What is “GAA”?
The Gaelic Athletic Association. Mostly for traditional Gaelic games like hurling and Gaelic football.
I’ve a friend that lives in the Mayo area and I’ve never heard him call the northern parts of the country anything but by their county names. I’ll ask him and see what he says.
Yeah, that’s what I calls 'em anyway.
The founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association, Michael Cusack, as The Nameless Citizen/Cyclops, is the model and font of blind (eventually) nationalism in the one of the two most hateful and violent chapters of Ulysses (1922), set among drinkers in a bar with whom Bloom tangles. (The second, much briefer event, is after midnight when Stephen Daedalus is beaten up by two British soldiers. Joyce is even-handed in his despisal of nationalism.)
The bar talk with The Citizen is periodically mocked in inflated (gigantesque) journalistic prose, as in this report of the drinkers passing comments on the virtue of sport in Ireland:
A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of Brian O’Ciarnain’s in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag, under the auspices of Sluagh na h-Eireann, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancient Panceltic forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected worker in the cause of our old tongue, Mr Joseph M’Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best traditions of manly strength and prowess handed down to us from ancient ages. L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses, having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the discussion to a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis’ evergreen verses (happily too familiar to need recalling here) A Nation Once Again in the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of the press and the bar and the other learned professions. The proceedings then terminated.