Ireland invades Scandinavia

What’s Swedish for schmozzle? The concept probably doesn’t travel, says Philip O’Connor, a founder member of Stockholm Gaels hurling and football club. For Swedes, the idea that passions over the outcome of a match would run so high as to cause a team, even an entire parish, to lose the run of itself is beyond the outer limits of comprehension.

For all the gulf between Irish and Scandinavian sporting cultures, the GAA has nonetheless taken root in Sweden. In his moving account of the establishment of Stockholm Gaels, A Parish Far From Home, O’Connor, a communications consultant who has lived in the Swedish capital for over a decade, describes how the GAA has served as a meeting point between ex-pats and locals, whose understanding of Ireland has historically been fuzzy at best.
“I fell out with a journalist here because he called Robbie Keane a Brit,” says O’Connor. “The GAA is one of those ways of differentiating ourselves. I have no problem with the British. But our culture is different from theirs’, especially in the sporting sense. It’s a great way for us to tell that story.”
As well as providing a haven for homesick migrants, Stockholm Gaels has attracted a large number of Swedish natives smitten by what are, after all, the two greatest team sports in the world. Stockholm compete against sides from all over Europe – from Norway and Estonia to places as far south as Valencia in Spain. The standard is high, says O’Connor, and the popularity of the games is spreading.
O’Connor is married to a Swede and has two kids. He loves Stockholm but says the cultural differences between Sweden and Ireland are major. “For me they couldn’t be more different – it’s chalk and cheese. They get paid on the 25th of every month and they pay their bills on the last day of the month. That’s just how it is. If you let it slide, the next thing you know the debt collector is knocking on your door.”
Nor would Ger Loughnane fare particularly well in Swedish management, he suggests. Bang a hurley on the table during your half-time talk here and your players would probably burst into tears.
“They don’t do aggression they way we do” he adds. “Shouting and kicking the dressing-room door – that doesn’t work with them. You would have to put an arm around them instead of shouting. Then again, they have a big problem with football hooliganism, which you wouldn’t expect. It’s one of the contradictions you can get here.”
These and other matters are explored in what is a fascinating and hugely enjoyable tome that will appeal equally to emigrants and to those left behind this Christmas.

A Parish Far From Home is out now, published by Gill and Macmillan.