Covid-19s impact on GAA examined in new publication from Mary I lecturer

THE impact that Covid-19 has had on Gaelic Games in Ireland and how Irish media covered the response of the GAA to the lockdown challenges is at the centre of a new publication co-authored by a Mary Immaculate College (MIC) lecturer. 

”This Too Shall Pass”: Gaelic Games, Irish Media and the Covid-19 Lockdown in Ireland’ is included in ‘Time Out; National Perspectives on Sport and the Covid-19 Lockdown’, a new book which focuses on local and national lockdowns globally.

The book explores the period between March and May 2020, showing how various sports in different parts of the world were affected by the pandemic.  

The Irish element is penned by Dr Marcus Free, Media & Communications lecturer at MIC and Dr Seán Crosson, NUI Galway academic. Their research examines Covid-19’s impact through an analysis of selected print, broadcast and social media representations of the GAA and Gaelic Games. 

The authors focused on two prominent themes that they found to have dominated coverage. Firstly, there was a strong emphasis on the impact on the GAA, its participants and the media of the cancellation of elite and local level competitions in its peak Spring-Summer season.

This included extensive coverage of the financial impact on the GAA and debates concerning how competitions might safely resume.  

There was also extensive praise for the GAA’s response to and messaging during the lockdown. The authors highlight the media theme of ‘overcoming’ - both the Association’s challenges and those facing wider Irish society through members’ voluntary and charitable activities, and their extensive contributions as frontline service staff.  

Dr Marcus Free said: ‘The study illustrates the unique intersection of national media, the GAA and all spheres of society in Ireland through the organisation’s extensive membership.

"Dr Crosson and I are currently working on follow-up research that will examine media engagement with the challenges that emerged for the GAA during the post-lockdown return to competition in Autumn 2020.’ 

Dr Marcus Free lectures in Media and Communication Studies at Mary Immaculate College. He is co-editor (with Neil O’Boyle) of Sport, the Media and Ireland: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Cork University Press, 2020).  

The Time Out collection was edited by Jörg Krieger, April Henning, Paul Dimeo, and Lindsay Parks Pieper, and published by leading international academic publisher Common Ground.