Paul Rouse: the myth that those who preferred other sports than Gaelic games played no part in Irish freedom fight

It is the type of characterisation of people and of organisations that is typical of the cartoon history beloved of some nationalists

POLITICAL FOOTBALL: President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde (centre) with Eamon De Valera (left) and Oscar Traynor (right) watch the Ireland v Poland soccer match at Dalymount Park in 1938. 

The Civil War was a nasty, murderous episode in Irish history. In its course, both sides disgraced themselves with actions that were entirely unacceptable. It is true that the scale of death pales beside civil wars in other countries, either contemporaneously or more recently. But there was brutality nonetheless that has left a stain, 100 years on.

Such is the cultural significance of sport that it was encompassed within the story of those years, 1922 and 1923. Mostly, the stories told relate to how Gaelic football went some way towards healing the wounds of the war, notably in Kerry.