Gavan Reilly

A pre-Congress phoot shoot this morning; in publicity for Lá na gClub, any delegates with a county jersey were asked to get a photo together this morning. I have some photos but am not likely to get them up before Ray McManus from Sportsfile. I did, however, get a TwitPic that the family will probably treasure for a while. 🙂

Before the discussion on the Experimental Playing Rules that have been trialled in the pre-season tournaments and National Leagues over the winter, there’s the not inconsiderable routine of getting through discussions and proposals presented by a Rules Taskforce who are tasked with the revision and modernisation of the GAA’s fundamental rules.

Rule 21 – the fabled rule that once banned members of the Ulster policing forces from membership – has just been deleted in its entirety; its contents have been somewhat replicated in other rules introduced and so it is no more. Interesting to think that once upon a time that rule caused such incredible consternation at a Congress that Seán McCague’s Presidency will forever be remembered for the amendment of the fabled Rule.

Elsewhere, Congress has formally agreed to launch a system of electronic membership, probably the biggest non-Governmental registration ever to take place in Ireland, with the GAA’s 800,000-odd membership now being electronically catalogued. Analagous to this, the final date for payment of membership fees has been brought forward from August 1st annually to March 31st. As a by-product, members joining a new club after March 31st won’t be allowed to run for a committee position until the following year.

Ned Quinn, Secretary in Kilkenny, wasn’t best pleased. He and the Úachtarán have a brief squabble about whether this is a healthy thing or not. “In fairness, Ned,” says the Úachtarán, “People will always have their fees paid early anyway.”

“No offence, Úachtarán,” comes the reply, “but people pay before August because they need to if they want their All-Ireland tickets.”

Congress bursts into a jovial spontaneous applause. Amid all the theoretical talk of rules and taskforces and directions and strategic analyses, there’s still a sense of real humour. Bravo.

So here I am, brushing the cobwebs off the blog, from Cork where I’m at the GAA’s Annual Congress in Cork. I should state from the start that I’m not a delegate here; I’m an executive tagger-onner – Ciara’s dad is finishing up as President after three years at the helm, and we’re here supporting him as it all finishes up. It’s been quite the three years but that’s for another blog.

A few first impressions:

While it’s not like an Árd Fheis where you’re smothered from the outset with flyers asking you to vote, this is as close as the GAA gets to a trade show. Thus, everyone from O’Neills and Azzurri to Sportsfile and Baker IT is downstairs shifting wares; even artificial turf installers and floodlight suppliers are here, hoping that passing delegates might be from clubs interested in having work one.

While it’s not typically perceived as so, it’s a real mixture of young and old here – not that the stereotypical delegate would be defied by the existence of a “Ladies’ Tour” for the wives of delegates to mosey around Cork on the Saturday while the Congress itself continues apace in Rochestown, near Douglas. There are some very young – I literally mean teenage – delegates around, assumably people who proposed motions from clubs who have gotten motions onto the Clár. It’s good to see.

The design of the GAA’s standard wares has become very slick and professional. Congress two years ago in Kilkenny – and, from what I’ve seen, everything up to that – was a raggletaggle design mixed bag; Kilkenny’s was the predictable amber-and-black combo everywhere possible. Since the GAA rebranded, simultaneously with Congress at Sligo last year, it’s been a much more unified and dignified affair; this year the booklets of working group and committee reports, and the Congress Clár itself, are works of staggering professionalism with some truly incredible photography included therein.

This evening, as is customary, Congress dealt with financial matters and the Ard-Stiurthoir’s report. Financial things, despite The Climate, look okay – the notable sums being that Championship gate receipts in 2008 were slightly down on an all-time peak of 2007, and the Foreign Games took in €15m. Now, admittedly, this money has been ringfenced for capital projects and isn’t being treated as the staple income, and without it the Association would still turn profit. Nonetheless, it’ll be quite a hole to plug given it will have been customary for quite a bit by the time it disappears in 2010’s accounts.

Paraic Duffy’s report was a thorough affair; the usual ream of well-thought-out suggestions that the Árd-Stiúrthóir’s report brings before they’re promptly forgotten, as fate has proven in the past. Fingers crossed for otherwise.

Tomorrow’s business kicks off at 10am with reports and motions from the Rules Taskforce, followed by debate on the experimental rules which provide the main talking point. The outgoing President’s address is scheduled for 12.30pm but is likely to have to be shifted in accordance with business; the official handover to Christy Cooney is set for 5pm but likewise may be subject to the whims of the floor.

With any luck I’ll be tweeting (using the tag #gaa2009) and blogging from the floor – there’s also live feeds on RTE.ie for those interested.

Until tomorrow…

So “the powers that be want action taken” on Conor Casby’s nude portraits of the Taoiseach that appeared in the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernian Academy.

For anyone who didn’t catch it, RTE were asked to remove the online footage of Monday’s news report from their website, and to broadcast an on-air apology for the piece.

Today on his radio show, Ray D’Arcy (who happily and freely named the artist on the show, incidentally) said that the Gardaí had been in touch wanting to speak to Casby and to charge him with three crimes: “Incitement, indecency and criminal damage.”

On the show (kudos to Cian of Irish Election who grabbed the audio, which you can listen to here) D’Arcy explains the reasoning behind the three charges. At about the same time, meanwhile (about 10.35am for fifteen minutes), FF backbencher Michael Kennedy went on Today with Pat Kenny and tried to defend the apology request.

Kennedy’s major point was that while he had no problem with the Sunday Tribune (who first broke the story, let it be noted) publishing a piece, RTE featuring it was another matter, partially because it’s taxpayer funded, but mostly because it was disrespectful to the position and office of Taoiseach.

God forbid Michael Kennedy should ever be Taoiseach. If he does, we’ll never have anything to continue the Scrap Saturday / Bull Island / Nob Nation tradition that RTE has forged for itself. Even The Panel will probably be pulled for the guff it offers.

When the audio goes up later today (it’ll be here when it does) skip forward to about 50 minutes in. You’ll hear endless dialogue such as:

“I’ve just been handed a picture here of President Obama sitting naked on a toilet.”
“Is that broadcast on national airwaves?”
“I assume so. It’s part of their proud national tradition of toilet humour.”
“But it’s not on a national broadcaster.”

The fact that the United States doesn’t have a public broadcaster apparently being void here. Finally, though, he gets his comeuppance.

“I have a picture here, from the BBC Politics Show, of Gordon Brown in a compromising position” [Note these aren’t direct quotes, I’m working from memory here].
“Is that on a public broadcaster though?”
“Yes, it’s the BBC’s Politics Show [presumably the Daily Politics on BBC Two] for the world to see.”
“Right.” And there’s a stunned silence.

Kennedy has already been calling for Cathal Goan, RTE’s Director-General, to resign over his decision to air the piece. Too right he should resign: he should have had the balls to take on the Government who, let it be reminded, don’t pay for the service themselves.

Mulley says it best in his outright disgust:

Let’s set a date and start a protest, let’s bring all the world’s press together and have them record caricatures of a naked man from the sticks. Let’s keep the momentum going. Let’s send naked pics of Cowen via MMS to each other and wave our phones, let’s encourage the opposition parties to wave these phones in the Dáil. Have them wear t-shirts under their shirts/blouses. Let’s walk up and down outside RTE news broadcasts. Please please please don’t roll over on this because next time we won’t know what else the news is hiding from us.

Get this caricature by Alan Cavanagh, print it on an A3, and put it in your window. Let’s see them stifle that. Let’s make the freedom of our press an election issue for June. Let’s print this poster onto backing boards and put it on lampposts alongside party candidates.

Edit: You can also buy this caricature on a T-Shirt with proceeds going to the Rape Crisis Centre.

Suzy has a take too.

Edit 2: Apparently the artist’s name is “Caspy”, mistakes fixed.

…is a society without soul.

And, distressingly, it seems we’re getting dangerously close to it. First the BCI uphold complaints against Nightlive, and now RTE are made apologise for this.

Sad day. Sad, sad day.

Where’s the feelgood factor from being the sporting kings of the world if our leaders seem to be going out of their way to bring the mood down?

In years to come we’ll remember today, Saturday March 21st 2009, as one of impossible glory, of one where fifteen Irish superhumans rose above the boundaries of mortal achievement and alluded invincibility to all around them.

Much as sport tends to glorify achievements with the beauty of hindsight, it would be criminal to forget just how dramatic Ireland’s game against Wales today was. Today Ireland came dangerously – gloriously – close to throwing it all away. You could have written it, but nobody would have believed you. As Wales crossed the halfway line on 79 minutes searching for a Triple Crown that would likely be forgotten in the relative annals of time, Tony Ward said it himself. “No penalties.” “No penalties”, Ryle Nugent concurred. Immediately Paddy Wallace enters the ruck from the side, referee Wayne Barnes raises his arm towards the Welsh end of the field and Stephen Jones points his finger towards the towering poles ahead of him.

It’s Jones, he can’t possibly miss. It’s 48 yards but he can make it; it’s Stephen Jones, after all.

It flies, it flies…

Ryle Nugent dares to contemplate it before any of the rest of us can. “The Irish team gather under the posts, in case it drops short…”

In case it drops short… oh, God, it can’t possibly drop short…

…can it?

“It hasn’t got the legs!”

And there it is, it drops short; Geordan Murphy gathers the ball and touches it down in the near corner. Suddenly the referee’s whistle blows long and shrill and the tears are flowing long before you can catch your breath or remember that there’s a life outside of the television screen in front of you, or outside of that oval ball a few hundred miles away.

The world comes swirling back to life; your lungs get a moment to themselves and existence wakes from its blissful coma. The recession seems a misty memory – who needs money when you have days like today?

Your phone beeps. It’s a text from your mother: “Wow”. The mood is judged perfectly: punctuation is a superfluous detail in the bigger picture of glory. What to reply? “Amazing”. It does nothing to illustrate just how you really feel but you have nothing else to say. It simply is; it is, and after 61 years of waiting, it’s the is – the simple fact that it’s happened! It’s really happened! – that makes it so much more special.

In the native language of these warriors’ land they say ‘is maith an t-anlann an t-ocras‘. If ever proof were needed that hunger is the best sauce, today must surely suffice. 61 years of pain and anguish, of near misses and total collapses, all melting away as a single kick lands two yards short of where it needs to be.

Sport is most certainly a watertight argument for fate: how different would Ireland’s national mood be today, how differently would the career of Brian O’Driscoll – so often so close but yet impossibly far from success – be thought of in years to come, how forever altered would be the fortunes of Irish rugby be, had Stephen Jones’ kick hit his toe that millimetre higher? Multiply this chance by even individual instance in the match that could have gone either way: every kick from touch from the boot of O’Gara; every lineout stolen by the monsterous hands of O’Connell. And who knows what rewards may be reaped from such unparalleled glory, especially when Ireland is so currently lacking in inspiration?

I’ve never bought into the notion of Irish rugby’s “golden generation”. While indeed the current crop were the first for two decades who came along at the same time (what would Simon Geoghegan give to have been born fifteen years later, and be part of the 2009 team instead of the perpetual solo tryscorer on a losing Irish team mid-1990’s?), the Golden Generation had already done more for Irish rugby than any before them. In the era before entertainment saturation a victorious Irish team had difficulty inspiring young men and women to take up the sport, yet at the turn of the millennium, the fact that Brian O’Driscoll was simultaneously good-looking and world-beating inspired just that. The David Humpreys, Shane Horgans and Girvan Dempseys of this world may not have a Grand Slam 2009 to their names, but they’ll have made it cool to pick up a rugby ball again, without fear of dismissive sneering from those clad in their Umbro FAI shirts.

Alas, such debates are for another time. For tonight, we have our glory, and however long we may have it to bask in, what’s rare is surely wonderful.

In years to come we’ll remember today, Saturday March 21st 2009, as one of impossible glory, of one where fifteen Irish superhumans rose above the boundaries of mortal achievement and alluded invincibility to all around them. Just let’s not forget how close we came to having none of it, and ensure that it makes the fragility of victory so much sweeter.

Horan, Flannery, Hayes; O’Callaghan, O’Connell; Ferris, Heaslip, Wallace; O’Leary, O’Gara; Fitzgerald, D’Arcy, O’Driscoll, Bowe; Kearney. Best, Stringer, Leamy and Wallace. Kidney. Twenty names that came so close to losing it all, but held their nerve and seized that day.

Finally, finally!, Éireann go bráth.