Michael Davitt: A Founding Patron of the GAA.

The great Irish patriot Michael Davitt (1846-1906) was a founding patron of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), which does not receive the recognition it deserves. He is, of course, remembered in history as the ‘The Father of the Land League’, a social reformer, a respected international journalist, an author, a Member of Parliament and a pioneer of the labour movement in Britain and Ireland. He was the founder and master organiser of the Land League, one of the most successful movements in Irish history, which transformed tenant-farmers into owner-occupiers within a generation by constitutional means, and in the process brought about one of the greatest social changes ever witnessed in Ireland. His sympathy and concern ranged from Irish tenant-farmers to agricultural labourers, the plight of the British working-class, prison reform, social reform, the Boers in South Africa and the Jews in Russia.

GAA

The Gaelic Athletic Association was established in Hayes’s Hotel, Thurles, County Tipperary, on 1 November 1884 as part of the Irish cultural nationalism of the time. Its objectives were to foster an Irish identity, to promote athletics for all social classes, as well as to revive and preserve the traditional sports of hurling, Gaelic football, handball, rounders and camogie. It is today the greatest amateur sports organisation in the world, with clubs formed by Irish immigrants in every continent. On the establishment of the GAA, Dr. Thomas William Croke, Archbishop of Cashel, Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party in, and Michael Davitt were invited to become patrons, and all three accepted. Parnell and Davitt were then the two major leaders of nationalist Ireland and Dr. Croke was the archbishop of the province where the GAA was established. It was a brave decision by the GAA at a time when it was customary to seek the patronage of the imperial representative in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant. Davitt was the only one of the original patrons consulted in advance about the establishment of the organisation by its founder, Michael Cusack. In his letter of acceptance to Michael Cusack, written in the Imperial Hotel, Dublin, on 21 December 1884, Michael Davitt wrote:

I accept with great pleasure the position of patron which has been assigned to me by the Gaelic Athletic Association, though I am painfully conscious of how little assistance I can render you in your praiseworthy undertaking. Anything, however, it is in my power to do to further the objects of the Association, I will most willingly perform, as I cannot but recognise the urgent necessity which exists for a movement like that which you are organising with such zeal.

I have already explained to you my views of Gaelic sports and hinted at plans by which a nationalist taste for them might be cultivated. I have, therefore, only to express my obligations to yourself and friends for the honour conferred upon me and to repeat the assurance of my entire sympathy with the objects of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

Michael Davitt was initially pessimistic about the GAA’s prospects and favoured an association devoted to various cultural activities in addition to athletics and field games. He and Michael Cusack agreed that a great Gaelic cultural festival should be organised on a quinquennial basis along the lines of the ancient Tailteann Games. It was envisaged that it would take a prize fund of £5000 to run the games. On 6 August 1888, Cusack influenced the Central Council of the GAA to accept a proposal to send a group of fifty players, athletes and officials on a tour of the main Irish centres in the United States to raise the required funds. There was very little money raised in Ireland prior to the tour. On 16 September 1888, ‘the American Invasion,’ as it came to be called, commenced. The Irish athletes and players were given a warm welcome in New York and several other centres, where athletic meetings took place between Irish and American champions, resulting in some new records. The five-week tour to lay the foundation of the GAA in the United States was a big success, but financially it was a disaster, due to terrible weather and the closing stages of an American presidential election between the Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland and the Republican aspirant for the White House, Benjamin Harrison. Instead of establishing a fund for the Tailteann games, the tour resulted in a big loss, and it took a loan of £450 by Michael Davitt from funds under his control for the GAA party to be able to purchase tickets for the return journey to Ireland.

Some athletes decided to remain on in America and started new careers there. Michael Davitt never pressed the GAA to repay the loan and appeared as a debt in their accounts for years. In 1901, when the GAA finances were in a poor state, Michael Davitt waived the debt. He accepted that the money was spent for a good national purpose! In addition to that generosity, he took a keen interest in the early development of the GAA and was very supportive of Archbishop Croke when various groups tried unsuccessfully to gain control of the association. Davitt also wrote the preface for the GAA rule book in 1888, and publicised GAA activities in the Labour World, a weekly newspaper he edited in London for eight months during 1890 -1891. Michael Davitt’s influential early support of the GAA deserves to be remembered.

Bernard O'Hara's latest book entitled Killasser: Heritage of a Mayo Parish is now on sale in the USA and UK as a paperback book at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or Barnes and Noble

It is also available as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).

An earlier publication, a concise biography of Michael Davitt, entitled Davitt by Bernard O’Hara published in 2006 by Mayo County Council , is now available as Davitt: Irish Patriot and Father of the Land League by Bernard O’Hara, which was published in the USA by Tudor Gate Press (www.tudorgatepress.com) and is available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. It can be obtained as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).