Having  seen us don Dublin blue, Kilkenny black and yellow, and Galway’s maroon, some of our readership may be feeling that in our efforts to embrace the excitement of GAA action we have undercut one of the organization’s most intrinsic principles: pride in your specific county. This is a fair gripe, for indeed as many GAA members have told us, you are born into your club, you do not choose it. And if you have to relocate to other parts of Ireland, you only change clubs under great duress. If the commute (and everyone initially tries to commute from their new home back to their club/county) is too long, only then can you switch allegiances. Even then, clubs members will still introduce you as a former member of so-and-so even when you’ve raised your children at the new club, and lived there for over twenty years. County colors run deep.

With all this culture in mind, its been a bit cheap to switch colors for every match we watch. No doubt this superficiality is a sure sign of our persistent American sports identities, which generally permit such movement between loyalties. That is, unless you were to be a Boston Red Sox/Celtics fan like me, in which case you might feel a certain twinge of embarrassment at moving between counties and clubs so freely. Which I do.

But what are we to do? We’ve only just arrived, we’ve no home base, and even while the Dubs are technically our home team, we’ve learned that Dubs fandom can be undesirable. There are too many of them, we were told in the country. Support someone small, like Offaly!

We still haven’t committed. Its more fun supporting the sport over any specific tribe. We salute the beauty of the game, and the way it is played with care and pride. As for the pride of its fans, there is no denying their commitment. And for that, over all over things, we stand with them, scarves held aloft, our voices rising with theirs.