Ireland’s Professional Amateurs: A Sports Season at Its Purest

Andy Mendlowitz
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595456840
Reviewed by Richard Blake for Reader Views (2/08)

To get background information and interviews for his “Ireland’s Professional Amateurs,”   award-winning journalist, Andy Mendlowitz toured Ireland for eight months to observe and record the story of a sport season at it its purest.

 This is a behind-the-scenes story of The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), of Gaelic Football, a combination of the elements of soccer and rugby, and the game Hurling.  Hurling is an Irish sport played with a stick similar to ice hockey.  Andy described the game this way: Gaelic football was physical and with the players not wearing pads, trouble followed. Hard shoulder-to-shoulder contact led to violent collisions. Heads banged and bodies got slammed to the ground.

These games often attract crowds as large as 80,000. The athletes train as professionals but maintain full-time jobs outside of the sports arena to pay support their families.  According to Andy, GAA both created and reflected community.  GAA fans had two loyalties-- to the club team and to the inter-county squad. Mendlowitz provides several enlightening references within the various chapters of the financial underwriting of the GAA organization and their investments.

From the early playoffs in February through April to the finals in September and October, Andy followed the teams from Clare, Mayo, Leitrim, Kerry, and Galway Counties to Derry in Northern Ireland and the cities of Cork and Dublin.
 
I personally enjoyed Andy’s word pictures and colorful detailed descriptions of the Irish countryside as he traveled from the rural parishes to the large cities of Belfast, Dublin, and Cork. I was fascinated as he gave me a new appreciation of Ireland’s culture, folklore, superstitions, history, and economics.   He also gave me a new understanding of the difficulties being faced in Northern Ireland.

To provide the background information Mendlowitz wanted for his story he stayed with players and their families. He became involved in their personal lives and identified with the loyalty they feel for their teammates, their fans, and their country.
 
Mendlowitz writes in a fast-moving, journalistic style that reveals his own passion for sports, his fascination with the sports, the games themselves, with the individual team members, their coaches, and their fans. His love for travel, new adventures in learning and a love for life all come through in “Ireland’s Professional Amateurs.”  This is sports writing at its finest.

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