The GAA is being asked to open a dialogue about clubs named after John Mitchel.
The United Ireland campaigner was also an advocate for transatlantic slavery in the 1800s, and was a supporter of the confederacy in the US Civil War.
At least 10 GAA clubs are named after him.
Former director of Anti-Slavery International, Aidan McQuade, told Newstalk Breakfast he believes the clubs should consider changing their names.
"To a certain extent one would wonder why you'd want the name of Mitchel on your club if you know the whole story of Mitchel.
"I don't know, do you want Katie Hopkins GAA around the country?
"That's the sort of attitudes that he had".
"Whenever you look at the multi-cultural nature of Ireland, it's somewhat at odds with the society that I think most of us want to be".
"We look at a lot of historical figures who are deeply problematic.
"The classic example is [Winston] Churchill is a deeply problematic character: whenever he was confronting Hitler in Europe he was also overseeing famine in India.
"I think sometimes we have to take a look at the balance of what somebody's achieved in their life - how does it weigh out?
"One of the things about Mitchel is that he wasn't just a passive supporter of the confederacy - in terms of this idea 'well they have the right to self determination' - which a lot of people in Britain and Ireland were looking at, certainly at the outset of the American Civil War.
"He was somebody who was a white supremacist, he was a supporter of slavery, and indeed he was an advocate for the re-introduction of the transatlantic slave trade - which is something that is now rightly regarded as being genocidal".
"Citizenship has it's price, and one needs to actually look at what symbols we're putting out - particularly as I say given the multi-cultural nature of Irish society at the moment".
On the clubs themselves, he said: "I think they should first of all have a proper look at who Mitchel was and the things that he said, and I think that they should then sit down and have a talk about 'do you want to be honouring that guy with the name that you have'.
"I think also the Government needs to be looking at whether it finds acceptable this name as well".
"We're an evolving society; what may have been regarded in ignorance as being something which is acceptable in the past.
"Things change, sometimes we learn more and we have to move on.
"People don't have statues to Jimmy Savile across the UK anymore".
