| Abstrakt: |
This article explores a little-known event in Irish and American sports history, namely a tour made by the Gaelic Athletic Association to North America in 1888. The article focuses on a newspaper diary kept of the tour by Joseph Whelan, and published in the Irish newspaper Sport. In analysing Whelan's comments, the article seeks to understand how such material can be used to create a microhistory of a specific event such as a sporting tour, and discusses how far the methodology of microhistory can be useful to sports historians. The commentary of Whelan also allows for an exploration of travel narrative. This is a key point with respect to the late-nineteenth-century Irish, as Whelan is a tourist who will return home, rather than an immigrant moving permanently to Ireland. The history of Irish America, and the question of the Irish as 'other', has been dominated by the archives of the immigrant. What the material from the tour allows is an Irish view of America as tourist as opposed to settler. This raises significant questions for the existing historiography of Irish America. In conclusion the article argues that travel narratives of sporting events - tours, tournaments and mega-events - can allow us to approach the history of sport from a fresh angle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
