The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), launched new multi-channel, multi-phase initiative at the start of September to mark 100-year anniversary of Bloody Sunday attack at Croke Park.
The campaign by the GAA, the Irish international amateur sports and cultural organisation focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes (including hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, Gaelic handball and rounders, plus Irish music, dance and language), focuses on the victims of the Bloody Sunday attack at Croke Park in November 1920.
‘B100dy Sunday’ is a film series led tribute campaign to the 14 people who went to a match in Croke Park on 21 November 1920 and never came home.
It aims to tell the story in a new way to bring it to a broader, younger audience, and is led by a series of spots – rolling out across the organisation’s online platforms over a 10-week period – each dedicated to an individual victim
Starting on 2 September, each week one of 10 short produced in collaboration with Dublin-based digital marketing agency Fifty-Three Six, will roll out and focus on the humanity rather than the statistic of each life lost.
The aim is to draw attention, raise awareness and critically spark an interest for people to learn more about the tragedy of 21 November 21 1920.
The series started with a profile spot of Dubliner Jane Boyle, who died in the crowd at Croke Park a few days short of what should have been her wedding day and, like the other videos in the set, is set to music called ‘More Than A Game’ which was commissioned by the GAA from Irish musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire.
Boyle’s story is followed by that of Daniel Carroll and all spots come in both English and Gaelic language versions.
The campaign is a companion to the programme of events includes new plans for the GAA Museum in the form of a new ‘B100dy Sunday – The GAA Remembers’ exhibition. Plus a new section dedicated to Bloody Sunday was launched on GAA.ie.
This is accompanied by a free eight-part podcast provided by Sunday Times journalist Michael Foley (author of ‘The Bloodied Field’). Each episode narrates the tragic story on that afternoon in November 1920, the life and times of the victims, the political climate and the series of events that led to the attack. The podcast series will be available on GAA.ie/BloodySunday and Spotify.
As well as the campaign, the initiative spans a series of projects and events dedicated to those lives lost including working with the IFTA-nominated Twopair Films on a documentary that will be screened by RTÉ in November based on Foley’s widely-acclaimed book, with the Abbey Theatre on a series of one-person performances focusing on each of the victims, a centenary commemoration event at Croke Park before the Leinster SFC final on 21 November 21 (which will include a ceremonial ‘finishing of the match’ involving the Dublin and Tipperary teams) with a narration, torch lighting ceremony, a wreath laying and a musical performance by Colm Mac Con Iomaire.
Plus the programme links to the existing, five-year Bloody Sunday Graves Project which has been addressing a number of unmarked graves and erecting headstones to the Croke Park victims in conjunction with their surviving relatives and this project will come to completion with a new memorial work on the front of Croke Park Stadium on Jones’s Road.
“Behind the history and the headlines of the Crown Forces attack on Croke Park in 1920 is a human story and a human tragedy,” said GAA president John Horan.
“The appalling events of that Bloody Sunday changed the GAA and forever altered our relationship with the pitch at Jones’s Road. How a place envisaged to be a home of unconfined joy was turned into a scene of carnage and horror is a tragedy that will never be forgotten. To honour those who went to a match and never came home we need to remember them, to pay our respects, and that is what we intend to do.”
Links:
GAA
https://www.gaa.ie/bloodysunday/
https://www.youtube.com/user/officialgaa
https://www.facebook.com/officialgaa
https://twitter.com/officialgaa
https://www.instagram.com/officialgaa
Fifty Three-Six
https://www.fiftythreesix.com/
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