Rachael Brooks. Women, sport and ... Rachael Brooks. University of .... those sports that were established as a direct result of British influence, for example ...
Book Title: The role of sports in the formation of personal identities - studies in community loyalties Edited By: John Hughson, Clive Palmer and Fiona Skillen Contributions Chris Hallinan: Hughson: from: John 1
Daryl Leeworthy: Thomas Fletcher: 3 Tiffany Henning: 4 Joel Rookwood: 5 Elizabeth Moreland: 6 Rachael Brooks: 7 Courtney W. Mason: 8 Rachel Dilley: 9 Sean Morrissey: 10 Neil Hall: 11 Daniel Turner: 2
[Foreword] Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. [Introduction] University of Central Lancashire, UK. Swansea University, Wales. Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. University of Texas, USA. Liverpool Hope University, UK. University College Dublin, Ireland. University of Ulster, Ireland. University of Alberta, Canada. University of Sheffield, UK. University College Dublin, Ireland. University of Western Sydney, Australia. Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Author and Rachael Brooks chapter: Women, sport and national identity in Ireland (Chapter 6, pp: 143-166).
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press, New York, USA. ISBN: ISBN-10: 0-7734-2666-3 and ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-2666-5 (316 pages) This file is from the editors’ draft copy of the final book before publishing. Cover art: The Cosmic Athlete (2012) by Andrew Wright (Sporting Image, UCLan, Preston, UK) To reference this chapter: Brooks, R. (2012) Women, sport and national identity in Ireland (Chapter 6, pp: 143-166). In, Hughson, J., Palmer, C. and Skillen, F. (Eds.) The role of sports in the formation of personal identities studies in community loyalties. Edwin Mellen Press, New York, USA. Research Web Host:
https://www.academia.edu/3514993/John_Hughson_Clive_Palmer_and_Fiona_Skillen_2012_Sports_Identity_The_role_of_sports_in_the _formation_of_personal_identities_-_studies_in_community_loyalties._Edwin_Mellen_Press_New_York._USA
143
Women, sport and national identity in Ireland Rachael Brooks University of Ulster
Introduction Heretofore the focus of academic study on the relationship between sport and national identity in Ireland has been on men to the obvious occlusion of females.1 This trend is echoed around the globe2 and although in broader academic contexts issues associated with women and sport have certainly been addressed, as have women’s positioning within a range of different nationalisms, this research has been primarily focussed on the third world and conflict ridden locations3. Literature examining the interplay between women, nationalism and sport is lacking. Indeed this type of investigation has never taken place in the context of Ireland, and only in a limited sense elsewhere4 which leaves the study of the nexus between these three areas of study largely untouched and long overdue. The findings outlined in this chapter therefore represent a timely intervention into Some of the most recent examples of work in this area include: David Hassan, “A People Apart: Soccer, Identity and Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland”, Soccer & Society, 3 (2002); David Hassan “Still Hibernia Irredenta? The Gaelic Athletic Association, Northern Nationalists and modern Ireland”, Sport in Society, 6, 1 (2003); David Hassan “Rugby Union, Irish Nationalism and National Identity in Northern Ireland” Football Studies, 6, 1 (2003); Joseph Maguire and Jason Tuck “National Identity, Rugby Union and Notions of Ireland and the Irish” Irish Journal of Sociology, 14, 1 (2005); Alan Bairner, Sport and the Irish: Histories, Identities, Issues (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2005); Alan Bairner, “Civic and Ethnic Nationalism in the Celtic Vision of Irish Sport” in Sport in the Making of Celtic Cultures (London: Leicester University Press, 1999). 2 Some examples throughout the world include E Archetti, E. Masculinity and Football: The Formation of National Identity in Argentina.(Aldershot: Arena, 1994); H Beckles, H. and V Richards A Spirit of dominance: cricket and nationalism in the West Indies (Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press, University of the West Indies, 1998); J.A. Mangan, J.A. & John Nauright Sport in Australasian society: past and present (London: Frank Cass, 2000); S Wagg Cricket and national identity in the postcolonial age (London: Routledge, 2005); M Tervo “Sports, 'race' and the Finnish national identity in Helsingin Sanomat in the early twentieth century”, Nations and Nationalism, 8, 3, (2002) p. 335; Alan Tomlinson and C Young German football: history, culture, society (London: Routledge, 2006) 3 E H Kim and C Choi Dangerous women: gender and Korean nationalism (New York: Routledge, 1998); D Kandiyoti Women, Islam and the State (London: Macmillan, 1991); D Kandiyoti “Identity and its discontents: women and the nation” Millennium, 20, 3, (1991) p. 429 4 For example see: Jennifer Hargreaves, “Women's sport, development, and cultural diversity: The South African experience”, Women’s Studies International Forum , 20, Issue 2 (1997) 1
144 this field with its aim of redressing this balance somewhat in favour of the study of women whose voices are contained within.
For the first time women’s
experiences of sport both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have been investigated in terms of gauging what women have had to say about their own interpretations and expressions of their national identity and whether or not these have been influenced by their involvement in certain national or lifestyle sporting choices. The non-essentialist feminist theoretical framework used for this research supported the perspective that gender is both socially constituted and performative in nature. Furthermore multiple and blended forms of gendered identities were illuminated, as was the belief that gender norms and roles are stabilised through a range of social institutions, including sport, which promote traditional and ‘appropriate’ gendered behaviours. Social networks of power were also examined as was the evolving nature of gendered expressions of identity, dependent on the context in which they are performed5. Of course it should be said that in studying a range of cross cutting forms of identity, not least as they apply to the study of the nation, there is always room for misinterpretation. In so far as this chapter is an accurate and reflective account of the views held by women in various locations throughout Ireland6, it can never claim to be true of all women, in all settings. Women are anything but a homogenous grouping and so the ways some women engage with some sports for the purposes of national identity may contrast markedly with the ways other women do so.
Sports Research in Ireland As Bairner (1999) has stimulated three types of sport have been recognised to be present in Ireland which men tend to dominate, regardless of their social class. 5
Judith Butler Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990) 6 In order to assist with the ease of reading of this chapter I will use the term “Ireland” to encompass responses from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland although these are two politically separate countries.
145 An awareness of this typology is significant as it may influence a study of gendered national identity expressions in Ireland. The first category identifies those sports that were established as a direct result of British influence, for example, cricket, rugby and field hockey. These sports have therefore been linked to sense of “Britishness”. Conversely there are sports such as Gaelic football and hurling that are tied to the Irish Gaelic tradition and are linked to a sense of “Irishness”. These types of sports ‘were given new life during the late nineteenth century as a reaction against the growing popularity of foreign (i.e., British) games, thereby becoming important elements in the development of Irish nationalism’7. Finally there are those sports that emerged in Ireland as a result of British influence but have become so universally popular it would be nonsensical to describe them as British games, for example, soccer, track and field, boxing and golf.
Appreciating these groupings of sport in Ireland puts into context where the three sports of hockey, Gaelic football and surfing, investigated in this chapter, fit into the current field of study. Although Gaelic football and hockey have both, in different ways, and to differing degrees, been linked in everyday life, largely via the segregated school systems, to the two dominant nationalisms on the island of Ireland, the gendered nature of this national attachment has not been investigated in any published academic work. Surfing is of particular significance as it has only been dealt with in a very sporadic sense in the field of sports sociology8, despite its growing popularity amongst young people in particular. It also adds a new dimension to an examination of the interrelationship between national
Bairner “Civic and Ethnic Nationalism in the Celtic Vision of Irish Sport”, p. 287 For examples see the work of Douglas Booth, “Surfing: The cultural and technological determinants”, Culture, Sport, Society, 2, 1, (1999) p. 36; Douglas Booth, “Australian Beach Cultures: The History of Sun, Sand and Surf.” (London: Frank Cass., 2001); Douglas Booth “From bikinis to board shorts: Wahines and the paradoxes of surfing culture” Journal of Sport History, 28, 1 (2001) p. 3; Paul Holmes “Surf Culture: A serious subculture” in Carroll, N. (ed.), The Next Wave: A Survey of World Surfing (London: MacDonald, 1991), p. 199; Colleen McGloin, “Surfing nation(s) - surfing country(s)”, PhD dissertation, School of Social Sciences, Media and Communications, University of Wollongong (2005) 7 8
146 identity and sport in Ireland as previous studies have not included a lifestyle perspective. Thus this work not only provides an insight into the ways in which national identities can be conveyed through more traditional, team based sports played throughout Ireland by women, but also how these identities may be resisted or reinterpreted through participation in more global and lifestyle sporting forms. These three sports were therefore chosen so as to elicit novel insights into sports both traditionally and untraditionally linked to the different British and Irish consciousnesses present in Ireland. Furthermore it is proposed that Bairner’s typology of sports in Ireland be extended to include a fourth category, that of lifestyle sports. Accepting this category allows for the introduction and growing popularity of global sports such as surfing, which were not considered popular when Bairner first proposed his typology over a decade ago. Such sports are also believed to challenge the way in which the current generation of young women reinterpret, express or reject a gendered sense of a regional and ultimately national identity through sport in Ireland. Indeed there has been no study to date that has addressed women’s presence within, and expression of identity in any of these categories, let alone those examining these issues in the context of ‘lifestyle’ sports or similar pastimes. Bairner’s research9 nonetheless is particularly noteworthy as it investigates the issues and relationships of sport, nationalism and identity on the island. However, in the main his work has focussed solely on men’s experiences of sports and when Bairner, Sport and the Irish: Histories, Identities, p. 1; Bairner, “Civic and Ethnic Nationalism in the Celtic Vision of Irish Sport”, p. 287; Alan Bairner, “Sportive Nationalism and Nationalist Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Scotland, The Republic of Ireland and Sweden”, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 23 (1996) p. 314; Alan Bairner, “Sport, sectarianism and society in a divided Ireland revisited” Power Games. A Critical Sociology of Sport (London: Routledge, 2002); Alan Bairner and Peter Shirlow “Loyalism, Linfield and the Territorial Politics of Soccer Fandom in Northern Ireland”, Space and Polity, 2, 2. (1998) p. 163; John Sugden and Alan Bairner Sport, sectarianism and society in a divided Ireland (Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1993); John Sugden and Alan Bairner (eds.) Sport in Divided Societies (Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport Ltd., 2000) 9
147 women are referred to it is merely to detail their relationship with men, and not as a focus of investigation in their own right. A man writing about men playing sport leaves little room for the female voice and so, if the research presented in this chapter achieves little else, it has succeeded in beginning a process designed to redress this imbalance in scholarly activity. Is there a gendered aspect to national identity? and, given the apparent way in which sport has been utilised in the study of this concept in Ireland, is there something unique about the way women use sport to portray their national identities that has not, as yet, been afforded proper recognition by those who have studied this area? These questions are effectively what the research presented in this chapter intended to address - do women on the island of Ireland use the sports of Gaelic football, hockey or surfing to perpetuate or resist traditional, implicitly male, forms of Irish and British national identities? Gender issues related to women do appear in some work in this area, for example Liston’s research10 on sport and gender in the Republic of Ireland. Nevertheless most work on gender only assesses the relationship between men’s identities or what is more usually called masculinity and sport.
However the apparent
transferable nature of this type of research to implicitly incorporate the views of women needs to be questioned.
The gendered political and sporting landscapes of Ireland In the absence of any academic research being carried out on the gendered constitution and expression of national identities in sport in Ireland, one of the principle themes investigated was whether or not the different ways in which women are positioned within the two dominant political nationalisms (Irish Katie Liston, “The Gendered Field of Irish Sport” Ireland Unbound: A Turn of the Century Chronicle, Corcoran, M. and Peillon, M. (eds.) (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2002) p. 231; Katie Liston, “Some Reflections on Women’s Sports”, Sport and the Irish: Histories, Identities, Issues, Alan Bairner (ed.) (Dublin: UCD Press, 2005), p. 206; Katie Liston, “Established-Outsider Relations between Males and Females in the Field of Sport in Ireland”, Irish Journal of Sociology 14, 1,(2005) p. 66; Katie Liston “Sport and Gender Relations”, Sport and Society 9, 4 (2006) p. 616; Katie Liston “Women's Soccer in the Republic of Ireland: Some Preliminary Sociological Comments”, Soccer & Society, 7, 2 (2006) p. 364; Katie Liston, ‘A Question of Sport’, in O'Sullivan, S. et al. (eds.) Contemporary Ireland: A Sociological Map. (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2007) p.159 10
148 nationalism and Ulster Unionism – arguably a variant of British nationalism) is mirrored in their sporting choices. After all if women are located differently to men within nationalist processes, and indeed in sport, it would seem plausible that different and gendered types of expressions of national identities should also exist. It may also be useful in other politically divided contexts outside of Northern Ireland to use such a methodology when addressing issues of gender and national identity in sport. Certainly if little is known about women, sport and national identity in a particular geographical context, it may be useful to investigate how women are positioned politically and examine if this is reflected in their sporting choices as an enhancement, rejection or negotiation of a particular national identity. With this assumption in mind it is pertinent to address the feminine iconography of the Irish nation and how it can be contrasted with the masculinised image of the unionist community in Northern Ireland and its close links with Britishness. Understanding the different positioning of women within these different traditions will in turn reinforce the argument that women do not constitute a monolithic grouping in society but are subject to different social variables depending on how and where they are to be found. This in turn is believed to have repercussions for the mediums they employ and the virulent levels of their national identity expressions. Although gendered symbolism in Irish nationalism is particularly evident in wider society, most obviously in regard to the use of terms like ‘Mother’ Ireland and the omnipotence of Virgin Mary in Catholic religious teachings, the same gendered imagery is remarkably absent within unionism (a variant of British nationalism) which again retains a more masculinised image11. Furthermore within loyalist or unionist communities there is no corresponding symbolic role for women. This reality is mainly due to the pre-eminence of the Orange Order and the largely male dominated political arena of Northern Ireland 11
For example see the work of Rosemary Sales, Women divided: gender, religion, and politics in Northern Ireland (London: Routledge, 1997); Rosemary Sales, “Women, The Peacemakers?” In Anderson, J. and Goodman, J. (eds.), Disagreeing Ireland: Context, Obstacles, Hopes (London: Pluto Press, 1998) p. 146
149 (with highly visible male fundamentalists like the Rev. Ian Paisley) both of which have traditionally excluded or sought to marginalize women. Certainly within unionism, gendered nationalist symbolism lacks any real positive female imagery for women in Northern Ireland12 and instead what is created is a male dominated imagery, which suggests that visible unionist displays are more ‘suitable’ for men than for women and that ‘unionist culture is gendered as being male-active and female-passive’13. This decreased visibility is further exacerbated within sports such as hockey in Northern Ireland which is a relatively marginal sport, one in which media coverage is limited, and this in turn does little to advance the sport’s fan base. Therefore if there is little spectator interest within either the men’s or women’s games confrontation between opposing fans will be rare, simply put it is a sport patronised by one side of the community and were the ‘other’ is notable only by its relative ambivalence to hockey and their absence from the terraces. Of course this in turn diffuses the potential for negative and divisive stereotypes associated with hockey to be established (as has been witnessed in sports such as soccer in Northern Ireland). This situation can have a knock-on effect which may help to explain the less ethnically inclined views that hockey players advanced as part of this work or comparable investigations into the sport in other settings. In reality ‘it is undeniable that it is usually the behaviour and attitudes of fans rather than those of participants that the relationship between sport and identity becomes apparent as participants are frequently able to ignore rival pulls on their emotions as they pursue a sporting career’14. Also without the help of media exposure and extended For example see the work of: Rachel Ward, “Gender issues and the representation of women in Northern Ireland” Irish Political Studies, 19, 2 (2004) p. 1; Rachel Ward, “‘It’s Not Just Tea and Buns’: Women and Pro-union Politics in Northern Ireland”, BJPIR, 6 (2004) p. 494; Rosemary Sales, Women divided: gender, religion, and politics in Northern Ireland (London: Routledge, 1997); M.K. Meyer, “Ulster’s red hand: gender, identity and sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland”, in Ranchard-Nilsson, R and Tétreault, M.A. (eds.), Women at Home in the Nation? (London: Routledge, 2000) p. 119 13 Rachel Ward, “‘It’s Not Just Tea and Buns’: Women and Pro-union Politics in Northern Ireland”, p. 502 14 Bairner, (ed.) Sport and the Irish: Histories, Identities, Issues, p. 165 12
150 fan base, less of an ‘imagined’ community15 can be generated through which hockey players can share a common sense of regional and national identity and belonging. This may be particularly true for female players who are further influenced by gendered norms within Northern Irish society, which would tend to play down or silence any overt expressions of their national identities in favour of ‘keeping the peace’. In turn hockey is reduced to more of a player-focussed sport unlike the larger team games in Ireland (particularly for men) including rugby union, soccer and Gaelic football. The women from the unionist community who played hockey were therefore viewed as maintaining a form of gendered status quo, which located them within a feminised, passive role in the private domain of the home, fulfilling a variety of purposes including those of wives, mothers and ‘tea makers’16. Although Ward (2003) disputes that women in the Unionist tradition are simply ‘passive’, it’s apparent that Unionist men are still viewed as the ‘active agents’ in the pursuit of nationalist (i.e. political) goals17 whereas women are in reality regarded as more passive subjects18. Unionist women are also often portrayed as the ‘markers’ of the nation and men as the ‘makers’ of the nation19. This proposal is significant as wider societal expectations as to the role of women in nationalist processes - as generally being less visible - may also be mirrored in their nationalist expressions in sport which, in many ways, is regarded as a microcosm of Northern Irish 15
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, Verso, 1983) Rachel Ward, “Gender issues and the representation of women in Northern Ireland”, p. 1 17 Anne McClintock, A. “Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism and the Family”, Feminist Review, 44, (1993) p. 61 18 Louise Ryan, “Drunken Tans: Representations of Sex and Violence in the Anglo-Irish War (1919–21)”, Feminist Review, 66 (2000) p. 73 19 For example see the work of: Nira Yuval-Davis and Flora Anthias, Woman-Nation-State (London: Macmillan, 1989); Fidelma Ashe, “The Virgin Mary Connection: Reflecting on Feminism and Northern Irish Politics” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 9, 4 (2006) p. 573; Fidelma Ashe “Gendering the Holy Cross School Dispute: Women and Nationalism in Northern Ireland”, Political Studies, 54 (2006) p. 147; Fidelma Ashe, “Gendering ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland: A comparative analysis of nationalist women's political protests”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30, 5 (2007) p. 766 ; B Aretxaga, Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in the North (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); C Coulter The Hidden Tradition: Feminism, Women and Nationalism in Ireland (Cork: Cork University Press, 1993) 16
151 society. This gendered positioning within the two dominant nationalisms in Ireland may therefore help to explain the arguably gendered, civic expressions of national identity that were found to be paralleled in these sports the women engaged with. Indeed if women have not been as visible in the political nationalisms of Ireland it is therefore understandable that they would not share this ethnic divisiveness that the men within these political settings may traditionally demonstrate.
Women, particularly from Northern Ireland therefore did reflect their gendered positioning in the political nationalisms of Irish nationalism and Ulster Unionism in sport. Furthermore the research presented in this chapter also supported current literature which details the experiences of women in the northern nationalist community tending to be more vocal and expressive about their national identities than their unionist contemporaries20. However women’s sport in general may be less affected than men’s sport, particularly in Northern Ireland, by sectarian divisions as it does not attract the same wide range of ages of participants, spectator or media appeal. In fact females under the age of eighteen are highly unlikely to have experienced any direct repercussions from the days of the ‘Troubles’ or any serious ramifications with being associated with one particular ‘side’ of the community divide in Northern Ireland. Women’s sports such as hockey can therefore be regarded as operating ‘under the radar’ of political and nationalist divisions in Northern Ireland with women’s national identity expressions appearing more civically based and less ethically pronounced and emotive than men’s. Indeed as both a political and social issue national identity is a contested topic in Northern Ireland with resistance and hesitance to talk about issues of national identity mirroring women’s identities and positioning more broadly within the For example see the work of M Zalewski, M. “Gender Ghosts - Representations of the Conflict in Northern Ireland” Political Studies, 53, 1 (2005) p. 201; Carmel Roulston and C Davies (eds.) (2000) Gender, democracy and inclusion in Northern Ireland (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000) 20
152 Ulster Unionist tradition. For this reason the surfers from Northern Ireland and those from an urban location in Ireland took part in surfing because it was ‘fantastically non-sectarian’ as one interviewee described it. Another interviewee also commented that ‘it’s one of the only sports you can say that about…I think surfing is like a freedom of expression because I think with our political and social climate of Northern Ireland it’s nice to be able to surf instead of having to be shoved into one or the other of the Protestant or Catholic sports.’ The so-called ‘lifestyle sport’ of surfing was therefore found to add a new dimension of ‘space’ versus ‘place’21 to the national identity debate on the island as the sea was found to act as an equaliser of both gendered and national differences and offered a site wherein new identities could be constituted and expressed for these women interviewed. These identities may also be ‘national’ as individuals could have competed on an Irish team or lived in an area where surfing was part of the regional and their self proclaimed Irish way of life. However surfing also offered the opportunity for other women in this study to participate in a sport in which national identity needed not to be a prerequisite for involvement or be a resultant expression simply by being associated with the sport. However confusion did exist for some of the women from Northern Ireland as a multiplicity of national identifications existed that could contradict one another once sport was added into the identity equation. For example, several of the women interviewed considered themselves to be British but willingly compromised or disposed of this national identity by playing for the Irish team and in the name of sporting pragmatism. The context of how national identity was expressed, for example, as an Irish team member at international competitions was found to be significant in this study as the majority of the women stated that they did not necessarily or consciously think about issues of national identity unless they were in the competitive environment or in a position in which their J Ormrod, “Surf Rhetoric in American and British Surfing Magazines Between 1965 and 1976” In Sport in History 27, 1 (2007) p. 88 21
153 national identity was being contested, either at home in Ireland or whilst, for example, away on holiday.
Consequently sporting pragmatism and sporting nationalism, as opposed to political nationalism was found to be more significant for these women and how they interpreted their blended and gendered negotiations of national identity. Certainly it is important to appreciate the different and intersecting types of personal, sporting and national identities that affected the women that were interviewed, and the varying degrees of importance they placed upon them. Indeed, ‘identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly fractured; never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic discourses, practices and positions’22. Gender can be viewed as a pivotal basis for the constitution of personal, sporting and national identities for women who play Gaelic football, hockey and surf as it is deemed to be a fundamental element in the negotiation and expression of these identities.
A continuum of gendered expressions of specifically national identity was also believed to be inevitable as the women’s experiences of sport appeared to be gendered from the outset. In reality women’s expressions of national identity were recognised as being gendered because women’s lives are inherently gendered within the communities in which they live. How women are socialised to participate in certain gender appropriate sports therefore unsurprisingly results in a gendered performance of specifically national identity to be witnessed, not least (and not overlooking) how the sport itself is played in terms of arguably feminised rules of sports such as ladies’ Gaelic football but also in terms of the feminine playing attire that hockey players wear and single sex teams which play both of these sports.
22
M. Anne Hall, Feminism and Sporting Bodies: Essays on Theory and Practice. (Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics, 1996) p. 4
154 Social class was also found to be an important element in terms of how gendered, socially constituted national identities were located, as the women interviewed from a middle class background felt issues of national identity were more pertinent for working class, urban communities. These women either abstractly associated national identity with the money in their pockets and the type of passport they held or they consciously wanted to distance themselves from the ‘Troubles’ and the political connotations to expressing allegiance to a particular ‘side’. Age was also found to be extremely significant as it was found that if the women had a lived experience of their national identities being attached to the sport they played from an early age, then they were far more likely to recognise this link as they grew older.
However as, for the women surfers it was
illuminated that those who entered the sport later in life did so either to purposively distance themselves from sports with political and national connotations or simply that they were attracted to the sport for different reasons. They were also recognised to be in the financial position to make these choices as distinct from family influences which may have been the case growing up when choosing what sports to become, and in reality stay, involved in.
Overall a lived experience of national identity was found to be significant in terms of how and why the women linked, or did not link their personal and gendered sense of national identity to the sport they played.
In reality if the women
interviewed grew up in areas that had a lived experience of their national identity through an assortment or sporting and cultural activities linked to the church, parish and county life then they expressed more of an attachment and engagement with their national identity than those in an urban environment. It was also found to be true, for some of the women interviewed, that their national identity was disposable and not a central part of their broader socially constituted expressions of their various and intersecting forms of identity. This finding may prove interesting as men and women may differ in terms of how important they rank national identity in their everyday lives. For example in reality female hockey
155 players are somewhat exceptional in the context of Ireland as they display a largely ambivalent attitude to their national identities, are reluctant to introduce issues of national allegiance into the game which in part is down to what might be termed their ‘social gender’, that is a combination of their middle class upbringing (albeit particularly evident in Northern Ireland) and what this social class believes to be appropriate and typical of females that constitute this collective.
This statement might also extended to suggest that if women did not have to fight for national recognition in their sport, and it was considered something natural and ‘given’, the linkages between national identity and a sport may prove to be less pronounced and apparent. Also within the rural settings within which Gaelic football and surfing takes place religion, sport and national identity were recognised by the interviewees to be closely linked. However this was not found to be the case with hockey clubs as they tend to be located in urban centres with clubhouses for example tending to be standalone, often municipal entities that are not linked to any religious or ethnic denomination. As one interviewee stated, ‘there’s that solidarity that the Irish have that I think Protestants lack. I mean look at for starters they have got one church we have got how many different ones? Protestants are so segregated in themselves already and sort of do things on their own already which makes it harder for them to express a collective national identity in the way that the Irish maybe do’23. A civic-ethnic continuum of gendered expressions of national identity in sport Undeniably tendencies and elements of both civic and ethnic nationalist ideals can be identified within the different sports which were investigated. Furthermore the women interviewed all tended to distance themselves from the negative ethnic connotations of nationalism which they regarded as reflecting an Ireland with a male dominated, divisive and violent past. Certainly sectarianism has been at the 23
In an interview with the author
156 core of a lot of Irish history as has been true of the persistent struggle over ethnic rights and identity24. Consequently culture and sport, particularly in Northern Ireland, is defined by difference and can be located within a narrative detailing violence and struggle. In sport ethnic nationalists may be viewed as those who believe a particular sport, or group of sports, to be an indigenous part of their national culture. Access to such sports can therefore be limited to a particular community in society, as is arguably the case for Gaelic games amongst Irish communities the world over. This assertion however was only believed to exist in men’s sports in the opinions of the women interviewed. Instead women’s sport was found to be more receptive in dealing with the challenges laid down by what has been described as the ‘two historic competing identities (nationalism and unionism) and the more recent arrival of significant numbers of non-nationals who cannot be located in the traditional binary division of Irish identity’ 25. As one interviewee highlighted, ‘over the past ten, even five years, the amount of people coming in from Eastern European and African countries has increased so much. They don’t have Irish ancestry but they are just as proud of Ireland’. Within this recognition there also resonates the opinion that anyone, male or female, could claim to be as Irish as anyone else simply by participating in Irish pastimes and promoting Ireland in a positive light. This more civic nationalist pronouncement was certainly found to be the case with all three L.C Bottos and N Rougier, “Generations on the Border: Changes in Ethno-national Identity in the Irish Border Area”, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 12, 3, (2006) p. 617; John Coakley, “National identity in Northern Ireland: stability or change?” Nations and Nationalism 13, 4, (2007) p. 573; R English, Irish freedom: the history of nationalism in Ireland (London: Macmillan, 2006); A R Finlay, “Me too: victimhood and the proliferation of cultural claims in Ireland” R Andrew, R. Nationalism and multiculturalism: Irish identity, citizenship and the peace process, (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2004); J Todd “Themed Section on Ireland and Northern Ireland Introduction: national identity in transition? Moving out of conflict in (Northern) Ireland” Nations and Nationalism 13, 4 (2007) p. 565; J Todd, T O'Keefe, N Rougier and L. Canas Bottos, “Fluid or Frozen? Choice and Change in Ethno-National Identification in Contemporary Northern Ireland” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 12, 3 (2006) p. 323; M NicCraith, Cultural diversity in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement (Dublin: Institute for British-Irish Studies, University College Dublin, 2001); J Ruane, and J Todd “The roots of intense ethnic conflict may not in fact be ethnic: Categories, communities and path dependence” Archives Europ´eennes de Sociologie, 45, 2, (2004) p. 209 25 Mike Cronin Translation and Globalization, (London, Routledge, 2004) p. 37 24
157 of the women’s sports under investigation but was located along an ethnic – nationalist continuum albeit predominantly closer for the civic end dependent on specific combinations of social variables for the different interviewees.
While it would be easy to accept a dualist view of nationalism, it represents, of course, a vast over simplification. ‘Nationalist movements fall along a continuum of liberalism in their nation-building projects, rather than being purely liberal (civic) or purely illiberal (ethnic)’26. This continuum is significant and applicable as differing civic and ethnic elements exist within the Unionist and Irish nationalist traditions in Ireland and are associated with the sports under review. Furthermore the influences of civic and ethnic elements within communities are thought to impact, in a gendered way, different forms of national identities through sport. If nationalist activity is therefore both political and cultural in form and that these two markers can also be linked they may complement and motivate one another rather than being distinct formations.
An overriding sense of
communal and collective identity rooted in ancient ties gives a nation its unique and recognisable image27 not only in traditional sports that are part of the Irish national consciousness but also more ‘modern’ activities such as surfing that offer new interpretations of ‘Irishness’ in the rural coastal villages of Ireland. Certainly the macro and micro gender power balances within different societies and urban versus rural locales, and undoubtedly in sport, are dynamic and dependent on the context in which they exist. Additionally in the predominantly rural, parish communities in which traditional Irish sports such as Gaelic football and ‘Irish’ surfing take place the gender power balances may be more equally weighted than might be the case in urban areas. The promotion of Irishness and embracing Irish sporting pastimes may simply be more important than propagating gender divides. Indeed the physical capital of the body is believed to 26
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship- Democracy: A Reader, (Columbia University Press, 2001) p. 54 27 Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging, (London, ABC Books, 1993)
158 extend further to suggest that an apparent asexual perspective on the importance and link of Irishness to Gaelic football and surfing for the current generation of female Gaelic footballers and surfers may exist.
It was also revealed throughout the course of the research investigations that both men and women involved in these sports do so as a fervent expression of their Irish national and regional identities, irrespective of whether they are male or female. For example promotion of national identity regardless of gender may be deemed more important and perhaps more relevant for both sexes involved in Gaelic football and surfing in rural parts of Ireland. ‘It doesn’t matter if you are a male or female player, we all play Gaelic football as an expression of our regional, parish and I suppose ultimately our national Irish identity’. This sense of asexual Irishness attached to rural settings was also reflected by some of the surfers who stated that ‘when I’m surfing abroad being Irish defines who I am from others point of view as well as my own, the same for when I’m in Ireland and the part I come from. It defines my accent the people I grew up with and my traditions. It’s nice to be part of that of that Irish surfing community of guys and girls together as one unit’. Another surfer stated that, ‘it’s kind of nice to meet people and go “yeah I’m a surfer from Ireland” because the conditions we have here are quite extreme compared to other countries in the world and the Irish surfing community is a really close knit community as well which is something that is very rare in the world. So when you say “I’m an Irish surfer” it has a lot attached to it, it’s not just like you’re a surfer from like any other country in the world there’s like a story, a history and a family unit there’. Interestingly within this finding a gendered dimension did not appear to be evident in how strongly they felt about their national identity in comparison to men (in their opinions) but the emotive and type of national identity expression was gendered for these women. For them more civic and less emotively divisive attitudes towards the issue and expression of national identity were therefore highlighted.
159 Apparent outsider perceptions of divisions based on gender could therefore prove to be erroneous and viewed as diluting the importance of national identity for those engaged in Gaelic football and surfing within these rural settings. Surfers in Ireland may also add a new perspective on national identity in a geographical context in which the sport has never been part of the national consciousness of the majority of its people.
Although surfing is not traditionally regarded as a
distinctive aspect of either Irish or British cultural practices on the island of Ireland modern surfing does in fact owe much of its renaissance to an Irishman, George Freeth. This is highlighted in the award winning surfing documentary ‘Wave Riders’ (2008) which reveals and focuses on this unexpected Irish dimension to the origins of surfing. Freeth was an Ulsterman sea captain who reintroduced board riding to the locals in Polynesia after it had been banned by the Western missionaries. These ‘Irish’ surfers and Gaelic footballers therefore can be seen to demonstrate that Irish national identity can be promoted with the same importance, irrespective of gender within the rural communities in which they live. “Glocalisation”28 was therefore a term that added some degree of insight into the findings as the different sports under investigation were recognised to be translated into a form that is locally and regionally desirable and relevant to certain areas of Ireland. For example hockey may be seen in this light as it is not a sport that is traditionally or indeed globally recognised as ‘British’ but in the Northern Ireland context it has been appropriated by Protestant schools and is recognised as a British sport in opposition to Gaelic sports played in Roman Catholic schools. The surfing research also illuminated the possibility of national identity being extended into an ‘imagined’ world of surfers who were globally recognised as opposed an ‘imagined’ community of solely Irish surfers. Simply being known and recognised as a surfer, at home and around the world, may
J Hogan, “The construction of gendered national identities in the television advertisements of Japan and Australia” Media Culture Society, 21 (1999) p. 743 28
160 indeed be more significant for some surfers regardless of gender or national identity issues.
Conclusion Ethno-gendered identities in the arena of sport are complex and multifaceted in nature and must be explored in the geographical, political and social contexts in which they exist. Although men’s sport and issues of national identity in Ireland have been the focus of academic inquiry up until this point; the area of women, sport and nationalism generates new questions about power, equality and ethnonationalism within the arena of sport. As more academic work explores the relationship between women and the gendered social constitution, negotiation and expressions of national identity – academic models will be developed to aid with research in this area. At present little is known and so the promotion of research into this area of study, across a multitude of political, cultural and geographical contexts is essential.
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