Opposition, Social Closure, and Sport: The Gaelic Athletic Association in the 19th Century

摘要: The rise of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in late 19th-century Ireland offers significant diversity to a “normal” model national sport development. GAA, influenced through much its early history by vanguard determined Irish militants, was fiercely opposed anything British, including “new” bourgeois sports. Yet, spite alliance with separatist politics, growth GAA displayed social dynamic, albeit reverse form, similar other patterns seen Western Parkin’s (1979) concept closure is suited sociological analysis Victorian sport, GAA; using indices occupational exclusion based on religion, this study suggests that system vocational at top society eventually invited challenge from forces opposition below.