Galway Bay fm newsroom – A new study of the impact of Covid-19 on Gaelic games in Ireland during the first lockdown has been published by NUI Galway academic Dr Seán Crosson and Dr Marcus Free, lecturer with Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick.
The study, entitled ‘This Too Shall Pass: Gaelic Games, Irish Media, and the Covid-19 Lockdown in Ireland’, is included in a new collection, Time Out: National Perspectives on Sport and the Covid-19 Lockdown which examines the impact of Covid-19 on sport across a broad range of themes.
Focusing on the period from 12 March, last year, when the Irish government announced initial Covid-19 restrictions to May, Dr Crosson’s and Dr Free’s contribution examines Covid-19’s impact through an analysis of the media discourses surrounding these sports.
Apart from retrospection, the authors identify two prominent themes that dominated Gaelic games coverage in this time period.
Firstly, there was a recurring focus on the serious impact on the GAA, its athletes, and national sports-media of the cancellation of its elite and local level events over its peak Spring-Summer season.
Dr Seán Crosson from NUI Galway's Huston School of Film and Digital Media says a second major theme was the GAA’s key role in responding to the crisis and in articulating a discourse of overcoming, both in terms of the Association’s challenges and wider Irish society.
