north) within a fixed time frame and run a course over a fixed period of months leading up to it.  Run different lessons for specific age groups. Get primary school youngsters learning it. Come up with a fee that you can charge for taking the class, if people pay up front they'll be more likely to finish the course.  Cost it up, write up a plan, and submit it to your club committee or county board and see if you can get a bit of funding for it. Be positive and proactive.

Back on topic.  RTE used to piss me off with their build-up to the match where you'd hear over an hour of speculation from the experts almost right up the last minute and get to see nothing of the pageantry on the field, until Michael Lyster says "And we have to stop you there Cyril because the teams are now on the field."  So the explosive moment when the teams burst onto the field one at a time (which the GAA does better than any other sport including international soccer and American football) was completely overlooked.

The camera work leaves a lot to be desired too.  I seem to remember watching hurling on RTE years ago and you got to see a lot more close-up action. Now it all seems to be long-range stuff, so you can see where everyone is on the field but where the hell is the sliothar? And with the puckouts, they used to show the keeper actually hitting the ball before cutting to the long view, now they cut to the long view just before he hits it. Very annoying.

Here's the hurling captions if you want to have a go at them too.  Languages covered already:

Danish
Dutch
French
German
Polish
Russian
Spanish

• The skills of Lacrosse
• + The skills of baseball
• + the skills of hockey
• + an axe-shaped stick
• + 3000 years of sporting heritage
• = Hurling
• The fastest game on grass
• Catch the ball in the air
• Scoop the ball up with your stick
• Carry the ball in hand for 3 steps...
• ... Then balance it on the stick
• Strike the ball from you hand
• Strike the ball on the ground
• Strike the ball with your hand
• Shoot over the crossbar for 1 point (be careful what word you use for 'shoot', make sure it's not exclusively used for guns. Maybe just 'put' would be the better verb?)
• Shoot into the net for 3 points
• Block his stick from the front
• 'Hook' his stick from behind (you might want to say 'deflect' or 'divert' instead of 'hook')
• Above all...
• ...Be brave

OK, well I've got Swedish, Danish and Spanish covered. If you can get the rest done that'd be great. Thanks.

You can get the translations done manually, right? I don't trust translation software...

Can get it translated into a few different languages - let me know if you need any of the following:

French
Spanish
Dutch
Italian
German
Arabic
Estonian
Danish
Finnish
Nordiac
Chinese
Swedish
Turkish
Russian
Polish
Flemish

There might be a few more but off the top of my head thats what I have access to.

Jesus!  How do you have access to all them?

Swedish version is now live on Youtube. Thanks, Puckoon.

Your suggestions have merit, Zulu.  I was actually careful to get in a few scenes that show the big crowds in the background so that first-time viewers of the sport can see that it is big somewhere.

As for getting kids into the shot, maybe I'll do that in a more youth-oriented movie. The purpose of this film is to let the viewer know that the game exists, that it is popular in at least one country, and to show the basics of how the game is played. It's pitched at more of an adult demographic, but I think kids would get excited by it too.

I plan to crank out a few more versions of this sort of film, I've made a 15-second one for hurling, for example.  I plan to make 15-second spots and 30-second spots for online advertising purposes.  We're actually working on a bit of a GAA marketing plan here for the US, and online video advertising will likely be a major part of that.

Got it in Spanish.

Got the Swedish, and I've asked someone to do French and Spanish, although Juice if you have the Spanish done then by all means send it.

It'd be great to have it in Catalan all right.  Want to do the hurling captions while you're at it?

Good man, Puckoon.

Keep Hope Alive by The crystal Method.

Benny, if you want the DVD version, contact me through my youtube channel and give me your address, I can send it on to you.

First person shooter style video from Milwaukee Hurling club shot with a helmetcam. Not the highest standard you've ever seen (and yes, they play co-ed) but still great to watch. I'd love to see first-hand views of a senior game.