Wikipedia:WikiProject Gaelic games/Manual of Style

This is a style guide for articles that come within the scope of WikiProject Gaelic games. Note that this is intended as a guide, and it may differ as a result of Wikipolicy or participant consensus. In the event of a conflict with IMOS, IMOS prevails.

Avoid using words such as "currently".


 * Biography outline — featuring footballers, hurlers, coaches and managers
 * County team outline
 * County board outline
 * Club outline

Cork
"For red colors with a white font, the brightest color red that works is #B60000 (see MOS:COLORS)". This, stated by an Associate Professor in Wisconsin, affects Cork navigational boxes and tables within articles.

Below is the Cork Hurling Team of the Century with white font on #B60000

Derry
See Tyrone.

Louth
See Cork.

Mayo
Red–green colour blindness is "the most common form" of colour blindness. This affects Mayo navigational boxes and tables within articles.

Below is the Mayo 2013 All-Ireland SFC losing team with red font on a white background and the green as a border.

Tipperary
Blue–yellow colour blindness is the next most common form of colour blindness after red–green colour blindness. This affects Tipperary navigational boxes and tables within articles.

Below is the Tipperary 2016 All-Ireland SHC winning team with white font on a blue background and the gold as a border.

Tyrone
Red text against a white background causes a template to appear in Category:Potentially illegible navboxes. #E00000 text against a white background does not have this effect.

Capital letters
He was "the chairman of his club", not "the Chairman of his club". He was the "only president of the Gaelic Athletic Association from County Kerry", not "the only President of the Gaelic Athletic Association from County Kerry". This follows the style used even for world leaders, e.g. Erskine Hamilton Childers "is the only Irish president to have died in office".

Use "county team" (uncapitalised) for all page and category titles, e.g. Kerry county football team, Category:Cork county hurling team, as opposed to Kerry senior football team or Cork GAA Senior Hurling Team. This aids navigation and allows for inclusion of information on teams at different grades where this is available, e.g. the minor and under-21 sections at Clare county hurling team. Titles such as "Kerry senior football team" or "Cork senior hurling team" can then redirect to the main title to preserve any incoming links.

Uncapitalised titles are consistent with representative teams in other sports, e.g. Trinidad and Tobago national netball team or New Zealand national rugby union team.

Disambiguation
If an article already exists in the location you intend to create, the following disambiguation should be used.

Clubs
Move any existing xxx GAA to xxx GAA (County), inserting the name of the county board to which the club is affiliated into the parentheses.

Create the second article at xxx GAA (County), for example Erin's Own GAA (Cork).

Then convert the undisambiguated title to a disambiguation page, i.e. Erin's Own GAA.

So:
 * St John's GAA (Antrim), rather than St John's GAA (Belfast)
 * O'Donovan Rossa GAC (Antrim), rather than O'Donovan Rossa GAC Belfast

Footballers

 * Create xxx as xxx (Gaelic footballer).
 * If xxx (Gaelic footballer) already exists:
 * 1) Move xxx (Gaelic footballer) to xxx (County Gaelic footballer), inserting the name of the county board to which the player's team is affiliated into the parentheses.
 * 2) Create the new article at xxx (County Gaelic footballer). For example, Paddy Kennedy (Sligo Gaelic footballer) is correct as Paddy Kennedy (Kerry Gaelic footballer) also exists and Paddy Kennedy (Gaelic footballer) is a disambiguation page.
 * "Snr" and "Jnr" are used in the titles of Bernard Brogan (Snr/Jnr); Dermot Earley (Snr/Jnr); James McCartan (Snr/Jnr) and Tom Spillane (Snr), as they are in Brian Lenihan (Snr/Jnr), Christy O'Connor (Snr/Jnr) and Brendan Menton Snr.

Hurlers

 * Create xxx as xxx (hurler).
 * If xxx (hurler) already exists:
 * 1) Move xxx (hurler) to xxx (County hurler), inserting the name of the county board to which the player's team is affiliated into the parentheses.
 * 2) Create the new article at xxx (County hurler). For example, David Forde (Clare hurler) is correct as David Forde (Galway hurler) also exists and David Forde (hurler) is a disambiguation page.
 * "Snr" and "Jnr" are used in the titles of Richie Power (Snr/Jnr); Kevin Fennelly (Snr) and Liam Boyle (Snr) as they are in the titles listed under "Footballers".

Sports administrators
The standard disambiguation is Seán Murphy (sports administrator), as seen with the OCI's Pat Hickey and the GAA's Patrick Breen. But sports administrators are not necessarily notable.

Categories

 * Category:St Joseph's (Laois) Gaelic footballers, not St Joseph's (County Laois) Gaelic footballers, not St Joseph's Gaelic footballers (Laois)
 * Category:Sarsfields (Cork) hurlers, not Sarsfields (County Cork) hurlers, not Sarsfields hurlers (Cork)

Layout

 * 1) References and footnotes above external links.
 * 2) Succession boxes below external links (or references where no external links are present).
 * 3) Team navboxes below succession boxes (or external links or references where no succession boxes are present).

Players
One section called "Playing career" and subsections called "Club" and "Inter-county" if the individual has only been a player without being a coach or manager.
 * 1) Additional section called "Media career" if the individual has worked in broadcasting and/or has a newspaper column, etc.
 * 2) Additional section called "Coaching career" if the individual has been a coach without being a manager.
 * 3) Additional section called "Managerial career" if the individual has been a manager.
 * 4) Additional section called "Coaching and managerial career" if the individual has been a coach and manager.

One section called, for instance, "Early life" above the section called "Playing career" if information is verifiable. One section called "Personal life" below career section(s) if information is verifiable. Wikipedia is not gossip.

Final, semi-/quarter-finals
Final (in the tournament bracket context) is singular – there is only one final match per event. Semi-finals and quarter-finals are plural when used as nouns unless in the context of a particular group: "Cork lost in the semi-finals" and "the quarter-finals were held on 28 June", but "Kilkenny's quarter-final victory" and "Kerry lost a quarter-final match in 2012" (adjective usage), and "Waterford advanced from the Munster Senior Hurling Championship to the All-Ireland SHC quarter-final" (a specific, singular q.-f. being referenced). The plural "finals" can be used in unusual constructions, e.g. "Mayo lost two consecutive All-Ireland Senior Football Championship finals, in 2012 and 2013."

Semi-final[s] and quarter-final[s] are hyphenated, not single-word, and not two separate words. When appearing at the start of a sentence, in a heading or in another capitalised context, only the first part is capitalised, as with any other hyphenated compound. In any other context, none of these words are capitalised.

Champion, championship, championships
Championship is always singular when speaking of a specific event, and always plural when writing of a series or multiplicity of events:
 * "Tipperary won the 2009 Munster Senior Hurling Championship". (single event)
 * "Kerry won eight All-Ireland Senior Football Championships when Mick O'Dwyer was manager". (multiple events)

"Championship" is only capitalised when used as part of the official name (or common short or extended version) of an event, e.g. "Leinster Senior Hurling Championship", "Dublin Senior Football Championship Championship", but not in a context such as "the team's third championship", even when in reference to the same event.

"Champion" is only capitalised when in reference to an official title or common alternative form of it: "Henry Shefflin is a ten-time All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champion", but "Dublin, the reigning champion, defeated Mayo by a scoreline of 725" to 013" ("champion" by itself is not a capitalised title like Reverend, Pope, Duke or Admiral, even if it precedes a name).

League
League is always singular when speaking of a specific event, and always plural when writing of a series or multiplicity of events:
 * "Waterford won the 2015 National Hurling League". (single event)
 * "Kerry won three National Football Leagues when Mick O'Dwyer was manager". (multiple events)

"League" is only capitalised when used as part of the official name (or common short or extended version) of an event, e.g. "National Hurling League", but not in a context such as "the team's third league title", even when in reference to the same event.

Naming conventions
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and "the GAA" thereafter. This is to aid North American readers, who think the letters "GAA" represent "goals against average".

Capitalised first G, uncapitalised second g in "Gaelic games".

Not "gaelic games".

Capitalised G and uncapitalised f in "Gaelic football".

Not "gaelic football". Not "Gaelic Football".

Uncapitalised h in "hurling".

Not "Hurling" (unless at the beginning of a sentence, or in a competition name, e.g. All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, or in the name of an organisation, e.g. Blackrock National Hurling Club).

Uncapitalised l, capitalised G and uncapitalised f in "ladies' Gaelic football".

Not "Ladies' Gaelic football" (unless at the beginning of a sentence). Not "Ladies' gaelic football". Not "Ladies' Gaelic Football" (unless part of a competition name, e.g. All-Ireland Senior Ladies' Football Championship, or the name of an organisation, e.g. Ladies' Gaelic Football Association).

Uncapitalised c in "camogie".

Not "Camogie" (unless at the beginning of a sentence, or in a competition name, e.g. All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship, or in the name of an organisation, e.g. the Camogie Association).

"All-Ireland".

Not "All Ireland". Not "all-ireland".

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) then, for instance, the 2012 All-Ireland SFC in county team and player articles, or others referring to multiple competitions.

"Sam Maguire Cup", not "Sam Maguire cup"; Liam MacCarthy Cup, not "Liam MacCarthy cup".

"Fitzgibbon Cup", not "Fitzgibbon cup"; Sigerson Cup, not "Sigerson cup".

"Wicklow County Board" and "the chairman of the Wicklow County Board" but "the county board" and "the chairman of the county board".

"Leinster Provincial Council" and "the chairman of the Leinster Provincial Council" but "the provincial council" and "the chairman of the provincial council".

Gaelic games only use "Derry" or "Doire", e.g. Derry GAA. Alternative titles are never used.

Scores
Use en-dashes (the " " Unicode character or the character entity code " ), not a " " hyphen (minus), between scores and between date ranges, per the Manual of Style, on dashes.

Tone
A frequent problem in football and hurling biography articles (and also event articles when players are mentioned) is the use of weasel-wording, peacock language and wikipuffery in describing the individuals and their accomplishments/failures. Do not write Wikipedia articles in such a vein, as all of these tactics are blatant violations of Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view policy, and please fix problems like these when you encounter them.

One example is the use of "managed to", as in "Cavan managed to make it to the semi-final, only for Donegal to eliminate them from the competition". This phrase implies utter surprise that Cavan ever got that far, because we think they're a weak team (even if the record shows that they are). Another example is the use of overly-emotive adjectives and win/loss synonyms when mentioning outcomes, e.g. "crushing defeat", "shocking upset", "stomped on", "was thrashed by", and so on. While arguably appropriate in sports journalism, which is intended to be exciting and help the reader feel "present" at the event, this is completely inappropriate for encyclopedic writing. Wikipedia has no opinion on anything, ever. In order for any such phrasing to appear in an article, it must be a properly cited direct quotation, from a reliable source. And even then it might constitute undue weight toward one viewpoint.

Other examples to avoid include "enjoyed a great career" (use alternatives such as "had" or experienced"), "had great success" (who determines the extent of the success?), "first tasted success" (as in, licking the trophy?), "resounding victory", "emerged triumphant" (why not simply "won"?), "All-Ireland glory", "an exciting game", "end to end action", "stuff", "things improved greatly" (how exactly?), "highly enjoyable", "a successful winning team" (are there unsuccessful winning teams?).

Words and phrases
Irish-language words and phrases should be marked up using lang-ga, thus:.