OPINION: Oscar Traynor’s brush with the GAA’s intransigence

How many times have we heard that history is written by the strong? Former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill certainly believed that was the case, but then again, Churchill wasn’t shy in telling the world how great he felt he was.
It’s no different in Ireland. We drink in one version of history and conveniently avoid anything that doesn’t fit the narrative. When it comes to the formation of our nation, we embrace the stories of glorious resistance to the occupying British forces, but forget the many failures along the way and rarely discuss how those who signed the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921 abandoned our people in top right-hand corner of our island.
History is interesting, history is enthralling, but we often forget that it’s written by the winners and the powerful. We’re conditioned by what we hear, what we read and what we assume. Sporting history is no different. Those of us blessed to work in the sporting realm every day of the week are no different. We have grown up in a world of numerous certainties – we have been conditioned to follow a certain stream of thinking and only those of us willing to expand our thought process get the opportunity to look at life from a different angle.
Recently, I was fortunate enough to learn a little about a man who exists in the background of Irish sport. In the Sport section of last week’s Mayo News, we carried a match report on the Mayo team’s opening round of the Oscar Traynor Cup. The name of the competition is very familiar to those of us who work in sport, but not everyone is aware of who Oscar Traynor actually was and what he achieved and believed. 
Traynor’s life shines a light on the revolutionary and sporting history of Ireland and is a perfect example of how the strong and the powerful massage the life of a nation and influence the thinking of many.
He was born in Dublin in 1886 was a renowned goalkeeper in his youth. At the age of 24 he joined Belfast Celtic and was in line for a call-up to the Irish team at one stage. In 1916, he took part in the Rising and led the garrison in the Metropole Hotel. In the War of Independence he was promoted to Commander of the 1st Eastern Division of the IRA, and when the Civil War broke out he led troops of the Anti-Treaty side.
He later stood for election, and after some setbacks, he ended up a TD for a total of 32 years and was a minister in a number of Fianna Fáil governments. On the sporting front, he was President of the Football Association of Ireland from 1948 to 1963. That part of his life didn’t sit particularly well with those who were forming the thinking and the direction of the budding Irish nation. 
The Catholic Church and the GAA dominated Irish life, and Traynor wasn’t conforming, so a man who came within two games of representing his country in global sport was becoming less and less relevant despite leading the FAI.
The GAA held huge power then, and Traynor saw it firsthand in 1938 when he attended a soccer match between Ireland and Poland at Dalymount Park alongside the Taoiseach Eamon de Valera and Douglas Hyde, who was the President of Ireland and patron of the GAA.
Within weeks, Hyde was banned from the GAA for attending the match. He had been a founder member of the Gaelic League and a staunch supporter of the GAA, yet the sporting organisation threw him out because members were banned from participating in or watching ‘foreign sports’ such as soccer, rugby or hockey.
Traynor hated the GAA’s intransigence and made a famous speech in the Dáil predicting Ireland would one day have a Minister for Sport. Thankfully, his prediction is now reality and we’re currently in a less-austere sporting climate.
Today, we need to work on creating more municipal sporting facilities around the nation so that all sports can use the same pitches, halls, equipment and resources. Many people may know the name of Oscar Traynor, some know the tale of his revolutionary, sporting and political achievements – all of us could benefit from his foresight and inclusiveness.
History may be written by the powerful, but if we read behind the headlines we will find the real stories of Ireland and its people.