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PARNELL SUMMER SCHOOL 2009 |
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Leisure and Recreation in Ireland In 1884 the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded, and in 2009 it celebrates its 125th anniversary. A national sporting and cultural movement, the GAA played a key role in reviving Irish culture and underpinned the moves towards independence. Its founder, Michael Cusack, brought together the three major players in Irish life as the Association’s founding patrons: the Church (Archbishop Croke), the Land (Michael Davitt) and Home Rule politics (Charles Stewart Parnell). Although not often associated with sport and leisure, Parnell sponsored a whole raft of athletics and sporting events at Avondale, and exerted a powerful influence on the early years of the GAA. The Summer School will take leisure and recreation as its theme. It will reflect on the history and development of sport in Ireland, will examine the role of the GAA in Irish society, assess the part of women in the leisure life of the country, discuss how recreation has contributed to both divisions and unity in the communities of Northern Ireland and explore how contemporary debates around leisure and recreation are informed by debates centring on health and obesity.
For further information: Deirdre Larkin, |
