Gongol.com Archives: May 2025
May 29, 2025
Players of the Irish sport of camogie have won a small but notable victory. Camogie is a women's sport, and players have been required for generations to wear skirts or skorts during play. Today's players wanted the option to wear shorts instead, and mounted a vigorous and ultimately successful protest to change the rules. ■ It's a pleasant reminder that institutions -- even those steeped in tradition -- should always be on the watch for opportunities to reform. As stable as human nature may be from generation to generation, the circumstances and expectations of each era are bound to be new. ■ If we want our institutions to survive -- whether they are social clubs, sports leagues, schools, charities, governments, or businesses -- then we need them to affirm what they really stand for by fixating on those principles while remaining open to correction on distractions that might stand in the way. What is important to Ireland's sports associations is that Irish people continue to play Irish sports, not that they adhere to dress codes traceable to the days of British colonialism. ■ Countless other institutions should take the cue. Radicalism should be rejected wherever it rears its ugly head. And changes shouldn't be made merely for the sake of making change; that's the work of busybodies. At least a modest effort should always be made to know why "it's always been done like that" before trying to do it in some other way. ■ In the words of John Stuart Mill, "The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people [...] but the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals." ■ The spirit of reform should be perpetual. We should always be on the lookout for better ways of achieving worthy ends, because better ways will present themselves to us from time to time, even if we aren't seeking them.
