November 1, 1884: The Gaelic Athletic Association Is Founded
November 1, 1884: The Gaelic Athletic Association is founded at Hayes's Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary, in what's now the Republic of Ireland. The GAA governs the traditional Irish sports such as hurling and Gaelic football -- but not Irish soccer, which is governed by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). The Northern Ireland equivalent is the Irish Football Association (IFA).
For decades, Irish athletes resisted the sports that England were first to organize: Association football (soccer), rugby, and cricket. So they developed their own version of football, and rounders (a baseball-like game then less popular in England than cricket), and hurling. For girls, the game of canogie was invented, sort of a cross between field hockey and lacrosse.
By the 1960s, the growth of television allowed Irish people to see English sports more easily, and they decided to try to beat the English at their own games. An Ireland rugby team, made up of both Republic of Ireland players and Norther Ireland players, has been very successful. In soccer, though the Republic team (run by the Football Association of Ireland, or FAI) and the Northern Ireland team (run by the Irish Football Association, or IFA) remain separate, and tend not to do well.
The GAA also promotes Irish music and dance, as well as the Irish language, and it also promotes environmental stewardship through its Green Clubs initiative. Today, it is headquartered at Croke Park, the 82,300-seat national stadium, in Dublin. A GAA museum is at the stadium.
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November 1, 1884 was a Saturday. In America, baseball was the most popular sport, especially among its many Irish immigrants, but the season was over. But some Irish turned to American-style football, due to its closer to resemblance to the Gaelic version and rugby than to English soccer. These were still the early days of college football, and only 4 games were played that day:
* Wesleyan University, of Middletown, Connecticut, beat Harvard, 16-0 at the Hartford Ball Club Grounds in Hartford, Connecticut.
* Rutgers beat Lehigh, 61-0 at College Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
* The College of New Jersey, renamed Princeton University in 1896, beat Stevens Institute of Technology, of Hoboken, New Jersey, at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.
* And the University of Pennsylvania beat Lafayette, 21-0 at the University Athletic Grounds in Philadelphia.
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