Paul Rouse: is it dawn or dusk for Ireland after elections?

There’s a priest that wears earplugs in the confession box, a wild wedding, abundant allusion to the supernatural and a description of the sea as “just wan big bog hole”.

Early in the play, Hester – who was later played by Holly Hunter, the Oscar-winning actress in a staging in London’s West End – says: “It’s that hour when it could be either dawn or dusk, the light bein’ so similar.” 

This is a line that gets to heart of the state of Ireland this week. Ours is a country that could go in any direction.

The wider context is the surge of right-wing populism in many European countries. Here in Ireland, the election of independent far-right candidates such as Gavin Pepper and Malachy Steenson in Dublin, as well as the success of the Irish Freedom Party’s (IFP) Glen Moore and the National Party’s Patrick Quinlan, is a landmark moment.

The success of these four candidates in Dublin was almost added to by two more independents, Kevin Coyle and Fergus Power. They came just short, but gathered more than 2,000 votes between them.

Similarly, Ross Lahive and Derek Blighe narrowly failed to win in Cork, underlining that the far-right ideas they propagate are widely dispersed and not the preserve of any one community or place.

What has this got to do with sport? The answer is: “Everything”. This populism thrives on creating divisions across society.

After his success in the election, Pepper took to Twitter wearing a Dublin GAA jersey and issued a statement under the hashtag #IrelandBelongsToTheIrish. He congratulated the “nationalist independent candidates” for the votes they won across the country. To those who lost, he told them not to worry because they were getting stronger and that it was just a start: “We will not be beaten in this matter.” 

Pepper cannot be stopped wearing a Dublin jersey, of course, or making a video in a boxing club, or trying to use sport to promote his agenda. But he should be called out on it.

In the full flush of his own electoral victory to Dublin City Council, Pepper’s ally Malachy Steenson claimed that “the revolution has begun”.

He continued: “It’s a fabulous result for the nationalist movement in Ireland, it’s a fabulous result for the people of Ireland. We are taking our nation back.” 

Malachy Steenson was also wandering around in a Dublin GAA jersey, but his involvement in sport goes beyond any costume. When the new GAA National Handball and Croke Park Community Centre was officially opened behind the Cusack Stand on Sackville Avenue in July 2023, he was prominent at the launch as one of three community representatives on the Board of Directors of the Ownership Company.

The ownership company of the centre is shared between representatives of the GAA and the local community.

To be clear, this Board does not run the game of handball in Ireland (which is beginning to thrive again under the leadership of excellent people), rather it overseas the operation of the National Handball Centre. The centre has a most tangled history and its current iteration is a reflection of that complexity.

Steenson actually spoke at the official opening of the centre, alongside leading GAA officials and politicians. By the time of that opening in July 2023, Steenson had already been one of the leaders of protests against the housing of international protection applicants in East Wall from November 2022.

He subsequently claimed that these protests were the “key event that mobilised people around the country”. More than that, in a gross perversion of history and an insult to the memory of Michael Davitt, he was reported also as saying that his was a genuine “grassroots” movement akin to the Land League of the nineteenth century.

How does this kind of politics sit with the GAA’s professed commitment to diversity and inclusion?

There is an alternative approach. It is one rooted in a deep humanity and an understanding of the power of sport to break down barriers.

One of those who stood against Steenson for election to Dublin City Council was Daniel Ennis, a candidate for the Social Democrats. He has been well known in the north inner city for his extensive work for East Wall Bessborough Football Club.

Part of this work involves organising underage teams for which there are no fees charged to kids. Daniel Ennis is from the North Strand. He has a deep affinity with the area and the approach of his club is to invite all the children living in the area through the gates to kick a ball, regardless of where they are from. As he told Neil O’Riordan of ‘The Sun’: “This isn’t about forming a refugee team, it’s about welcoming people into our club and our community.” 

He continued: “We try to break down the barriers to entry into sport as well as the barriers to entry into our community using sport. In East Wall, you have the original working class, the middle class, and we have foreign nationals who might belong to one of those two groups or are living in the centres. We don’t have to use harsh words like integration and assimilation but we have 56 players under the age of 10 and there are 14 different nationalities. Their parents are watching them every week, they start chatting and get to know each other. And, on the pitch, there are only three colours, you can have one team in blue, another in red, and the green of the grass which we all have to share.” 

Daniel Ennis was also elected to Dublin City Council.

And this is the essence of the choice that sits now in front of communities all across the country – do people want to walk into the world as framed by Steenson and Pepper, or to create one in sympathy with Daniel Ennis?

Just as in “The Bog of Cats”, it could be either dawn or dusk.

*Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin