TV review: Le Chéile is really about the pulling power of the GAA
Le Chéile: Ladies Football huddle
When Andrew played rugby, he used to say a prayer before a match that there wouldn’t be too much fighting.
You get the feeling that Andrew wasn’t cut out for rugby.
You wouldn’t have him down as a hurler either, not least because he’s a Northern Ireland Protestant who served as a dentist in the British Army. But Andrew likes the road-less travelled obviously, and now he’s playing hurling in Belfast.
He’s one of the stars of the series (RTÉ One, Mondays 8pm and RTÉ Player). It started with a tweet in May 2020, when two friends asked the internet if they’d like to turn out for a new GAA club in Belfast. The kicker here is that the club is East Belfast GAA.
This was catnip for local journalists — a GAA start-up in loyalist east Belfast is like the Wolfe Tones joining the Orange Order. We’re told by the makers of Le Chéile that people from all walks of life flocked to the new club.
I didn’t keep count, but they must have shown 25 Loyalist murals in the first episode, snipers and sunglasses and proud defenders in case we didn’t get the point: These People Probably Don’t Like the GAA.
So, did scores of die-hard loyalists say 'we surrender' and sign up for a spot of Gaelic? No, not in the first episode anyway. There was no Hollywood scene where a guy rocks up to training in a menacing balaclava, rips it off and says 'Enough of the hatred lads, I hear youse are looking for a corner back'. Maybe that comes in episode two, but I doubt it. The hatred and mistrust don’t peel away that quickly.
But is still a good watch. Andrew is a dentist you’d actually look forward to visiting — upbeat and quietly determined. He also speaks effortless Irish, which he learned after fellow soldiers from Britain asked him about the language here.
There are other characters you want to spend time with, including Megan, who has joined up to play camogie but has yet to tog-out for the team, for reasons which aren’t clear. Like Richard, she’s incredibly positive about everything and I felt bad for wanting to know if she’s Protestant or Catholic.
There isn’t much evidence of a flood of Protestants or unionists joining the club. But that’s not the point — Le Chéile is really about the pulling power of the GAA. A club can start from nothing in the middle of a pandemic and field women’s and men’s teams a year later.
Not just that, they’re winning teams. East Belfast offers inclusivity and craic, but as anyone who ever stood on a sideline at a GAA blitz will tell you, it isn’t just about taking part. GAA teams like to win.
East Belfast GAA highlights the growing confidence of the Catholic nationalist community. (There is plenty here that would make Jeffrey Donaldson throw his sash at the TV.) But works best when it just shows us the inner workings of a GAA club, north or south.
