The
first reference to any code of football in Ireland occurs in the Statute of Galway of
1527, which allowed the playing of football and archery but banned "hokie'
— the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves" as well as other sports.
However even "foot-ball" was banned by the severe Sunday Observance Act of 1695,
which imposed a fine of one shilling (a substantial amount at the time) for those caught
playing sports. It proved difficult, if not impossible for the authorities to enforce the
Act and the earliest recorded match in Ireland was one between Louth and Meath, at Slane,
in 1712.
By the early 19th century, various football games, referred to collectively as caid,
were popular in Kerry , especially the Dingle Peninsula. Father W. Ferris described two
forms of caid: the "field game" in which the object was to put the ball
through arch-like goals, formed from the boughs of two trees, and; the epic
"cross-country game" which lasted the whole of a Sunday (after mass) and was won
by taking the ball across a parish boundary. "Wrestling", "holding"
opposing players, and carrying the ball were all allowed.
During the 1860s and 1870s, Rugby and Association football started to become popular in
Ireland. Trinity College, Dublin was an early stronghold of Rugby, and the rules of the
English Football Association were codified in 1863 and distributed widely. By this time,
according to Jack Mahon, even in the Irish countryside, caid had begun to give way to a
"rough-and-tumble game" which even allowed tripping.
Irish forms of football were not formally arranged into an organized playing code by the
Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) until 1887. The GAA sought to promote traditional Irish
sports, such as hurling and to reject "foreign" (particularly English) imports.
The first Gaelic football rules, showing the influence of hurling and a desire to
differentiate from association football — for example in their lack of an offside
rule — were drawn up by Maurice Davan and published in the United Ireland magazine on
February 7, 1887.
While it is clear even to casual observers that Gaelic football is similar to Australian
rules football, the exact relationship is unclear, or even controversial. Australian rules
was devised in Melbourne, in the Colony of Victoria, from 1858. Because of the Australian
gold rushes, there were many Irishmen in Victoria at the time. The Australian historian B.
W. O'Dwyer points out that both games have always been differentiated from rugby football
by having no limitation on ball or player movement (in the absence of an offside rule);
the need to bounce or toe-kick the ball, known as a solo in Gaelic football, while
running; punching the ball (hand-passing) rather than throwing it, and other traditions.
As O'Dwyer says:
These are all elements of [older] Irish football [games]. There were several variations
of Irish football in existence, normally without the benefit of rulebooks, but the central
tradition in Ireland was in the direction of the relatively new game [i.e.
rugby]...adapted and shaped within the perimeters of the ancient Irish game of hurling...
[These rules] later became embedded in Gaelic football. Their presence in Victorian [i.e.
Australian] football may be accounted for in terms of a formative influence being exerted
by men familiar with and no doubt playing the Irish game. It is not that they were
introduced into the game from that motive [i.e. emulating Irish games]; it was rather a
case of particular needs being met... [B. W. O'Dwyer, March 1989, "The Shaping of
Victorian Rules Football", Victorian Historical Journal, v.60, no.1.]
Other accounts suggest that the relationship may have originated from the opposite
direction: Archbishop Thomas Croke, one of the founders of the GAA, lived in New Zealand
in the early 1880s and had the opportunity to witness "Australasian rules" (as
it was once known) being played there. Like Australian rules, the Irish football games of
the 1880s allowed players were allowed to grab or push each other. However the two games
were soon developed and diverging, largely in isolation from each other.
Whatever the truth, since 1967, there have been many matches between Australian Football
and Gaelic football teams, under various sets of hybrid, compromise rules. In 1984, the
first official representative matches of International Rules football were played, and
these are now played annually each October. However, the precise connections between the
two games are unclear.
Gaelic football has become increasingly popular with women since the 1970s.
Each team consists
of fifteen players, lining out as follows: One goalkeeper, three full-backs, three
half-backs, two midfielders, three half-forwards and three full-forwards.
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