Bantercast 127: The Great GAA Novel

On Easter Monday last, we took part in the nationwide Cruinniú na Cásca event with a series of Banters in The Printworks in Dublin Castle, including this discussion on the great GAA novel. We’ve seen reams of factual books on the sports but, apart from the odd reference to togging out for a match or heading to a training session or using the parish pitch as a backdrop, Gaelic games rarely turn up in fiction, which is odd given the place which the games have in our national culture. Here, our senior hurling panel of Michael Moynihan from The Irish Examiner, writer Eimear Ryan, novelist and Morning Ireland presenter Rachael English and chief sportswriter with the Daily Star Kieran Cunningham consider why this is so – and dream up just what the great GAA novel might read like.