East Belfast GAA

[nearlymad]

  IN THE NAME OF SWEET JE-US,CAN WE GET BACK ON THIS TOPIC AS I ONLY STARTED THIS IS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE EB GAA CLUB NOT THIS PAGE UPON PAGE OF DRIBLE AND POLITICS?
   PERSONALLY SPEAKING THIS HAS DIGRESSED DUE TO THE INTRODUCTION OF MS.ERVINE.
                                 Ps Sorry for shouting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Snapchap]

Where are you getting this ban the anthem in the north notion from? Its a total strawman.

In your very first engagement with me this evening, you quoted and replied to my most recent response to Rossfan, who is advocating that very notion. So it's no strawman. He wants all sports organisations in the north to sign up to a protocol against flags and anthems. Which would require a change to current GAA rules. However he is not advocating that rule change be applied in the south.

And in fairness, your own replies to me tonight would strongly suggest you are in the same camp as he is. My apologies if I'm wrong but you certainly haven't said much to suggest otherwise.

[Baile Brigín 2]

Where are you getting this ban the anthem in the north notion from? Its a total strawman.

In your very first engagement with me this evening, you quoted and replied to my most recent response to Rossfan, who is advocating that very notion. So it's no strawman. He wants all sports organisations in the north to sign up to a protocol against flags and anthems. Which would require a change to current GAA rules. However he is not advocating that rule change be applied in the south.

And in fairness, your own replies to me tonight would strongly suggest you are in the same camp as he is. My apologies if I'm wrong but you certainly haven't said much to suggest otherwise.

He actually didn't and I certainly didn't. Nobody but you has talked about banning anything. Its a strawman you have hysterically reacted too.

[Snapchap]

Where are you getting this ban the anthem in the north notion from? Its a total strawman.

In your very first engagement with me this evening, you quoted and replied to my most recent response to Rossfan, who is advocating that very notion. So it's no strawman. He wants all sports organisations in the north to sign up to a protocol against flags and anthems. Which would require a change to current GAA rules. However he is not advocating that rule change be applied in the south.

And in fairness, your own replies to me tonight would strongly suggest you are in the same camp as he is. My apologies if I'm wrong but you certainly haven't said much to suggest otherwise.

He actually didn't and I certainly didn't. Nobody but you has talked about banning anything. Its a strawman you have hysterically reacted too.

Eh, yes he did:

As I've said here before all Sports bodies in the North should have a protocol of no National Flags or Anthems .

Unless the phrase "no flags or anthems" somehow doesn't mean a ban on flags or anthems?And unless the phrase "in the north" means across the whole of Ireland?

And you say you don't believe in it either. Which is good to hear. But it does make it strange when your response to me saying they shouldn't have one set of rules for the flag and anthem in the north and another in the south was:

but we don't have a situation in the south where 50% of the population will close the curtains if a game broke out in their back garden...But if the GAA take cross community peace and love funding, some compromises have to be made.

and...

the question is why a club in Kerry should have to remove its tricolour so a club in Fermanagh can get grants.

Hardly sounds like a man that's opposed to a different rule for the north as for the south, but ok.

[johnnycool]

What possible relevance is that little history lesson to the topic in hand?

The Ulster Council signed up to various schemes and took money on the basis the GAA in the 6 would become more cross community. What was peoples expectation? That nothing could or would change?

Giving out that southerners are somehow trying to introduce partition is creating the partition you are whining about.

The relevance is that's the reason why there is a PEACE fund! But I don't recall the GAA being under an obligation to change its rule book. It has plenty of cross-community initiatives that were funded because of this along with Ulster Rugby and the IFA. So for you to suggest that the rules should change for 6/32 counties is absolute bollòx. If the GAA is going to change it has to do it on an island-wide basis

I didn't suggest that, nor even close. The Ulster council opened that door when they took outreach money.

But rugby and soccer did change. Far more nationalists migrated towords rugby than unionists the GAA. And I am far from the IFA's biggest fan, but they are trying. Genuine effort to reach out, but a bottle job on flags and anthems. Sound familiar?

But the mere suggestion that the GAA consider changing, outrage.

Would amending the constitution to drop the political stuff and allowing flags and anthems to be a local decision be a problem? If the answer is yes, you lose all right to criticise the IFA.

Outreach money? As a tax and rates payer in the North, it was nothing more than what GAA clubs were entitled to and had been denied for decades.
When the lottery kicked off in the UK and grants were available to sports clubs but they had to own their own grounds, the Unionist politicians kicked up as a disproportionate amount for grant money was going to GAA clubs oblivious to the fact that they had over the years assisted soccer clubs via the local councils and provided their facilities for a minimal fee.
GAA clubs had to go and buy their own properties and develop from scratch and sometimes were hindered by their local councils like St Peters in Lurgan.

What have the IFA done for you to laud their work that the Ulster Council hasn't as you freely admit they bottled it on the flegs and anthem?

Hardstation is right, removing the flag and anthem would be tokenism and ultimately meaningless unless the GAA rewrites the first couple of pages of their constitution, requests all clubs honouring Irish patriot dead, the Bolands, the Wolfe Tones, the Mitchels, the Rossa's, the Pearces, Sarsfields, the O'Rahillys and so forth and that's before we start into the saints names with religious connotations which can't be allowed either IMO.

That would be a big decision for the GAA and for what?

[ardtole]

Nail on the head JC.

[BennyCake]

If the East Belfast club decided to name it after a UVF man, is there anything the GAA can do about it? I mean, are there any rules now, where names have to be run by HQ for approval?

It would be interesting to see the outcome, given the amount of clubs named after Republican figures.

[trueblue1234]

You are expecting GAA people in the north to make a sacrifice that you have seemingly no interest in making yourself, and yet if we in the north object, you have the utter shamelessnes to call us bitter? Absolutely pathetic stuff.

No, but we don't have a situation in the south where 50% of the population will close the curtains if a game broke out in their back garden.

If you want the GAA to remain a nationalist game with nationalist trappings, fine. But you have to accept that tbe unionsrs will continue to flat out don't want to know.

But if the GAA take cross community peace and love funding, some compromises have to be made.

My point is that it doesn't matter how many unionists there are in the south. The GAA is an All-Ireland body. If somone in the south believes rightly or wrongly that the anthem and flag should be scrapped to accomodate unionists in the north, then it would have to be either an All-Ireland ban or nothing. The GAA never has, and never will have, separate rules for north and south. If you are as someone from the south are not prepared to make that sacrifice for the sake of appeasing unionists, then don't ask/demand that others should.

I get that.

But the Ulster Council crossed that rubicon the second they took peace dividend money. Commitments were made to be more 'inclusive'. So the question is why a club in Kerry should have to remove its tricolour so a club in Fermanagh can get grants.

I don't recall the removal of the flag as a prerequisite of the dividend money. The GAA can be more inclusive. But it wasn't specified that they had to remove the flag. So the Kerry club can keep their tricolour. Just as the club in Fermanagh can. And if the GAA don't believe it's fair to ask the Kerry club to remove the tricolour then surely as a 32 county org they wouldn't feel it was fair to ask the Fermanagh club.

[clonadmad]

If the National Anthem and National Flag and grounds names  that were problematic to Unionists were removed and renamed in the morning.

Would there be a massive upsurge in PUL community involvement in the North

Or

Would it be more a case of we demanded this,we got what we wanted and we ain't going near ye one way or the other.


Would be an interesting one for some polling company to tease out

[Baile Brigín 2]

What possible relevance is that little history lesson to the topic in hand?

The Ulster Council signed up to various schemes and took money on the basis the GAA in the 6 would become more cross community. What was peoples expectation? That nothing could or would change?

Giving out that southerners are somehow trying to introduce partition is creating the partition you are whining about.

The relevance is that's the reason why there is a PEACE fund! But I don't recall the GAA being under an obligation to change its rule book. It has plenty of cross-community initiatives that were funded because of this along with Ulster Rugby and the IFA. So for you to suggest that the rules should change for 6/32 counties is absolute bollòx. If the GAA is going to change it has to do it on an island-wide basis

I didn't suggest that, nor even close. The Ulster council opened that door when they took outreach money.

But rugby and soccer did change. Far more nationalists migrated towords rugby than unionists the GAA. And I am far from the IFA's biggest fan, but they are trying. Genuine effort to reach out, but a bottle job on flags and anthems. Sound familiar?

But the mere suggestion that the GAA consider changing, outrage.

Would amending the constitution to drop the political stuff and allowing flags and anthems to be a local decision be a problem? If the answer is yes, you lose all right to criticise the IFA.

Outreach money? As a tax and rates payer in the North, it was nothing more than what GAA clubs were entitled to and had been denied for decades.
When the lottery kicked off in the UK and grants were available to sports clubs but they had to own their own grounds, the Unionist politicians kicked up as a disproportionate amount for grant money was going to GAA clubs oblivious to the fact that they had over the years assisted soccer clubs via the local councils and provided their facilities for a minimal fee.
GAA clubs had to go and buy their own properties and develop from scratch and sometimes were hindered by their local councils like St Peters in Lurgan.

What have the IFA done for you to laud their work that the Ulster Council hasn't as you freely admit they bottled it on the flegs and anthem?

Hardstation is right, removing the flag and anthem would be tokenism and ultimately meaningless unless the GAA rewrites the first couple of pages of their constitution, requests all clubs honouring Irish patriot dead, the Bolands, the Wolfe Tones, the Mitchels, the Rossa's, the Pearces, Sarsfields, the O'Rahillys and so forth and that's before we start into the saints names with religious connotations which can't be allowed either IMO.

That would be a big decision for the GAA and for what?

I'm not talking about standard funding and grants or the lottery. I'm talking about things like Sport Uniting Communities funding that has t&c's.

The GAA tapped plenty of cash from Dublin that soccer and rugby were excluded from, so thats a moot point. Over a billion all told, and some of that filtered north.

Its daft to expect other sports to change and then throw a hissy when people ask should the GAA do the same.

[johnnycool]

What possible relevance is that little history lesson to the topic in hand?

The Ulster Council signed up to various schemes and took money on the basis the GAA in the 6 would become more cross community. What was peoples expectation? That nothing could or would change?

Giving out that southerners are somehow trying to introduce partition is creating the partition you are whining about.

The relevance is that's the reason why there is a PEACE fund! But I don't recall the GAA being under an obligation to change its rule book. It has plenty of cross-community initiatives that were funded because of this along with Ulster Rugby and the IFA. So for you to suggest that the rules should change for 6/32 counties is absolute bollòx. If the GAA is going to change it has to do it on an island-wide basis

I didn't suggest that, nor even close. The Ulster council opened that door when they took outreach money.

But rugby and soccer did change. Far more nationalists migrated towords rugby than unionists the GAA. And I am far from the IFA's biggest fan, but they are trying. Genuine effort to reach out, but a bottle job on flags and anthems. Sound familiar?

But the mere suggestion that the GAA consider changing, outrage.

Would amending the constitution to drop the political stuff and allowing flags and anthems to be a local decision be a problem? If the answer is yes, you lose all right to criticise the IFA.

Outreach money? As a tax and rates payer in the North, it was nothing more than what GAA clubs were entitled to and had been denied for decades.
When the lottery kicked off in the UK and grants were available to sports clubs but they had to own their own grounds, the Unionist politicians kicked up as a disproportionate amount for grant money was going to GAA clubs oblivious to the fact that they had over the years assisted soccer clubs via the local councils and provided their facilities for a minimal fee.
GAA clubs had to go and buy their own properties and develop from scratch and sometimes were hindered by their local councils like St Peters in Lurgan.

What have the IFA done for you to laud their work that the Ulster Council hasn't as you freely admit they bottled it on the flegs and anthem?

Hardstation is right, removing the flag and anthem would be tokenism and ultimately meaningless unless the GAA rewrites the first couple of pages of their constitution, requests all clubs honouring Irish patriot dead, the Bolands, the Wolfe Tones, the Mitchels, the Rossa's, the Pearces, Sarsfields, the O'Rahillys and so forth and that's before we start into the saints names with religious connotations which can't be allowed either IMO.

That would be a big decision for the GAA and for what?

I'm not talking about standard funding and grants or the lottery. I'm talking about things like Sport Uniting Communities funding that has t&c's.

The GAA tapped plenty of cash from Dublin that soccer and rugby were excluded from, so thats a moot point. Over a billion all told, and some of that filtered north.

Its daft to expect other sports to change and then throw a hissy when people ask should the GAA do the same.

Every sports grant in the north comes with cross community T&C's irrespective of what fund name they give it and it comes from, heck even the OO sign off on cross community access to their premises to obtain grants, so it's really not worth the paper it's written on.

As for the bit in bold, I've outlaid what I think the GAA would need to do to potentially be accepted by Unionists and the protestants that don't give a shit about politics.

The question for the GAA is for all this pain over the 32 counties, what's the gain?

If they'd start hurling in Bangor, Holywood, Newtownards, Donaghadee, Millilse, Comber, Ballywalter, Ballyhalbert, Ballygowan, Ballinahinch, Dundonald, Tullycarnet (image that) and a few other hamlets (the Portavogie lads can hurl with us, they've hands like shovels) then it might be worth it.

[Mourne Red]

2 incidents against the GAA over the weekend.. "Anti-British GAA Not Welcome" banner put up on gates into a council park and club in Antrim arson attacked over the weekend

And a couple of posters think we should extend a welcoming hand to these people.. baffles me

[general_lee]

2 incidents against the GAA over the weekend.. "Anti-British GAA Not Welcome" banner put up on gates into a council park and club in Antrim arson attacked over the weekend

And a couple of posters think we should extend a welcoming hand to these people.. baffles me

That's quite a generalisation there. Do you think all unionists would condone this?

[imtommygunn]

Any positive publicity this club has got for the GAA clearly rubbed up a few people the wrong way. Aldergrove seemed to get the treatment yesterday / last night. A few clubs in antrim (probably in a few counties) have got this from time to time

[Mourne Red]

2 incidents against the GAA over the weekend.. "Anti-British GAA Not Welcome" banner put up on gates into a council park and club in Antrim arson attacked over the weekend

And a couple of posters think we should extend a welcoming hand to these people.. baffles me

That's quite a generalisation there. Do you think all unionists would condone this?

We'll see who comes out and condemns it today.. Just been Shinners and Alliance so far