A virulent sexism at the heart of society and sport
WHILE the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland still had recognised jurisdiction over all athletics and cycling throughout the island, it sparked an unholy row by deciding at its annual congress on February 4, 1934 to facilitate women’s athletics. The NACA resolved to hold a national athletic championship for women in five events — 100 yards, 220 yards, 440 yards, long jump, and 80 yards hurdles — and that at least one of those women’s events would be held at all open athletic meetings.
John Charles McQuaid, president of Blackrock College and future Archbishop of Dublin, sparked an unholy row with a letter to James J McGilton, national secretary of the NACA.
“I protest against this un-Catholic and un-Irish decision,” he wrote on February 8. “No boy from my college will take part in any athletic meeting controlled by your organisation at which women will compete, no matter what attire they may adopt.”
He went on to refer to a 1929 encyclical in which Pope Pius XI advocated that “special care must be had of Christian modesty in young women and girls, which is so gravely impaired by any kind of exhibition in public”.
Dr McQuaid circulated copies of his letter to religious superiors. They endorsed his stand, especially after the Irish Independent rowed in with strong editorial backing.
“The intensive cultivation of strenuous athletics by women is undesirable when examined from the health point of view,” the newspaper proclaimed. “It is open to serious objection on the grounds of delicacy and modesty, especially when women are permitted to compete in common with men at ordinary sports meetings, even in places where accommodation for competitors of both sexes is adequate.”
The superior of Synge Street CBS and the principals of Rockwell College, St Malachy’s College, Belfast; St Mary’s College, Rathmines; St Jarlath’s College, Tuam; St Mary’s College, Galway; and St Joseph’s College, Ballinasloe; all backed Dr McQuaid.
Mr McGilton wrote to Dr McQuaid on February 20, saying the standing committee of the NACA decided to pass on his letter to its general council. The NACA looked to be going into reverse.
Dr McQuaid commended the NACA for this. However, he went on to complain that much of the press coverage of the controversy “has been painfully irrelevant”, so he took the opportunity to ask the NACA to focus its attention “on the single point at issue”.
His only issue with the decisions of NACA Congress was “that women should not compete at the same athletic meetings as men”.
Dr McQuaid insisted that the Pope was opposing “the ‘deceptive system of modern co-education, which is the enemy of Christian upbringing’, in that its supporters ignore or deny the effects of original sin and, in disarray of mind, regard society ‘as an unassorted mass of men and women, equal in all respects’. The distinction of the sexes, as ordained by God, must, the Pope teaches, ‘be upheld, nay even cherished’. Then, at once Pius XI, applies the principles to ‘all schools and to athletic sports’.”
Dr McQuaid provided his own interpretation of the Pope’s words: “Such precepts must be observed according to the prescriptions of Christian prudence, in due season and opportunity, not only in all schools, particularly through the anxious years of adolescence, on which the tenor of well nigh all the rest of life entirely depends, but also in athletic sports and exercises, wherein the Christian modesty of girls must be, in a special way, safeguarded; for it is supremely unbecoming that they should flaunt themselves and display themselves before the eyes of all.”
He concluded with an air of finality: “The issue, I think, is clear.”
The leadership of the NACA crumbled. Its central council decided on March 10 it would “take no action to implement the decision of congress”.
The NACA’s standing was undermined by this controversy. It certainly did not help its influence abroad in relation to the developing split in Irish athletics, which erupted in October 1934 when the International Amateur Athletic Federation decided at its meeting in Stockholm that the NACA no longer had jurisdiction over athletics in the North. The IAAF did not expel the NACA; it just refused to recognise that it had jurisdiction over the North, and the NACA refused to accept that decision. They were prepared to stand up to the rest of the world, but not to John Charles McQuaid.
But they were not the last to drop to their knees before him.
