GAA 125 years – Late Late Show and TG4 Series
GAA @ 125 Bliain
Both RTE and TG4 are getting into the spirit of the 125 celebrations as tonights Late Late Show is dedicated to the GAA and the last 125 year.
On Sunday TG4 roll out a new 10 part television documentary series chronicling the social and cultural history of the Association.
RTE 1 – Late Late Show
The former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and The Saw Doctors will be joining Pat Kenny tonight for special edition of The Late Late Show.
tonights show, which will celebrate the 125th anniversary of the founding of the GAA, will also feature Sean Óg O hAilpín and the Artane Boys and Girls Band.
Other well-known faces and lovers of the games will be on hand for a show that promises to be rich in anecdote and song. Dara OBriain, Oliver Callan of Nob Nation, Brush Shields and Tommy Fleming will be in studio.
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Joining the party will be the most star-studded assembly ever of legends of the games including Kevin Heffernan, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Babs Keating, Dermot Earley, Eddie Keher, Mick ODwyer, Henry Shefflin, Peter Canavan, Jamsie OConnor, Colm Cooper, Padraic Joyce and Sean Og O hAlpin.
You can watch this special show tonight at 9.30pm on RTÉ One
TG4 – Launch of a major new television history series
As a major contribution to the GAA’s 125th Birthday in 2009, TG4 today launched its major new 10 part television documentary series chronicling the social and cultural history of the Association.
The series, launched by GAA President, Nickey Brennan, at the GAA Museum in Croke Park Dublin, traces the consistent growth and sometimes turbulent story of the Association from the inaugural meeting in Hayes Hotel in Thurles to today’s vibrant and self-confident organization with hundreds of thousands of players and members in Ireland and overseas and proud owner of one of Europe’s best sports stadia.
Drawing extensively on newsreel, film and television archive and informed by insightful contributions from leading historians, journalists, players, administrators and commentators, this is the story of a uniquely Irish entity – a combination of cultural movement, sporting organization and mirror of Irish society for a century and a quarter that has survived and flourished through war, peace, emigration, insecurity, political violence and economic boom.
From the Beara peninsula in West Cork to Casement Park in Belfast, from the sandy playing field on the Aran Islands to the multi-cultural primary school teams of the new Dublin suburbs, the series offers a fresh perspective on the GAA through the ages, reflecting on what it meant not just to public leaders and opinion-formers but to the ordinary playing members and supporters and to its critics also. The series shows the enormous influence of the GAA over wider society and it’s often unthanked role in promoting pride of place, social cohesion and in providing a sporting outlet and facilities in communities, whether affluent or deprived.
Each programme takes a period of 20-25 years places the development of the GAA within the broader social and historical context of the time. Contributors include Dr Diarmaid Ferriter, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Mickey Harte, Brendan Fullam, Mick O’Dwyer, Maurice Hayes, Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, Canon Tom Looney, Liam Griffin, Marcus de Búrca, Professor John A Murphy, An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD and top GAA officials Nickey Brennan, Uachtarán, Christy Cooney, Uachtarán tofa and Páraic Duffy, Ard-Stiúrthóir.
The series will air on TG4 on late Sunday afternoons from mid January (with a repeat showing of each programme on Friday nights). It has been commissioned by TG4 from Nemeton, an independent production company based in Ring in the Waterford Gaeltacht, the channel’s primary provider of sports output. In addition to the TG4 funding, the series has also received support from the BCI Sound & Vision Fund and the European Media Fund and was one of the largest scale television documentary projects produced in Ireland in 2008.
09-Jan-09 by Brendan Doyle – PRO
