Introduction. At a meeting in Thurles on 18 July 1885, the Central Committee of the GAA voted a motion of congratulations to Michael Davitt on the expiration of his ‘ticket-of-leave’, a remand period for convict prisoners who are released early, and after which time they are officially declared free. The Committee voted another resolution immediately afterwards, however, to declare that the organisation was not political but national. This reflected tensions within the GAA between constitutional and the more militant nationalists.

Source.‘The Gaelic Athletic Association’, Freeman’s Journal, 24 December 1884.

1. That we take this, the earliest opportunity, of expressing our gratification at the fact that, with reason unimpaired, Mr Michael Davitt, one of the patrons of the Gaelic Athletic Association and the sterling friend of the national language, is well as of the national pastimes has survived the fifteen years of horror and physical and mental suffering which ended yesterday, and our best wishes for his success in his unceasing efforts to infuse an intenser national life into the hearts of the Irish people that they may develop not only the resources of the country, but their own physical, moral, and intellectual powers to the fullest extent of which they are capable.

2. That we hereby declare that the Gaelic Athletic Association is not a political association, although it is a thoroughly National one: that our objects are, as we have already stated, the preservation and cultivation of national pastimes, that our platform is sufficiently wide for Irishmen of all classes and creeds; that whilst we welcome assistance from every quarter, we do not stand in need of any support from any organisation external to our own; and that we emphatically disclaim any intention of interfering with, or using to its disadvantage, or injuring in any respect, any existing Irish National organisation.

Tomás O’Riordan