Why I wrote a book about the history of the GAA in 100 objects

Opinion: 'After creating multiple lists in Excel sheets, taking hundreds of photographs and travelling thousands of miles, I've had my say'

You can listen to a podcast of RTÉ 2fm's Game On presenter Marie Crowe talking to Siobhán Doyle about her new book above. You can subscribe to the Brainstorm podcast through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Undertaking writing a book, especially when conducting the research completely from scratch requires a considerable commitment of time, effort and energy that often doesn't return the deserved reward. So why write a book in the first place?

Every non-fiction author sets out to find a topic that hasn’t been examined in detail yet, to create a new angle to a familiar story or to write their own personal memoir. A History of the GAA in 100 Objects is sort of a combination of all three. It looks at the GAA, a topic that’s written about by journalists on a daily basis and by historians on a regular basis, through a new angle, one of objects. The medals, jerseys and match day programmes are perhaps the most visible form of the GAA’s material culture. But there's also the invisible or less obvious reminders of Gaelic games: a referee’s report card, the Hawk-Eye camera, a letter from a manager to players.

The introduction to the book is a description of the research process itself and my time travelling across the 32 counties to collect object stories. It's also a reflection of how my own background, childhood and profession has framed the research. Historians come to their research subjects with their own personal bias, conscious and unconscious. A History of the GAA in 100 Objects is no different.

The concept for this book occurred when I was conducting