GAA Choice of Speaker Endorses Fictional Version of History

Tim Pat Coogan: Not welcome in my GAA

As Over the Bar is a Gaelic Football Blog, this is the most serious the coverage will ever be: The GAA has announced author Tim Pat Coogan will speak at the Croke Park Museum on the 90th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday. For those few readers who are not aware, on 21 November 1920, 14 civilians, including Tipperary player Michael Hogan, were killed when Royal Irish Constabulary, the dreaded Black & Tans as well as Auxiliary forces fired indiscriminately into the crowd of spectators at Croke Park. Bullets took the lives of 12 civilians while two more were trampled to death by the terrified crowd.

The explanations for this tragedy vary widely. The most popular theory is that the attack in Croke Park was purposeful revenge for IRA murders carried out earlier in the day. An Inquiry Commission established at the time to examine events surrounding Bloody Sunday and subsequently released archival documents demonstrate that the official RIC orders were to detain and search the crowd as they filed out of the stadium after the match. According to these reports an accidental tragedy occurred when gunshots from the crowd led to a panicked response by the soldiers. No doubt a questionably neutral 'inquiry' but an account of the events nonetheless. Unfortunately, because of the chosen speaker at Sunday's Commemoration, only one version of the story will be told.