😂😂😂

Trap basically said this about us. 

Said how Rugby suits us. 

Unfair on those of us with no interest in the GAA.

I only take that on special occasions these days. The body couldn't take it every weekend. 

Lets put our resources in qualifying for the Euros.

Euro-vision 2021.  Lets get back to out glory days of the early to mid 90's.

Why Me?

In Your Eyes

Rock and Roll Kids

The Voice

Or invent a sport that we can be the best in the world at

Player coming through look like we could have a few good players on our hands. Parrott, knight, molumby, connolly, smallbone, idah, obafemi all breaking through into their respective teams.

Kenny has had a tough week and ireland looked like a fish out of water but we're playing the ball on the floor for the first time in.... ever. I remember the Georgia game and we struggled with 3 consecutive passes... 

We win our next game and we're back in business.last two games will be footnotes.

New formation taking us into the modern game. 

Players picked on technical ability not just trying very hard. 

Idah, molumby, connolly may not have set the world alight but they have first team experience and will get better. They're not going to get better sitting on the bench. (This is more valuable than people think)

You've already done that, and more than one.

And the rest of the world doesn't give a f**k about them.

That mask is slipping again Terri, be careful.

Would agree with that. We're gonna have to be patient with this team and manager, even if it doesn't result in qualifying for the Euros or Qatar

He is right there though.

dont be jealous pal... why not join ur fellow countrymen and woman instead and gave it a try u might be surprised. nice little club and community forming up in East Belfast there too, regardless of what certain knuckle dragger are trying...

So we've gone from hating our football team to hating our national games....it's actually f**king happened...we've become 'Rugby Country' 

This is great.

It is fairly pathetic alright. You'd expect that sort of vitriolic hate from the likes of Terri, but I do wonder what happened to the other lads who froth at the mouth about Gaelic football and hurling. Were they bullied by the big, bad GAA boys as children?

Well there we go then. Perhaps you should let it go, it's not healthy to harbour life long grudges.

Plenty friends were involved in it but many with a more internationalist outlook were put off it for life. The history of rule 42 and the ban wouldn't have endeared me anyway. It's a backwards looking organisation full of FFers. That may well be changing, but it will never be for me and the best thing about living abroad is being able to ignore it.

The sports are sh*te too. Either watching lunatics with sticks or pound shop sumo wrestling.

For Zizu and O’Shea, do you think because I’m Irish, I have to like the GAA? That sounds exactly like the GAA mindset alright.

 I hate the organisation. I’m indifferent to the sports themselves 

 

There's always marching I suppose we could take up

First time I remember was  My father telling me years ago as a kid taking a beating of the Christian brothers for going to Dalyer to watch ireland play. He had many stories of their hate of soccer

They do not get football. The fact that these top nations have tens of thousands that attend lower league games and ‘that sh*te football’ is genuinely alien to people with this mindset. It’s something I pity as I never understand how they derive enjoyment from being pure consumers of the product that they see football as.

He was right

For every anti-association football bigot in the GAA there's an anti-GAA bigot in association football

It's 49 years since the ban was lifted

Get over it

Anti-rugby bigotry also runs deep in both GAA and association football

Normal people are not preoccupied with these things

All sports can co-exist

Loads of our international association football players and indeed League of Ireland legends come from serious GAA backgrounds

Kevin Moran, Niall Quinn, Steve Staunton, Packie Bonner, Kenny Cunningham, David Meyler, Damien Delaney, Shane Long, Con Martin, Dave Barry, John Caulfield, Paddy Ambrose

We have to learn to adapt, in every way, including financially, to compete for a country of our size and reputation and paying over-the-hill managers big money is what lead us to financial ruin.

The game has not moved on massively since Pulis's Stoke and Crystal Palace teams did what they did

Iceland are still doing what they're doing right now

There will always be a place for that sort of football because it's how the weak can compete with the strong

Good lad , thanks for the advice . Much appreciated 

It was more entertaining in that we would just cause chaos and create chance after chance.  Miss those days.  Imagine we adopted Jack's game plan in full now.  It would be so funny.  Let the pitch in Landowne grow to 3 inches in length and no watering of the pitch before games.  Punt it over the full backs and just run at them.

Wonder would it work.

One of the most accurate posts I’ve read on this forum.

GAA is a sport loved by FFers - the sort of people that’ll go to mass on a Sunday morning before throwing out sectarian or racial abuse on a Sunday afternoon.

But the mentality still exists. You talk about culture wars Sid, the GAA has been involved in them for years and has never been on the right side. 

As someone who was involved with both rugby and football in my own town, particularly the latter, the lengths 'd'association' went out of their way to unnecessarily disrupt the schedules of those two sports was incredible. The other two sports, as well as other smaller sports, with regularly help each other out in whatever way possible.

There has always been a vocal, right-wing, bigoted and hate-filled minority at the heart of every local GAA board and those that shout the loudest get heard the most. I don't hate anybody who loves the games, even if I will never understand the appeal, but people have to admit that this has always been the case. It may be changing, but it is far, far too slow and language like 'true Gaels' is an example of that.

Like a lot of things people have a strong, even irrational, love for, like church- goers, football fans with their clubs/franchises  and patriots and nationalists with the myths of their nation; a lot of GAA people struggle to accept those ills and face them down. They would rather pretend that people who hate the GAA for their narrow-minded pettiness are equally to blame. It's not too dissimilar, culturally speaking, to win people compare those on the left and the far-right as 'two sides of the same coin.

You are literally displaying a sense of superiority yourself now. There are individuals within every sport that seem to think they're better than every other sport, and soccer is absolutely not immune from that.

Personally I find it all very baffling, I don't particularly enjoy Rugby or Cricket for example, but you'll never see me raving about how terrible or insidious their entire sporting community is. It's actually just incredibly spiteful and small minded to do so.

There's no comparison with Iceland, in my eyes. They make the most of set-pieces and throw-ins, but technically Iceland are far superior to use currently, even without size being taken into the equation. 

They have had a clear strategy for years that has involved many of the things that we want to try and introduce with Kenny and it reaps rewards.

Despite being a nation in thrall to the English game and quite wealthy, they have managed to do it without overpaying lads who fell of the English merry-go-round. 

Don't hate GAA more indiffernet to it but growing up in school we were only allowed play Gaelic for PE because our teacher was a True Gael from Clare.   Anyway we had these portable posts with nets for GAA and a lad on my team got sent off for attempting a bicycle kick when this ball was crossed to him in the box (sorry parallelogram'

Yer man despised football.

Because there isn't a large vocal minority in cricket, rugby, hockey, table-tennis or tiddlywinks that would be not only allowed to be small-minded and bigoted, but actually have a major say in running the organisation. 

Like a lot of things, you've a massive chip on your shoulder about this issue. Fair enough, I'll leave you to your ravings.

I really hope it is changing,  for Ireland's sake, but it needs more of the good people to stand up to the bigots.

Careful or you'll end up in the boot of a Renault Megane

Quite ironic reading this thread

I have no problem being bitter and twisted towards regressive organisations in society. I think it's necessary.

The GAA is a mirror of Ireland and always has been since its formation, it cuts across all classes, urban and rural

The GAA is a cultural organisation, it's inherently so, it was set up specifically to promote Irish culture at a time when Ireland was under British rule, and therefore was a major vehicle for the drive towards independence

Of course the GAA was insular in the past, Irish society was itself insular

But it's weird that a lot of the same people who sl*g off the GAA for supposedly being insular are quite insular themselves when it comes to people following English football rather than League of Ireland

I love the GAA because Gaelic football and hurling are great sports and Irish life is greatly enriched by their presence and popularity

And yes, I am quite proud that our small island has produced two of the world's great field sports, I don't know why anybody wouldn't be

In terms of "culture wars", the GAA is to the forefront of anti-racism initiatives, anti-suicide initiatives and women's participation in sport, 50k now regularly attend the women's football final, it was a massive help to the Special Olympics in 2003

It also contains to my knowledge the only openly gay (then current, now past) player in Irish sport, Donal Óg Cusack

Instead of moaning about what the GAA are doing right, association football should try to copy it where possible

The late association football writer Tommy Murdiff was very much of this view, he suggested that Irish domestic football be redrawn on county lines because he recognised that identity of place was a key driving factor in Irish sport

That's why Cork and Derry have the best supports in the League of Ireland

I absolutely hate pretty much all of the organizational, marketing and business ethics of the GAA (and don't get me started on the shoddy anthem playing before every game), but I don't get how people can outright hate the sports rules and how they are played, without being biased.

If you find them boring or in the case of hurling, having few top teams and having a lot of matches turn into hammerings, fair enough. But saying that these sports are too violent or feral or that they are too ridiculous to deserve to be sports is very unfair

Yeah I was just about to say we should bring back McGeady

 Get up outta that.

Bang on I’m indifferent to the sport but admire the skill of hurlers it’s an out of this world skill. As for their supporters and the GAA themselves odious. RTE are horrific to listen to as well according to Marty Morrisey/Ger Canning and others every score is “amazing” every fella is a superstar the last time you see them criticise a player/team for a bad performance is about 1970 I suspect.

 

What you mentioned above is still a thing in more subtle ways where lads are treated like f**king superstars for playing with their county it’s beyond pathetic. 

In college I have seen it first hand from having a few of these “superstars” in my year or social circle by god they are treated like royalty it’s beyond embarrassing and it leads to a lot them thinking they are a lot f**king better then they are. 

One of my now mates who by chance was in the same apartment as me in his first year was a well known inter county hurler and I genuinely wasn’t aware of who he played for until the first week of college when we hung out a bit and it wasnt that he even mentioned it originally I picked up on it as people treated him like he was some sort of royal creature. 😂 

This fella is a gent and you can tell is f**king allergic to all the attention to this day. 

Would they be as odious as some of the Irish fans in France at the 2016 euros?

Yes they are every fella is a superstar by god I can’t remember the last time a player has done anything wrong  (only have to see the reaction to Richie Hogans stone well red card in the All Ireland last year most of them would have told you it was a fair shoulder for example) 

Yeah the ybig bandwagon adrenaline junkie we are the best supporters in the world Irish soccer brigade are equally as dire in my opinion possibly even worse. 

Nothing quite tops Irish Rugby and it’s supporters tbf. gas up/overate every small achievement to the absolute rooftops while literally ignore/refuse to criticise every mess up/sh*t show of a performance despite have actually being one of the best in the world at that sport. That 2019 World Cup was undoubtedly the most embarrassing sporting event in Irish sporting history far worse than Euro 2012 even where at least we were the worst team of the 4 and were in a Group with the top 2 teams of the tournament. Yet you had lads celebrating and cheering after Japan beat us and saying how it wasn’t a surprise and whooping and hollering in shots with Joe Schmidt and we 30 points behind NZ. 

Says the man who has re wrote history by leaving out the 1920s to 1986 and some beautiful footballers such as Giles and Brady and Heighway and before that renowned footballers like Johnny Carey and Charlie Hurley and Tony Dunne and Liam Whelan.   

Football was a garrison game in the country learned on the cobbles streets of our large towns and cities and usually played by kids were were not well fed and were small and nippy like Giles.  Not by rural folk who while also poor had access to good food.  

I don't know why you quoted me there Sid as you seemed to completely ignore most of what I raised.

The GAA will obviously be to the forefront of any such anti-racism initiatives or similar, sure Manchester City have a woman's team! It is lip-service and does nothing to change the real and dangerous culture that those small minorities up and down the country.

I don't sl*g anyone for following English football,  but I see being a sports fan, particularly a football fan, being local, familial or cultural. What is weird is when the local comm-meat-tea members openly mock LOI fans in the same pub they will be shouting for 'Man Yoo' in on the Sunday. That these lads will go out of their way to disrupt under 12 rugby training and go on a jolly to France to watch Munster.

Those are the real culture wars. The ban might be long gone, but the mentality hasn't and thatsthe issue.

As I said, like any organisation with a such a strong devotion people would rather project the issues back on the critics than accept the criticism and that is the problem. 

In an obviously much milder way, it is exactly how their good friends in the Church got away with such evil acts. Deflection. 'Look at our charity work', said the priest on the pulpit after he had destroyed children's lives and the Bishop covered it up.

As an aside, I always thought that the Derry City support was very separate from the GAA support and there was an urban/rural divide, similar to in Sligo.

Incidentally, I would say Sligo have the biggest, certainly per capita, most loyal and consistent support in the LOI. 

You will find Valerie Mulcahy and Katie McCabe are both openly gay. 

Steve Heighway and Charlie Hurley were raised in England

We may have played some pretty football in the Giles and Brady days, and where did it get us, nowhere

It's a bit mad to see people eulogising Jack Charlton a few weeks ago and then sh*tting all over Charlton's style in an effort to protect Kenny 

Where did I sh*t over Charltons style.  But you are erasing history yourself.  You can’t claim that we are a nation who only plays physical direct football on the basis we were successful playing it in the 80s and 90s when previous to that we didn’t play that sort of football for 60 or so years.  Whether it was successful or not is irrelevant it wasn’t our culture that you claimed it to be.   Our footballing culture was not route one football.  

Lip service my hole

Look at Ballyhaunis where the GAA club have made massive efforts to reach out to the local Muslim population and have been very successful in doing so, producing a Mayo under-21 All-Ireland winner

Jason Sherlock and Sean Og O'hAilpin are two of the most popular players ever to play for their counties, both are loved

I've attended League of Ireland matches and heard supporters throwing around casual racist abuse of black players belonging to their own team including the n word, Avery John at Bohs comes to mind

Being a sports fan is whatever you want it to be, it can be local, national, international, individual, there are no rules

Sorry but the "commi-tee" stereotype is your own personal prejudice, yes it still exists in certain parts but is dying out 

I could just as easily stereotype junior soccer in Dublin as being drug dealers at play, it would be f**king ridiculous to do that though because it would be branding the overwhelming majority of decent people involved

Associating the GAA with racism and paedophilia in the Catholic Church is mendacious nonsense and the exact sort of bogus culture war sh*te that is a real problem in society now

Racism cuts all across society and the racism that exists within the GAA is most certainly shared by every other sport, association football included

Derry has always been a mainly association football city

Shane Duffy played GAA though, Martin McGuinness's brother also played for Derry, and the Derry team used to get plenty of support there when they were going well

There's always been plenty of crossover between soccer and GAA in Derry as a county, Martin O'Neill. Gerry McElhinney, the Bradleys, Anthony Tohill etc.

You better get on to Jack Charlton, because he said it

I'll tell you what our footballing culture was before Charlton came along, it was losing, we were great at the oul' losing

I'm sure you were around in the 1950s to know what the culture was

You can add Ballymun Kickhams to that, who have done incredible work in one of the most disadvantaged areas of the country. An even more recent example is the GAA club set up in East Belfast with the explicit aim of bringing the game to people from both sides of the political divide. But lets not ruin PM's fairytale of the bigoted, hyper-nationalist bogeymen running the GAA who's sole aim is to cleanse Ireland of all non-Gaelic influences 

Supporters aren't the problem here, that's a different issue. Of course there are supporters of anything who are ****s. I am talking about those commi-tee members. It is great to see that the good people in Ballyhaunis are standing up and winning, I hope many more can do the same, but as long as prominent pundits are writing about 'true Gaels' without being pulled up it will still have a hint of what I could only call ethno-nationalism.

It's funny you mention Sherlock and Séan Óg as I have witnessed both getting racist abuse: one at a football match and the other at a local GAA match he wasn't even playing in, but his brother was and his name was mentioned.

My problem isn't that racism does or doesn't cut across society.  We all know that and saying it is irrelevant. What is relevant is that there is a vocal minority on commi-tees across Ireland who are allowed to promote these views, usually silently, that are long since outdated. They may be slowly dying off, but it is the failure of people in the GAA to accept that that's the real issue here.

I also didn't associate the GAA with any such thing, I compared the culture of deflection used by both and not the crimes. I think there are similarities. Similar to the Manchester City fans who took to Twitter to defend Abu Dhabi's actions against Matthew Hedges, a man they would otherwise hardly have heard of. None of the crimes are comparable, but the devoted mentality to defend the indefensible is.

I have to say I would be slightly disappointed and surprised if all Dublin junior football players weren't called Whacker and Damo who sold opiates, but it is good to see them slowly change too.

That isn't what I have ever said, but instead of actually deal with the issues you went first for a personal attack, then to completely ignore what I said until someone more capable had a go at refuting it, before finally chirping in to exaggerate to suit your own argument.

Pigeons and chess.

I'm not sure of the point you're making and I don't think you are

I think it's that the commi-tee stereotype is a major purveyor of racist abuse in Ireland today

I think that's your imagination 

It's beginning to remind me of the Tory witch hunt portraying Labour as uniquely anti-Semitic

Again ignoring the points I have made and doing your own 'yap yap yap' without saying anything and assuming superiority. 

It would be easy to see you are a GAA man without any mention of it needed.

You were sure of it all along while you went off on tangents about Ballyhaunis and lads getting racially abused on the LOI, when I try and bring you back to it you pretend you don't understand it.

There's an air of dangerous ethno-nationalism and cultural superiority that resides within the GAA and is pushed to the forefront by those stereotypes, who may well be dying out, but are still a significant part of the organisation. People seem to want to ignore it or tell me they are making it up, but responses from people on here and off here, and my own personal experiences mean I know that this is true.

You also know it is true, but rather than accept any fault in d'association you feel to deflect away from it rather than face it head on. It is, ironically,  quite Trump  like.

There you go with your own bigotry again. I'm not a "GAA man", I'm an Irish person who follows multiple sports that are played in Ireland, and more importantly I don't spend my time spreading small minded vitriol about the sports I don't follow. For a man who proclaims to be so against discrimination, I have noticed you seem to reserve an unusual amount of hatred for certain sections of society, be that people from Dublin, people who play GAA or Rugby, etc. I suppose that's just another of your numerous foibles.

I don't think I have expressed hatred for people who play any sport? I don't think you can call sl*gging the very sensitive population of Dublin as discrimination,  but it does provide amusement!

Fair enough if you are not a 'GAA man', you so rarely hear the term 'GAA woman', but you would strike me as such. Apologies if you are not, you do seem very sensitive of criticism towards it though.. 

There was more than a hint of playfulness in that, but the results were enjoyable. I imagine the GAA is a lot more accommodating to women now, I would assume. Why this would suggest 'grasping at straws', even if meant as a deliberately discussion of misogyny in the GAA, would again suggest  more deflection though.

So  to get back to the original point  if you want to refute it, made after someone questioned why Irish people could hate the GAA, a question itself loaded connotations that to be really Irish you must like it...

Many on here, and indeed elsewhere, have similar views to me about the GAA. They may not be expressed by the majority due to the unique responses the GAA brings out in all Irish people good and bad, but I would be fairly certain that what I am saying is in someway recognisable to all bar the lucky few. Yet people who support the GAA are loathe to admit to it.

As I said earlier, I understand the devotion that such an institution inspires, but the inability of its supporters and members to accept faults they are surely aware of is something I find bizarre. It is good to hear attitudes are changing, and there is a club in East Belfast etc. but I think they will need to change a lot more for people like myself who were so disheartened at the actions of people within the organisation with little bit of power. These actions are emboldened by the history of cultural and financial supremacy within the state and by the use of language and mythical nationalism to sell it. They can try and change their perception ,  but to me it feels slightly hypocritical . The attitude that talks of 'true Gaels' is the attitude many of us recognise and despise. 

I think it was  in this debate throughout, that subtle arrogance that suggests the GAA can never be wrong.

And it could be argued that it's this mentality that has held us back the most. Having McClean and Duffy as the personification is a truly depressing thought. I know the point you are trying to make, but we need to move away from this being the benchmark for our players. Or at the very least, combine it with technical efficiency.

I'd argue that the way Liverpool and City play with the high press is the modern equivalent of "put 'em under pressure". Yes, I know that they have vastly superior players to implement that style, but our players were actively encouraged against venturing too far from our own box. As a fan, spending more of the game in the opposition half, forcing them into errors, and winning the ball back quickly, is something I would love to see us do, and would definitely have a big effect on the atmosphere inside Lansdowne.

Jack's era was a special time for Irish football, but we have been left so far behind the rest, it's frightening. There's no reason we can't combine our natural mentality of "get in amongst them" with greater technical efficiency and encouragement from the management team to become a proactive, rather than a reactive, team.

As Noam Chomsky said - “ if the working class weren’t distracted by watching sport they would wake up to the utter pointless shallow existence they lead”

When you said earlier you had a chip on your shoulder, you should have just left it that, because your unironic attempt to justify that chip has been f**king car crash

This cult-like devotion is exactly the problem.

maybe its Free State thing, but in the 6 counties it’s completely different to how you have been describing the GAA. such a vital part of the community up here and honestly where im from the GAA has such a positive role its unbelievable. really shocked by the hate shown towards it tbh, not dismissing your viewpoint on it just because its not something i have experienced btw, but its def an eye opener!!

Only one side is cultish mate

Your reasons essentially boil down to the spurious argument that the GAA is a cancer promoting "dangerous ethno-nationalism". The irony of this argument is that you spend a large proportion of your day posting on a forum devoted to the IRISH INTERNATIONAL football team. International football is unambiguously ethno-nationalist, and there is a far more fervent nationalist undertone to games such as Ireland vs England; France vs Germany; Poland vs Russia; etc etc than there is to any aspect of the GAA as an organisation. So unless you are willing to concede that international football is in fact a far larger engine of ethno-nationalist sentiment than the GAA could ever be, it is clear that your argument is grounded in nothing other than your own bitter biases.

Obviously and I'm glad you admitted it.

I would suggest you look up the term again. International football is internationalist in outlook, who would have thought,  and I doubt multicultural sides like France, Germany and ourselves would have much truck with ethno-nationalism. One of the greatest things about France's modern football triumphs has been how much it has annoyed their ethno-nationalists in the FN, or whatever they have rebounded as this week.

Harping on about 'true Gaels' clearly implies ethno-nationalism. The vocal minority making people of other religious backgrounds unwelcome or uncomfortable being tolerated, far more than in any other sport on the island, is ethno-nationalism. The considerable links between the organisation and the dominant Church is, well, you get the picture.

Who in the GAA has given a damn about religion for the past 30+ years? The football Championship is named after a Protestant, Antrim's stadium in the heart of Belfast is named after an Englishman, 2 of Monaghans most prominent footballers of the past decade are Protestants from a border town; as I've already alluded to, a club was recently set up in East Belfast; etc etc. Just face it, you are choosing to wallow in the past because the present GAA doesn't even vaguely resemble your monstrous view of it. It's pathetic, it's sad, and it shows you up for the poisonous little man you are.

Would it annoy you if a commentator said Richard Dunne was a true Irishman after his performance in Moscow, or Bobby Moore a true West Ham man, or Paul McStay a true Celtic man?

 

Its a similar turn of phrase or term of endearment. Don't take it to heart

That's actual ethno-nationalism in action

Perhaps he is insecure that he can't live up to the billing himself. As you say, for anyone with a normal personality it's a turn of phrase they'd hardly pay any notice to, it doesn't really mean much.

Yes, but what that has to do with anything is completely illogical. You erroneously used the term ethno-nationalism and now have to double down. Yes, countries have difficult histories and there is unquestionably difficulties with nationalism in a lot of supports, but rarely ethno-nationalism and certainly not in the sport as a whole, for all of FIFA's many faults, as it would go against its very purpose.

The problem is, as I have to keep repeating, is that old Tommy of the comm-meat-tea cares about religion in the GAA and his views are still tolerated in a way they are not elsewhere. That's the problem. The fact that people feel the need to mention that there are a whole two Protestant  Gaelic footballers shows that people do still care about religion. 

The fact that people don't want to accept this is why I see the GAA as a regressive organisation in Irish society. If people want to pretend it is fine, that's ok.  Enjoy it. 

  

I have managed to avoid such blatantly petty insults when replying to you. I can accept why you might refuse to accept any fault in d'association, but such pettiness only confirms the pigeons and chess analogy. Everyone knows there is more than a kernel of truth in what I am saying,  but nobody with a grá for the cult has the decency to admit it.

It doesn't annoy me, I just think the language we use is important and that is openly nativist. That isn't healthy from a sporting organisation with a wide ranging influence. 

I don't think national anthems should be played before a sporting event. It's unnecessary. I don't see how this is really relevant, more another deflection. 

Do you hate the Gaelic heritage of your country so much that you feel the need to rebel against every mention of it? You talk about the old Irish bigots who hate all things non-Gaelic, but you seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, turning your nose up to all things that are Gaelic. Someone being proud of Gaelic culture is no more bigoted than someone being proud of Norse culture, Latin culture, etc. So what exactly is your issue with "Gaels" specifically? "Irish nationalism" and Gaelicism are actually incredibly limited in scope compared to most varieties, it doesn't present itself as being some sort of master culture that should rightfully conquer all others, it simply focuses on itself.

Again, you have gone off on a rabid rant when I have never said anything of the sort. I'm quite proud of Irish heritage and culture and am currently in the process of finding Irish language lessons nearby.

I do have a problem with the nativist implications of the term 'true Gaels'. You can disagree with it, but it has a similar bang of ethno-nationalism that you get off terms like Saxon over here. You can be proud of your culture and heritage without being exclusive about it. I have little problem with the word 'Gaels', albeit it feels unnecessary, but the added adjective makes it menacing and that this is 'our thing', not yours and that you can't be a 'true Gael' or Irishman unless you join our organisation.