'FOREIGN SPORT'
Novel Tax by Irish Free State
(Special to 'The Daily News')
DUBLIN. July 8.
After an all-day debate the Dail Eireann by a majority of five decided to impose an amusement tax on 'foreign sport,' namely, soccer, rugby, cricket, hockey, rowing, dancing, exempting Gaelic football and hurling.
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Attempts to tax foreign sport
Don't let the Vlad the Impaler get wind of this tax on foreign sport reported in the Australian press in 1932:
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I took the trouble to read through the Dail Debates for 7th July 1932. Debate on the entertainment tax on the admission charges for some sports events did not take up the whole day but there was a fair bit of to and fro among the members on the question. Most of the speakers from the Fine Gael and independents tried to have all sports exempted from the tax and not just the Gaelic game. The amendment they put was lost on party lines, however.
ReplyDeleteThe contributions of some of the Fianna Fáil TDs is reminiscent of what we hear from the exponents of our "indigenous" code:
"We have had references made here to the international aspect of foreign games in this country. Anyone who was present at Croke Park last Sunday saw four countries competing in the national game of hurling. There were representative teams there from South Africa, America, Great Britain and Ireland, and, on the opening day of the Tailteann Games, there was the Scottish shinty team, playing the old traditional game of hurling. There are new lines of advance about to be embarked upon by the G.A.A. which will give an international character to these games, which will, perhaps, be of much greater value to the country than that which Rugby enjoys at the moment."
There is some irony in the fact that the Irish prime minister of the day was Éamon de Valera a rugby enthusiast and who had played for Muster provincial representative side.
Some 80 years on the sport of Hurling (which is an attractive and exciting game) has not progressed as far as the speaker may have hoped. I would expect that this will be the fate of footie too.
http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail1932070700012?opendocument
Thanks Albert. That's really useful for me. My interest lies chiefly in the fact that these kind of articles were being published very frequently across Australia around this time, perhaps suggesting this attitude was seen as a legitimate one for consideration here.
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