New study disentangles the complex web of ball sports associations in twentieth century Ireland

Conor Curran
Independent historian

Conor Murray’s first monograph is an important contribution to the historiography of Irish sport, particularly in relation to the development of rugby and soccer, which were often labelled as ‘foreign games’ by overzealous nationalists within Irish society in the twentieth century. Stretching from the beginning of the partition of Ireland in 1921 until 1990, the book consists of eleven chapters and is carefully illustrated with a number of maps while supplemented with appendices. The strength of the book lies in Murray’s use of this data to charter the growth of rugby and soccer clubs throughout Ireland in this period.  While soccer’s organisation on the island of Ireland became divided after 1921, with the Football Association of Ireland emerging to govern soccer in Independent Ireland, in Northern Ireland it remained under the auspices of the Irish Football Association, which had been founded in 1880. Rugby was administered by the Irish Rugby Football Union since 1879, following the foundation of the Irish Football Union in 1874 and the Northern Football Union in 1875 (p. 5). The IFA, FAI and IRFU would all compete for sporting space in Ireland with the Gaelic Athletic Association, founded in 1884, which by the end of the following year had brought its own football code (Gaelic football) into the mix of kicking ball games. While all struggled for public affection, some of the GAA’s leading administrators and patrons initially openly denounced the playing of rugby and soccer and promoted its own ‘amateur’ games through propaganda such as in newspapers and by appealing to Irish citizens’ sense of patriotism. This meant that soccer and rugby, with their British origins, faced a tough challenge in attracting support throughout nationalist Ireland, with those who played these games often accused of being ‘West-Britons’ in the provincial and national press. While focusing primarily on rugby and soccer in this book, Murray adequately positions these games within the wider social context of politics, religion, and nationalist and unionist identity.

This meant that soccer and rugby, with their British origins, faced a tough challenge in attracting support throughout nationalist Ireland, with those who played these games often accused of being ‘West-Britons’ in the provincial and national press.

Until 1921 soccer had been governed in Ireland by the pro-Unionist IFA, which, through its general lack of effort to develop the game outside Belfast, had drawn resentment from many clubs, particularly in Dublin. That summer, the FAI, nationalist in outlook, was founded in Dublin and established its own leagues and cups and within a few years had developed its own national team while severing links with the IFA. Building on previous work, Murray highlights that some senior soccer clubs in Free State Ireland continued to meet those from across the border after 1921 in sporadic matches, while at colleges’ level this practice was accepted by authorities more fluidly in the form of the Collingwood Cup. This came despite constant tensions between Ireland’s two national governing bodies for soccer, which Murray also explores in depth to identify ‘three distinct phases of a cold war, with two further phases of administrative conflict between the IFA and FAI occurring Post-second World War’ (p. 210). As schools’ soccer was virtually outlawed in Free State Ireland, where many Catholic schools promoted games seen as being more nationalist in origin, in 1927 twenty-four Dublin schools unsuccessfully attempted to join competitions north of the border, which were run by the North of Ireland schools’ Football Association (p. 32). He also focuses on the development of workplace soccer teams across Ireland, linking urbanisation to the health of codes and provides interesting contrasts with rugby over global and national periods of economic decline in the 1930s and at other bleak economic times in the twentieth century. Murray also looks at the impact of the widening of second level educational accessibility in Northern Ireland in the late 1940s, and in the Republic of Ireland in the late 1960s, and its impact on the growth of these sports across classes.  He notes the influence of the river Bann on the development of senior and junior rugby clubs in Ulster. In recognising the impact of physical and cultural boundaries on the growth of sport, Murray’s book adds greatly to our understanding of the role of geography in the development of sport within an Irish context.

Murray is also excellent on the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, in what is generally a balanced historical account despite the religious divisions evident in Northern Ireland. His discussion of attacks on members of British security forces – at least five who played rugby were killed between 1976 and 1981 (p. 55) – is important in highlighting that it was not only members of the GAA who suffered. He also naturally examines perceptions of Irish identity, highlighting issues over the use of anthems, flags and visiting international teams’ security within rugby. The complexity of Catholics appearing for Northern Ireland in the FIFA World Cup is examined, with Murray adding colour through the use of anecdotes from autobiographies of players including Martin O’Neill and online interviews with Gerry Armstrong. The selection of players of Irish stock rather than exclusively of Irish birth in the Republic of Ireland’s soccer team in the late twentieth century is also discussed. He might therefore have extended his timeframe to bring this study up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, rather than end the book’s scope at 1990 as he has done. The author also skilfully examines violence at rugby and soccer matches and the impact of televised matches on public perceptions of these codes.

The early 1970s saw the lifting of the GAA’s ‘Ban’ on its members’ participation in hockey, rugby, cricket and soccer. Murray notes the impact of this in increasing participation in both rugby and soccer, while it is also worth noting that this led to more stabilised county competitions in peripheral areas such as Donegal and Kerry. In some villages such as Carrick in County Donegal, soccer was organised by immigrants, with two Scots, Dougie Watson and Sean Fisher, behind the local club’s brief existence in the 1980s and early 1990s. While they did draw upon players from the local fish factory, others were employed as farmers or were still in school or simply unable to find suitable work and had to emigrate. Some other provincial soccer clubs thrived because of covert payments to players and their ability to recruit from outside the parish when local players remained committed to Gaelic football, perhaps a legacy of the ‘Ban.’  By the mid-1990s some players were still running into trouble with Gaelic football managers for choosing to play soccer or rugby along with Gaelic football on alternative days. Some Donegal inter-county players had been dropped for this in the previous decade. However, it can be fair to state, as Murray highlights, that the erasing of the ‘Ban’ allowed for greater fluidity between these codes despite the social pressure which continued to exist.

The role of individuals such as priests in the growth of soccer competitions and in the development of rural clubs such as Fanad United might also have been given more attention, as soccer teams were not always drawn from the workplace or from urban areas. A closer examination of grassroots developments from two recent key works on Irish sport, my own study Irish Soccer Migrants: A Social and Cultural History (2017) and Richard McElligott’s Forging a Kingdom: The GAA in Kerry, 1884-1934 (2013), both surprisingly absent from this book’s bibliography, would have revealed more. This should not, however, take away from what is a groundbreaking and significant historical work and one which adds greatly to our understanding of the geography of Irish sport, and a study which in particular sheds much light on sporting activity in the province of Ulster.

Copyright © Conor Curran 2025