John Connolly - Gaelic Games in Society: Civilising Processes, Players, Administrators and Spectators

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In many ways, it is difficult to identify the genesis of this book. We first began to study Gaelic games in 2005, when we were both based at what was then Dublin Institute of Technologynow Technological University Dublin (Johnsintroduction to Elias was via Paddy, who had been introduced to Eliass work by Professor Stephen Mennell in 1994 while studying for a masters in sociology at University College Dublin). Extended lunchtime discussions on Eliasian understandings of violence (and violence in sport) were soon considered in relation to the sport of hurling . The subsequent research project culminated first in a conference paper delivered at the European Association for the Sociology of Sport conference in Munster , Germany, in 2007. A revised paper would later be published in the journalSport in Society. In the years that followed, we extended the remit of the research on both Gaelic games and the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). The fruits of this research work were subsequently published as journal articles and book chapters, replete with their specific requirements and focus. Yet that is not quite the full story of how this book has come about; as Elias stressed, there are no absolute origins ! The fact that we found Eliass approach compelling certainly ensured we began from a figurational perspective but it still leaves the question of why study hurling (our initial focus) and the GAA? We could have sought to collaborate around questions concerning many social phenomena, sports related or otherwise. Beyond our academic lives, sport (of varying kinds) did, and continues to, stir our emotions with moments of great pleasure (and pain too!). And, as for many people in contemporary society, it is a source for collective identification and meaning for us. In that sense, for most of our lives, sport has provided mimetic , motility and sociability functions for both of us. We have also been familiar with Gaelic games for most of our lives to varying degrees, and this familiarity and involvement has been helpful in writing this book.

We emphasise these diverse yet interconnected social threads because it is these processes which contributed to a desire to sociologically investigate Gaelic games back in 2005. The programme of research that followed and which has culminated in this book was not driven by modern university metrics. During much of the time working on our research programme we were both based in Business departmentsa locale where the sociology of sport has yet to register high in perceived functional importance, relative to what is seen as the more essential world of business! Our motivation was simply to make a small contribution to the social fund of knowledge on a sport and a societyGaelic games and Ireland. In doing so we also believe we have contributed to the further development of figurational theory, particularly in respect of the relationship between violence and state legitimacy.

The book addresses several of the questions and themes covered in our previous publications on Gaelic games and the GAA, bringing them together under one roof so to speak. However, the book goes well beyond our previous work , linking and extending the range of questions and topics. Consequently, new research angles have been integrated, while previous syntheses have been expanded. It concludes many years of collaboration on Gaelic games and the GAA. It is important to stress too that this book is not about making value judgements or normative pronouncements on the direction of the GAA; we have eschewed that territory. Our aim was to explain how and why specific developments occurred. Whether these are deemed positive or negative is not the concern of this book; our task was to explain how and why they have come about.

It also needs to be recognised that this book, as the title suggests, is also concerned with changes in Irish society both social structures and the social habitus of people in Ireland. This aspect has been a focus for one of us, Paddy Dolan , for almost 20 years now and this book draws from much of that work also. Paddy completed his PhD in Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2005 using Eliass concepts and theories. While the topic concerned the development of consumer culture in Ireland, the examination of changing social interdependences and the national habitus proved as relevant to the study of Gaelic games.

In the Preface to his bookThe Combat Soldier, Anthony King makes the insightful observation that any programme of research necessarily involves a conversation with a multiplicity of scholars both living and dead (pp. xxi). That has been our experience too. On the latter point of conversations with the dead, there was an element of this also, for while we never met Elias and he is long deceased, we have had in ways many conversations with him through his writings in the course of researching this book.