Rural Ireland changes rapidly as old ways fade away -- Facing a Facebook future as times change rapidly

The local mart - no longer the common gathering spot for rural Ireland

Rural Ireland is changing rapidly with many of the mainstays of that culture fading fast.

A friend from rural Tipperary put it best to me last week during my visit to Ireland.

We were driving to Belfast from Dublin and I was remarking on how the new highways, while wonderful, where changing the way people saw Ireland nowadays, no roads through rural towns and villages anymore, where much of the charm of Ireland lay.

He said rural Ireland had changed forever.

“Time was when people would gather at the fair day which is now mostly a memory, or the mart which no longer really happens.

“Before they’d gather outside mass but fewer and fewer are going nowadays because of all the scandals and the emigration.”

Even the most hallowed place, the pub, has its shortcomings today.

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“Even that ritual has become far less common nowadays because so many pubs have closed or locals are afraid of drunk driving because of the massive crackdowns. People mostly drink at home now.”

The only mainstay left he declares is the local GAA team, the sports of hurling and football played in every parish in Ireland.

“Were it not for the GAA there would be no community spirit in Ireland at all,” he says emphatically. “It has come down to them.”

It is definitely true. The GAA team plays for the pride of the village or townland and has seriously deep roots in the community.

But  in every other way the rural Ireland that we all knew is dying fast and neighbors are far less neighborly than they were even a few years ago.

It is not all downhill. Things have actually gotten a bit better since the demise of the Celtic Tiger when the emphasis was on big brash homes where keeping people out rather than fostering community bonds was the norm. There are not too many MacMansions any more.

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There has also been the advent of Facebook which has heavily impacted rural Ireland. I see it on my Facebook friend’s feeds who live in rural Ireland where it is a whole new way of communicating news.

Reports of break ins, local events, places to go with kids are all on Facebook daily now, replacing the community bulletins of old.

My niece’s Facebook last week in rural Meath was full of news of where Santa was showing up, how a car had been broken into, where the old folk’s Christmas luncheon was being held.

Rural Ireland is changing and adapting to the modern world. Whether Facebook will ever take the place of the gathering outside Mass or the pint on a Saturday night remains to be seen.

Someone once defined life’s three great needs as food, love and gossip. I’m inclined to agree and think rural Ireland will be fine, just different, in the future as there will always be lots of those three components to be found!

GAA goes Broadway in New York as a new era dawns for Gaelic games -- Historic banquet marks major expansion by Ireland’s largest sporting group

GPA Chairman Dónal Óg Cusack pictured with GPA Chief Executive Dessie Farrell

A new era dawned for the GAA Ireland’s leading sporting organization in a New York hotel last night.

The first annual dinner of the Gaelic Players Association, the umbrella group for all the 2,500 top athletes in Gaelic football and hurling, was a smashing success with over 400 prominent Irish Americans as well as the All-Star teams from Ireland.

More importantly however, the New York dinner signaled a fresh assault by Ireland’s leading sporting organization on the lucrative overseas market where tens of thousands already play their games.

Also present last night was GAA president Liam O’Neill who spoke about the new effort to spread Irish games worldwide on the wings of emigrants and the GAA’s legendary amateur status.

Though their players fill arenas as big as Yankee Stadium, the players are unpaid and in many cases,out of pocket as a result of giving their all for Ireland’s premier sports.

It is an incredible achievement and story that deserves far greater coverage and acknowledgement over here. Playing for the love and not the money is a foreign concept in big time sport anywhere in the world except Ireland.

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Ireland’s greatest athlete is Henry Shefflin who has nine hurling all Ireland medals, the equivalent of 9 super bowl rings -- but by day he is a bank employee making a relatively modest wage.

Guest of honor on the night was Donald R. Keough, the former top Coca-Cola executive who has done more to ensure bonds between Ireland and America remain closer than ever than any Irish American alive.

He was the one, as a former Chairman of Notre Dame and founder of the Keough Naughton Irish Institute there, who was the prime mover behind Notre Dame playing in Ireland this year-- and what an incredible success that was.

Now the GAA has come to play in America and based on the overwhelming success of the GPA players first dinner, there is a bright future ahead.

The games of hurling and Gaelic football are thrilling, fast moving, and can hold their own with any games on earth. With such a plethora of sports networks now here in America it seems a wonderful opportunity to spread the games of the Gael to new worlds.

The first steps for that American presence were taken in the Marriot Marquis Hotel in New York’s theater district  last night. The GAA are finally going Broadway.

Thousands across U.S. gathered for Donegal-Mayo standoff -- Irish Diaspora shows up in record numbers for All-Ireland football final

Donegal become All Ireland champions for 2012

Long Island: I doubt if there has ever been a bigger crowd at the Irish Center in Mineola, New York for an Irish football game as there was on Sunday.

From early morning hundreds came streaming in from all over Long Island and Queens to see the novel final pairing between Mayo and Donegal in the All Ireland football final. It was a scene duplicated all over America and the world in Irish centers, bars and restaurants as well as online.

It was a beautiful September day, but the Irish Center crowd was much more interested to hear that the wind was blowing strongly in Ireland, which would affect the flow of the game.

By the time of the national anthem played live from Dublin’s Croke Park there was nowhere to sit and a deep sense of quiet pride was felt.

For emigrants to see Dublin’s Croke Park packed with fellow Irish, to see the Tricolor fluttering, to feel the same identity that crosses oceans and continents is always a profound moment.

Young and old, Donegal and Mayo fans as well as many neutrals came to see the Irish Super Bowl, the major game of the year between two counties who have endured massive emigration and were considered long shots to make it to the final at the beginning of the year.

The crowds at the Irish Center and elsewhere are dictated by which teams are playing, Kilkenny, hurling kingpins, will not draw any large numbers as relatively few have emigrated to the U.S. from the Leinster county.

On the other hand, Cork, Kerry, Mayo and Donegal bring out massive numbers, successive generations having left their far-flung homes in those counties to come to America.

For Mayo people, the All Ireland has become a trail of tears. Since they won their last one in 1951 they have contested six finals, including yesterday, and lost them all.

They are the Chicago Cubs of Gaelic football, lovable but always no cigar. Yet their fans continue to turn out in massive numbers as they did on Sunday, undeterred and bruised but not broken by the final result, which saw Donegal win deservedly.

Donegal are now 2 for 2 in all Ireland final appearances, their last appearance and win was twenty years ago. Like Mayo they are a county wracked by emigration and unemployment and their football team has become an emotional touchstone for Ireland’s most isolated county.

Remember, these are amateur players playing for the pride of their county and no money and a few dollars in expenses.

I spent some time in Donegal a few weeks ago and every available public space was plastered with Donegal team slogans.

Their victory will be more important to them than a Super Bowl for New York.

Donegal won, but the Irish love of sports and unique identity was the biggest winner of all. Despite all the bad news out of Ireland, the final proved once again that some Irish institutions will stand forever.

The GAA and the All Ireland football final are paramount among them.

Read more: Hills of Donegal to welcome Sam Maguire back home after stunning Croke Park victory