Seán Ó Conaill: GAA Referees, Status Anxiety and Suffering Servants
‘Forming a union might be the only move GAA referees have left’ declared Malachy Clerkin in the Irish Times on Sat 16 December – on foot of a frantic last-ditch meeting of GAA referees that week.
“Somewhere along the way, everyone is going to have blood on their hands. And it won’t be until then that everybody goes, ‘Okay, this has gone too far.'” This is how one referee, Conor Galvin, puts it.
Link to Irish Times article:
Does this remind no-one of the parish faction-fighting of the 1800s, when it was often up to a parish priest to step in to prevent bloodshed?
And all, as usual, down to blindness to the commandment not to want what your neighbour has or could have – in this case some trophy described euphemistically on the media as ‘silverware’.
With GAA referees now on the verge of mental breakdown – or physical assault – does no one see any parallels with the suffering servant of Isaiah, or the myriad of other instances of all-against-one in the Bible?
Is it any wonder that young people are preferring GAA practice sessions to Mass when a billionaire can donate a million Euro to the GAA in every Irish county, but no one can apply scripture to the problem of referees faced with assault?
And the problem, as ever, is status anxiety – the fear that to lose a GAA match is to be disgraced forever – just because that stupid ref ‘McGilloway didn’t see that dastardly foul on wee Gerry’!
In the kingdom of God – on the other hand – everyone realises that everyone is equally beloved by the Trinity, so no sporting contest is ever to be taken as the Last Judgement on anyone. It’s just SPORT!
Until clergy can see and teach that – passionately – everyone will be marvelling at the social power of the GAA, with just a few referees as victims of this marvel – and everyone blind to what’s happening in front of them.