The GAA Versus The BNP

The Gaelic Athletic Association or GAA is one of the world’s truly great sporting organisations. It has faced many challenges in its time, not least the intimidation and violence of the British Occupation Forces in Ireland and its paramilitary and terrorist offshoots.

Now the GAA faces another challenge, this time from the notorious British National Party (BNP), a far-right nationalist and Neo-Nazi political grouping in Britain supportive of the British Unionist minority in the north-east of Ireland. Recently the BNP has been extremely active in Ireland amongst the anti-democracy protest movement that has emerged from the fringes of the Unionist community. Its leader Nick Griffin has visited the country several times, most recently attending events around the so-called “Ulster Covenant” commemoration which marked the original anti-democracy rebellion by the British Unionist minority in Ireland at the start of the 20th century. By all accounts the BNP has seen its membership swell as a new generation of militants emerge from the British minority eager to embrace it racist and sectarian ideology. Now it is focusing its campaign of hatred on a fundamental feature of Irishness, one to be found across all of the island of Ireland – the GAA.

Which begs the question. Just what is British Unionism?