Offers fascinating insight into the role of sport, competition, and ceremony in shaping the Irish nation in the infancy years of independence.

The Tailteann Games were the biggest public events organised in Ireland in the decade after independence. They were at once sporting and cultural events, celebrations of Ireland and its diaspora, and a declaration of national identity by a state striving to rise from the ashes of an independence struggle, partition and civil war. They were spectacular and imaginative embodiments of Irish cultural identity, harking back to an idealised past but also highly modern and forward-thinking in their programmes.

The reasons for the revival of these ancient Irish Tailteann Games, the roles of the GAA and other sports bodies, of political figures, civil servants and volunteers are all examined in detail, as are the reasons for the eventual decline of the Tailteann festival after 1932. Using previously untouched material, this deeply researched study allows McCarthy to expose established myths and notions with the aid of uncovered information, statistics, images and data. This is ultimately the story of the people behind Ireland’s Games: the competitors, the administrators, the supporters; and their passion, sometimes madcap notions and brilliant innovations.