The GAA v Douglas Hyde

Cormac Moore

• Publisher: The Collins Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781848899742
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

On 13 November 1938, just months after his inauguration, President Douglas Hyde attended a soccer match between Ireland and Poland. In a passionate reaction, the GAA declared that by attending a 'foreign game', he had broken Rule 27 – the Ban – and they removed him as patron. One of the most controversial incidents in recent GAA history, it strained relations between the GAA and Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government. It also damaged the standing of the Ban and was used extensively by opponents to argue for its removal.

1

‘I Dream in Irish’

Douglas Hyde was born on 17 January 1860 in Castlerea, County Roscommon. A member of a family steeped in the Protestant religion, he was the third son of Arthur Hyde, a Church of Ireland rector, and his wife, Elizabeth, whose father was John Orson Oldfield, Archdeacon of Elphin. His two brothers were Arthur and Oldfield and he had one younger sister, Annette.¹ Hyde’s ancestors had moved from Castle Hyde, Cork, where they had lived since they were planted there from England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century.² Although his family was not wealthy, they ‘moved in circles occupied by a relatively leisured, educated, privileged class’.³ When Hyde was a young boy his father was made rector at Frenchpark, County Roscommon, and the family moved there to live. According to author, poet and translator, Seán Ó Lúing, ‘The environment of Douglas Hyde’s boyhood, embracing central and northern Connacht, played an important part in the development of his consciousness, superlatively rich as it was in bardic culture, legend and folklore’.⁴

Hyde was not formally educated except for a brief, unhappy stint in a school in Kingstown (modern day Dún Laoghaire) in 1873.⁵ His move back to Roscommon turned out to be fortuitous for Hyde and for the Irish language movement in the long term. He was educated at home mainly by his father who, with an eye on Hyde following him into clerical life, taught him Greek and Latin, the primary languages he would need for that profession.⁶ Hyde developed an extraordinary talent for languages and, in addition to Greek, Latin and English, he was able to communicate in German, French and Hebrew.⁷ The language that he had most affection for was the one he learned from his father’s servants, from local farmers and peasants, the native tongue of the land, Irish.⁸ While studying at Trinity College Dublin, Hyde claimed it was the language he knew best, saying, ‘I dream in Irish.’⁹

Castle Hyde in County Cork. Douglas Hyde’s ancestors were planted there from England in the sixteenth century during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. (Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland)

According to Doiminic Ó Dálaigh, in his book, The Young Douglas Hyde, Hyde picked up the language within a remarkably short period of time, which was astonishing considering he had no ‘formal’ teacher.¹⁰ His first Irish teacher was a local Fenian, Seamus Hart, who instilled in Hyde a love for the language as well as a love for the idioms and lore of Irish folk tales handed down orally to generations of locals in the area. Hart’s death in 1875, when Hyde was just fifteen, was a huge blow to the young boy. He wrote in his diary, ‘Seamus died yesterday. A man so kindly, so truthful, so neighbourly I never saw. He was ill about a week, and then he died. Poor Seamus, I learned my Irish from you. There will never be another with Irish so perfect. I can see no one from now on with whom I can enjoy friendship such as I enjoyed with you.’¹¹ Other locals who took up the baton of teaching Hyde Irish included Mrs William Connolly and John Lavin.¹² Hyde was a meticulous and dedicated student, spending between five and six hours a day on average studying,¹³ primarily concentrating on languages. His diaries document his first halting steps writing in Irish in 1874 and demonstrate his rapid progression with the language. Soon it would be the language he would use, primarily, for writing.¹⁴

Not a particularly robust youth, Hyde was, however, a keen enthusiast of the outdoors and there are many references to him participating in activities and sports such as fowling (hunting), tennis, cricket¹⁵ and croquet as well as a ball game he played with his future brother-in-law Cam O’Kane.¹⁶ Had he grown up a number of years later, he would not have been free to participate in some of those sports as a member of the GAA.

On many of these outdoor excursions he was to discover from locals a treasure chest of sources he would use as stories and folktales in later years. Hyde realised that there was no documentation of these wonderful tales, tales covering ghosts and fairies and many other mythical characters,¹⁷ tales that had all been handed down orally to different generations. He was determined to record everything he heard, creating a new genre and power in literature along the way, according to his contemporary William Butler Yeats.¹⁸

Hyde did not learn just the language and stories from local people. He also developed a taste for their politics. Considering that he would be forever remembered as a non-political man, reading some of his youthful pro-nationalist and anti-British sentiments makes for surprising reading. His verses are covered with themes on the oppression of the local people as well as a need to remove the British Empire by physical force. In one poem, one could be forgiven for thinking that the author was a Thomas Clarke or a Pádraig Pearse, not a man who became widely known as a pacifist:

And it (is) their power to free their country

By rising and drawing their blades like men,

To show to the Saxon that each man is ready

To break the yoke with which he is bound.

To frighten that most hateful country;

Believe, oh believe that she will not withstand force,

But she will grant easily, meekly, to arms

What she will never grant to truth or to right.

I hate your law, I hate your rule,

I hate your people and your weak queen,

I hate your merchants who have riches and property,

Great is their arrogance – little their worth.

I hate your Parliament, half of them are boors

Wrangling together without manners or grace –

The men who govern the kingdom, false, insincere,

Skilled only in trickery and deceit.

Smoke rises over no city more accursed

Than London, for all its greatness, its wonder, its fame;

It deserves the greatest chastisement from God,

Like ancient Rome or great Babylon.¹⁹

He was an admirer of Fenians like O’Donovan Rossa and John O’Mahony who he eulogised in the poetry he wrote.²⁰ His political beliefs would change significantly over the years but his passion and enthusiasm for the Irish language would remain with him forever.

He enrolled in Trinity College Dublin in 1880; he started to attend lectures in 1882 and moved to Dublin to live a year later.²¹ Due to pressure from his father, he took a course in Divinity studies, graduating with great distinction. A deep rift would develop between Hyde and his father, as Hyde, like his older brothers, had no interest in pursuing a life in the Church. Instead of returning to Roscommon to live with his father, he decided to remain in Trinity to study Law in 1886 and qualified with an LL.D. degree in 1888.²² Hyde had a glittering academic career, winning many prizes and medals. It was his extracurricular activities at university that would be of most interest to him. He immersed himself in movements such as the Contemporary Club where he discussed topics of the day with minds such as Yeats, Maud Gonne, John O’Leary and Michael Davitt,²³ as well as the newly formed literary group the Pan-Celtic Society.²⁴

Hyde did not find too many fellow students in Trinity College who shared his passion for the Irish language. His main outlet to interact with like-minded language enthusiasts was the Gaelic Union, an offshoot of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language. Hyde had been contributing to that society since he was a teenager, subscribing £1 to its cause in 1877.²⁵ Hyde immersed himself wholeheartedly in the nascent language movement and chaired many of the Gaelic Union meetings.²⁶ One of the people he befriended at this time was fellow language activist, Michael Cusack. Cusack, a Clare native, was, at that time, in the process of setting up another Irish-Ireland movement, one specifically catering for the native games, the Gaelic Athletic Association.

2

‘Sweeping the Country Like a
Prairie Fire’

Michael Cusack was born in 1847 in Carron, which is located in a remote part of the Burren in County Clare. As a child he was keenly interested in hurling, a game that would stay with him throughout his life. Cusack trained as a teacher and had teaching positions in all four provinces at various times.¹ He settled in Dublin in 1874. He taught in Blackrock College as well as in Clongowes Wood in County Kildare before setting up his own academy to prepare students for the British Civil Services examinations, an academy which would become quite lucrative for Cusack for a number of years before his extracurricular activities would take up more and more of his time. Like Hyde, Cusack was a keen Irish language enthusiast and he was an active member of the Gaelic Union. He played ...