Former British MP Kate Hoey angers GAA fans with comments on association

A former British MP has angered GAA fans with comments made about the association.

Kate Hoey suggested on social media that the GAA is not a “normal sporting organisation” and said it was “time for it to be called out”.

The Co Antrim native was sharing a column by the Belfast News Letter’s Owen Polley, entitled “GAA’s Burns pleads nationalist grievances in bid for extra cash” when she made the comments.

The article claimed that GAA President Jarlath Burns portrayed the association as “an organisation that mixes its sporting functions with political partisanship, Irish nationalist grievance-mongering and an over-weening sense of entitlement” in a recent interview with the BBC, during which he stated that the the funding shortfall for Casement Park should be filled by the British Government.

The author of the piece took issue with this, stating that the murder of 14 people at Croke Park by the Black and Tans Bloody Sunday in 1920 “occurred during a period when Irish separatists were waging a bloody, terrorist ‘war of independence’ against the UK in a way that the GAA won’t allow sport to be separated from republican myths”.

He then went on to suggest comments made by Burns about the Troubles in the North implied “that the state colluded with loyalists to murder GAA officials and owes the organisation some form of compensation”, which he said was “an interpretation that drew, at least in part, on republicans’ relentless efforts to distort the history of the Troubles”, adding that “inquests and lawfare have been used to suggest that it was the state, rather than terrorists, who were the main instigators of violence”.

Jarlath Burns

Polley also highlighted GAA clubs and tournaments which he said “commemorate or celebrate republican terrorism” as he stated that Burns’ interview “highlighted some of the problems and contradictions at the heart of his organisation” and concluded by suggesting the association should get no more government funding “particularly if its arguments for more funding are based on peddling nationalist grievances and a warped history of the Troubles”.

Sharing the article on X, Hoey, who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Home Affairs from 1998 to 1999 and Minister for Sport from 1999 to 2001, wrote: “A must read for all who think the GAA is a normal sporting organisation. Time for it to be called out! Owen Polley tells it as it is!”

Her comments and the piece itself angered many in the GAA community, especially as they were made on the same day that a documentary on the 1997 murder of 61-year-old Sean Brown by a loyalist gang aired on RTE. The chairman of Bellaghy Wolfe Tones GAA in south Derry was abducted as he locked up the gates of his club.

One person said: “You have zero clue as to what you’re talking about. I’ve plenty of Protestant friends who go to games. Including the Ulster Championship at the weekend. Stop trying to make yourself relevant by driving an agenda of hate.”

Someone else wrote: “A slanted and frankly appalling piece of ‘journalism’ which deliberately twists Burns’ balanced and nuanced comments. You really can and should do better.”

Another comment read: “What a horrible take on a great interview. My god the bigotry from some.”

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