Editing Gaelic football (section)

===Ancient Mob football (caid)===
The first legal reference to football in Ireland was in 1308, when John McCrocan, a spectator at a football game at ''Novum Castrum de Leuan'' (the New Castle of the Lyons or Newcastle), was charged with accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard. A field near [[Newcastle, South Dublin]] is still known as the football field.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Irish Gaelic Football" |url=http://www.gaelic.com/irish-gaelic-football.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304013627/http://www.gaelic.com/irish-gaelic-football.html |archive-date=4 March 2012 |access-date=19 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Corry |first=Eoghan |title=The GAA Book of Lists |publisher=Hodder Headline Ireland |year=2005 |page=238}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Corry |first=Eoghan |title=The History of Gaelic Football |publisher=Gill & MacMillan Ireland |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-7171-4818-9 |page=16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mahon |first=Jack |title=A History of Gaelic Football |publisher=Gill &MacMillan |year=2001 |isbn=0-7171-3279-X}}</ref> The Statute of [[Galway]] of 1527 allowed the playing of "foot balle" and [[archery]] but banned "{{-'}}hokie'—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves" as well as other sports.

By the 17th century, the situation had changed considerably. The games had grown in popularity and were widely played.<ref name="orejan">{{Cite journal |last=Orejan |first=Jaime |date=Spring 2006 |title=The History of Gaelic Football and the Gaelic Athletic Association |url=http://thesmartjournal.com/GAA.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Sport Management and Related Topic Journal |volume=2 |issue=2 |page=46 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://thesmartjournal.com/GAA.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |access-date=3 January 2017}}</ref> This was due to the patronage of the gentry.<ref name="Biagini">{{Cite book |last=Biagini |first=Eugenio |title=The Shaping of Modern Ireland: A Centenary Assessment |last2=Mulhall |first2=Daniel |date=2016 |publisher=Irish Academic Press |isbn=978-1911024033}}</ref>{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} Now instead of opposing the games it was the gentry and the ruling class who were serving as patrons of the games. Games were organised between landlords with each team comprising 20 or more tenants. Wagers were commonplace with purses of up to 100 [[Guinea (British coin)|guineas]] (Prior, 1997).

The earliest record of a recognised precursor to the modern game dates from a match in County Meath in 1670, in which catching and kicking the ball were permitted.<ref name="orejan" />

However even "foot-ball" was banned<ref>{{Cite web |title=Football - History and Evolution |url=http://www.gaa.ie/news/football-history-and-evolution/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513043853/http://www.gaa.ie/news/football-history-and-evolution/ |archive-date=13 May 2016 |access-date=2 December 2016}}</ref> by the severe [[Sunday Observance Act 1695|Sunday Observance Act of 1695]], which imposed a fine of one [[shilling]] (a substantial amount at the time) for those caught playing sports. It proved difficult, if not impossible, for the authorities to enforce the Act and the earliest recorded inter-county match in Ireland was one between [[County Louth|Louth]] and [[County Meath|Meath]], at [[Slane]], in 1712, about which the poet [[Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta]] wrote a poem of 88 verses beginning "Ba haigeanta".

A six-a-side version was played in Dublin in the early 18th century, and 100 years later, there were accounts of games played between County sides (Prior, 1997).

By the early 19th century, various football games, referred to collectively as ''caid'', were popular in [[County Kerry]], especially the [[Dingle Peninsula]]. Father W. Ferris described two forms of ''caid'': the "field game" in which the object was to put the ball through arch-like goals, formed from the boughs of two trees, and; the epic "cross-country game", which lasted the whole of a Sunday (after [[mass (religion)|mass]]) and was won by taking the ball across a parish boundary. "Wrestling", "holding" opposing players, and carrying the ball were all allowed.

====Accounts from the Irish diaspora====
Some accounts of traditional Irish football come not from Ireland, but from the Irish diaspora, often in celebrating traditional events such as St Patrick's Day. The largest such communities existed in Britain, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Many of the earliest football matches in Australia date back to the 1840s amongst Irish immigrants. In the [[Colony of South Australia]], there are several accounts of Irish football being played at [[Thebarton]] in 1843 and again in 1853.<ref>{{Cite news |date=22 March 1853 |title=Advertising |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article38454695 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240730161234/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/38454695 |archive-date=30 July 2024 |access-date=1 October 2021 |work=[[South Australian Register]] |location=South Australia |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia |volume=XVII |issue=2033}}</ref> There were similar accounts of football in the 1840s in the [[Colony of Victoria]] including Melbourne at [[Batman's Hill]]<ref name="ReferenceA">A National Game: The History of Australian Rules Football Author:  de Moore Gregory   Hess Rob   Nicholson Matthew   Stewart Bob</ref><ref>Seamus J. King, "The Clash of the Ash on Foreign Fields", page 139.</ref> and the goldfields in the [[Colony of Victoria]]. The account of [[H C A Harrison]], one of the seminal in the history of Victorian football, of Irish rules was that it gave players "the full ability to kick anybody that came within reach".<ref>{{Cite news |date=12 August 1914 |title=Football |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155522568 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240730161253/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/155522568 |archive-date=30 July 2024 |access-date=23 January 2023 |work=[[Winner (newspaper)|Winner]] |location=Victoria, Australia |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=3}}</ref> [[Shin-kicking]] (or [[Hacking (rugby)|hacking]]) was a major feature of traditional Irish football and also one of the main reasons why it failed to be widely adopted in Australia.<ref>{{Cite news |date=28 May 1915 |title=The First Game of Football |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article210910166 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240730161333/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/210910166 |archive-date=30 July 2024 |access-date=23 January 2023 |work=[[W.a. Sportsman]] |location=Western Australia |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=53}}</ref> Irish football was also played in the [[Colony of New Zealand]] in the 1860s<ref>WESTPORT TIMES, VOLUME III, ISSUE 475, 9 MARCH 1869, PAGE 2</ref> and 1870s in Auckland during [[Thomas Croke]]'s term as Archbishop there. An 1882 theatrical performance in New York portrays a controversial Irish football match on Saint Nicholas Day 6 December 1790 at the school of Champs de Mars in Paris.<ref>New York dispatch. [volume], June 18, 1882</ref> Despite a large Irish population references to it being played in America before the 1880s are scant. [[United States GAA|USGAA]] makes the unsourced claim that matches were played at Hyde Park, San Francisco in the 1850s.