Paul Rouse: We must ensure that women don't lose out again in integration process

Change cannot come soon enough.

PROGRESS: Olwen Carey of Thomas Davis and Emer Sweeney of Kilmacud Crokes.

Eimear Ryan wrote a great column this week on the appointment of Mary McAleese as chairperson of the process that is intended to lead to the integration of the GAA, the LGFA and the Camogie Association.

The column ranged across the history of the very name – camogie – and what its origins and status might mean. It also addressed the issue of the naming of Gaelic football as played by women as ‘Ladies football’.

Eimear Ryan made the point that changing the name would not in itself of course bring about equality and parity of esteem. And she acknowledged also that there were those who would argue against such a change and would “advocate for the retention of camogie”, not least because “it has a distinct identity from hurling”.

And all of that is true.

Just as it is true that “Ladies Football” was so named at the beginning of the 1970s when the LGFA was founded.

Both names were reflective of the discrimination against women that was evident in the sporting world of their coining. And reflective also of the wider societal discrimination of the time.

In respect of camogie – so-named in the early 1900s – the discrimination was all the greater. But even in the 1970s when the LGFA was formed, the scale of abuse of women who wished to play sport was immense.

The very fact of the choice of names which distinguished the games to be played by Irish women and girls from those played already by Irish men and boys was emblematic of the structural inequalities in Irish sport.

There is no need to rehearse again here the scale of these inequalities, except to say that in both the early 1900s and the early 1970s there was no organisation to cater for Irish women to play soccer or rugby, or to box, or to engage in all manner of meaningful sporting competition.

It says much for the nature of Irish society and its sporting world that the establishment of associations for women to play hurling and Gaelic football could only be undertaken under the disguise of different names.

Apparently, it would be an affront to the manliness of the Irish male that Irish women should actually be considered capable of playing the same game as them. Such an affront would devalue not just the worth of men, but also the games that they played.

It is entirely logical to argue that having pursued a particular path which was forced upon women, they should now be loath to change and should cherish the name that denoted the sports which they built for themselves.

But it is also the case that the very fact of the name is the product of a time and a mode of thought that presented women as incapable, unworthy and – ultimately – justly unequal.

The conversation around the names to be used might be considered mere window-dressing on the substance of the challenge which is involved in integration. This is not true. It gets to the very heart of the fracture between men and women in terms of the playing of sport.

It is more than symbolic. Instead, it is rooted in a mindset whose legacy lives on.

In practical terms, the access to facilities must be resolved. The bottom line is that the families who paid for the construction of GAA clubs do not ordinarily prize their sons above their daughters. It may be that when they contributed to the establishment of GAA grounds, it was for the playing of Gaelic football and hurling, and that camogie or Ladies football were either not prominent or not played at all.

But that is a consequence of the social mores of the age, not a conscious decision to privilege boys and exclude girls. It is now widely understood that girls can love sport just as much as boys, are as competitive as boys, want to train as much as boys, and so on. There is a moral imperative to acknowledge this and establish parity of access.

But there are other challenges with integration.

The fact that every significant sporting body must by necessity create its own official scaffolding – officers, rules, a constitution, commercial partners, traditions, practices, and much else – means that integration might mean a certain loss of control and maybe even of prestige. It need not necessarily happen, but the fear of it is real.

This is not just a potential tension between officers of the GAA and those of the associations which are now to join it in an integration process; it is also a process in which the LGFA and the Camogie Association must also reach an accommodation with each other.

This will be no straightforward matter. Having been involved with teams that are affiliated to the LGFA and the Camogie Association, I can attest to the need for change.

The reality of relations between both associations is revealed regularly in a calendar of play which girls and women who wish to play both games are poorly served. This was bad enough when the girls are young teenagers, but it is entirely wrong as they move through the ranks to minor and beyond. There is no serious expert in sports science who will agree that it is appropriate to schedule serious championship matches within 24 hours of each other, let alone on the same day.

And yet this is something that happens time and again with Ladies football and camogie. The integration of a proper calendar of play between these two sports would be of enormous benefit; that such a thing need even be asked for is a clear indication of the scale of the challenge.

It is not just in the creation of risk for chronic injury that change must come. It is also a basic fact that between the cost of memberships, insurance and playing gear, it is more expensive for many girls to play sport than it is for boys. There is no justification for allowing this to continue to happen.

And yet there are grounds for optimism. The people who volunteer in clubs are ordinarily decent and want to do their best for everyone. This decency and desire to do good is what can underpin the integration project to be led by Mary McAleese. Her appointment is a clear indication that this is a serious process. The expectation is one of success and not failure. It cannot happen soon enough.

Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin