British and Irish Sport: The Garrison Game and the G.A.A. in Scotland

Abstract

This article reflects on the historic cultural and political cleavage between Irish Gaelic sports and the British sport of soccer. In nationalist Ireland soccer, a British innovation and largely British dominated game during the 19th and early 20th centuries, was traditionally known as ‘the garrison game’. This was due to its popularity within British garrison towns in Ireland while that country was part of the British Empire in the period up to 1922. Although still used by a few older stalwarts of the G.A.A., the description of soccer as ‘the garrison game’ has virtually passed as Gaelic sports have come to dominate in much of Ireland while soccer has become a globalised sport. The contextual setting for this paper is viewed through the sporting experience of the Irish diaspora in Scotland. Brief reference is made to Irish Catholic immigration into Scotland as well as Irish cultural resistance to British hegemony in late 19th century Ireland. The native Irish experience is compared with the differing sporting encounter of the Irish in Scotland. In Ireland, Gaelic sport eventually re-established itself throughout the country while for the Irish in Scotland, Gaelic sport struggled as soccer became the sporting avenue for social integration and national and cultural distinctiveness. Some of the reasons for this development are explained here, while this work also considers some later manifestations of antagonism between both sports and determines why the soccer-gaelic conflict has not been a significant issue in the Scottish diasporic context. This paper concludes that despite historical antagonisms between both sports, Celtic Football Club has served the Irish in Scotland in a similar way to which the G.A.A. has traditionally given shape and expression to ideas of Irishness in Ireland itself.