Association football and Irish Society during the Inter-War period, 1918-1939

This thesis is a study of the role that sport played in a changing Irish society during the tumultuous inter-war period, focussing primarily on association football and its status within the country's sporting land.scape. As the political uncertainty ofthe revolutionary period subsided with the violence that had characterised the struggle for autonomy from Britain it slowly became apparent that the promises of a brighter future under an indigenous government had been a misnome _, and for most of the Irish population the inter-war period was an era of endemic economic strv.ggle and social disaffection. Within this context the deprived and the downtrodden sought solace in the brief respite that was provided by engagement with, and participation in, games, and as such sporting activity of all kinds experienced unerring and unprecedented rates of development. Association football was no different, and during the period under review the sport was transformed from a concern of a defined urban demographic that resided in the cities of Belfast and Dublin, as well as a number of isolated provincial outposts, to a game that could undeniably be considered a central component of Irish sporting culture. This progression is all the more striking when the antagonism that was portrayed towards perceived foreign sports within large tracts of Irish society is considered, and there is no doubt that the successes that were achieved by the association footbc>.ll movement were done so in the face of much opposition and difficulty. This thesis charts the progression of the association football code in the area that became the Irish Free Sta.te, and later the Irish Republic, during the inter-war period, focussing on the forces and influences that shaped its development at both national and local level. It also · serves as an indicator of how the sport received both benefaction and rejection from the society it sought to become established within, while those that were tasked with fostering the game strove for acceptaPce within the Irish sporting landscape