GAA museum announce events to mark Bloody Sunday anniversary

Tipperary footballer Bill Maher and Dublin footballer Michael Darragh MacAuley. Photo © GAA Museum

100 years after Bloody Sunday, the GAA museum at Croke Park is to remember the 14 victims.

Tipperary’s Michael Hogan was among those killed when British forces opened fire during a match between his county and Dublin at the stadium on November 21st 1920.

Niamh McCoy, Director of the Croke Park Museum, says they will also have talks, tours and a new exhibition running:

“We’ve spent the last year or 18 months putting this together to remember the victims, and remind people who they were and their stories. So our aim is just to tell it in a respectful and thought-provoking way.”

The first event in the series, the annual GAA Museum Summer School, takes place this Friday 14 August from 10am-3.30pm. In keeping with the Bloody Sunday commemorations, this year’s event will focus on the theme of Sport, Peace & Reconciliation, examining the role sport can play in the peace and reconciliation process and the impact that sport has on international affairs.

The high-profile event has attracted a distinguished panel of speakers, including historian Dr. Richard McElligott, Diarmaid Marsden from Ulster GAA, and Gareth Harper from Peace Players International.

The focal point for the centenary commemorations will be a new Remembering Bloody Sunday exhibition at the GAA Museum, opening in September, which will explore the tragic events of the fateful day and their impact on Irish history through artefacts, newspaper reports, official documents, photographs, and victim stories.

Part of this exhibition will include a specially commissioned Bloody Sunday centenary painting by artist David Sweeney, who is a former Dublin GAA senior hurling captain and the GAA’s eLearning Manager at Croke Park. The painting is titled ‘Transilience’, which means an abrupt change or leap from one state to another.

A Tipperary GAA Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee is also organising a range of events across the county in the coming months to mark the centenary.