| abstract
| - The ancient game of hurling was saved from extinction. Both it and Gaelic football were standardised, albeit that both standardised games bore little resemblance to the original sports such as caid. This standardisation helped to spur the growth of the modern games since they were now being organised on a structured basis. The GAA is the largest amateur sports association in Ireland. It has more than 2,500 member clubs and runs about 500 grounds throughout the country. The Gaelic Games of hurling and football are also the most popular spectator sports in Ireland ,1,962,769 people attended GAA games in 2003 The association achieved its original objective of having at least one club in every parish. Thanks to the success of this policy, clubs are evenly distributed throughout the country in both urban and rural areas, and the organisation's reach is therefore considerable. This huge presence means that the GAA has become a major player in the sporting and cultural life of Ireland. The association is recognised as a major generator of social capital thanks to its promotion of healthy pastimes, volunteering, and community involvement. The GAA also provided an all-Ireland structure in which people could participate, both on a sporting and on an organisational level. This has helped to entrench a sense of local identity. For example, the county identities that have been fostered by over a century of local rivalries in the provincial championships are so prominent in society that many people feel emotionally attached to their county. When the civil authorities feel the need to move county boundaries, many people feel that it defiles their county identity as expressed through the GAA. Indeed, the GAA still adheres to the original British-devised county system that no longer coincides with that used by local government, and yet it is the GAA county boundaries that people most identify with. In the GAA's structures (parish, county, province and national) it created a conduit for national and communal loyalty, an achievement given that the various elements owed their origins to a variety of sources: Catholicism (the parishes), British law (the counties), and Irish history (the provinces and the nation). Its achievement in popularising counties was particularly marked. It made the counties seem a natural sense of local definition. The traditional Irish counties were largely a creation of British law such as County Londonderry, and some owed their origins to ancient Irish counties such as County Tyrone. The overwhelming power of "the county" remains embodied in the existence of one county team for DublinWhelan slams Dublin split(english).Retrieved on 2006-12-22. , even though in terms of population it could sustain a number of teams. An attempt in recent years to create North Dublin and South Dublin teams was never implemented. Similarly, local counties with a history of no success whatsoever in the championships retain their county teams rather than merge with far more successful neighbouring counties.
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