THE first book to record the total number of GAA members killed during the recent conflict, while telling their personal stories, has been launched in West.
Lost Gaels – Remembering the Members of the GAA killed during the conflict in Ireland – is written by Peadar Thompson and published by Merrion Press.
Featuring a foreword by GAA President Jarlath Burns, the book provides a platform for families and friends to remember those they lost over the course of three decades.
The GAA has long been at the heart of Irish life, nurturing our culture and communities and fostering powerful social bonds. However, as political conflict intensified in the North from the 1970s onwards, the GAA became the object of animosity and surveillance by loyalist paramilitaries and Crown forces. Clubhouses and pitches were occupied by British forces, fans were security checked and harassed on their way to and from games, and over 150 members were murdered.
Author Peadar Thompson
Initially a project emanating from victims' groups Relatives for Justice, Lost Gaels is the first comprehensive account of the devastating impact of the Troubles on the GAA, providing a platform for bereaved family and friends to pay homage to their lost loved ones. Capturing the deep connection between the GAA and the everyday lives of its members, this is a poignant and powerful tribute to the lives of lost Gaels.
In his forward Jarlath Burns writes: “Every now and then a project of significance and importance crosses our bow and makes us sit up and take notice. It piques our curiosity, demands our attention and focuses our minds in a way that so much else of what essentially constitutes white noise in modern society does not. This body of work is one such example.”
Speaking during the launch at St Mary’s University College on Saturday, author Peadar Thompson said: “The memories included in this book belong to those who granted us the privilege to read them.”
Lost Gaels
An aesthetically beautiful book, Peadar said that the final presentation was important to him.
Speaking to the large audience, the 25-year-old said: "The local GAA club was usually the safe haven of community and support a family could turn to in the wake of their loss.
"It was the GAA club that local people would come to in the darkest of moments. Local GAA clubs provided families with all sorts of support ranging from being a space of escapism to a space for activism. Indeed, when I began this project I made my first presentations at local GAA clubs including my own for an initial sounding board for the project's stated aims.
A small section of the audience
"They were, are and remain unrivalled in their ability to act as a lens through which to view the true character and soul of communities across Ireland.
"There can be no doubt that the GAA and its membership suffered harm on a very large scale during the conflict. I make this observation as a means of giving, albeit limited, recognition to the many accounts of harm that I’ve heard during the interviewing process, accounts that I’ve not been able to record in the book and are undeniably deserving of an entire book of themselves."
Lost Gaels is published by Merrion Press, priced £24.99 in hardback.
