RG at arms length

[trailer]

Derry appear to have a defunct email address on their website. They were very slow to respond to the allegations. Appreciate this is a very complex and difficult situation that they have found themselves in but they have been scrambling since Thursday.
Huge learnings here for counties and clubs.

People believing those Whatsapp rumours really have a very low intelligence level. There is zero chance Derry allow RG anywhere near the team.   

[johnnycool]

So anyone can email a county board with an allegation and they must stand down the manager?

Who has actually said that?

It's not so much as said that, but people have done it and it works. The case here in question I'm totally behind Mrs Gallagher my point is that anyone can send an email or go on to social media and make claims about someone.

Would you be happy if you had allegations (true or false) made public via social media that would have wider implications on your kids and job and that would have even more implications on caring for your children should you lose your job over it?

The courts are there for a reason, to settle these issues. Court by social media though seems to be the way of the world.

Nobody is saying the courts should not do their job but right back at the beginning of this the "suspended pending investigation" route was explained and what steps you would need to take before suspending the individual.

Derry had their own decision to make and steps to take. All of which have already been set out.

Put yourself in Derry CB's position if they did get that email from Nicola's dad.

Your response would be that due to the seriousness of the allegations that he should go to the police with them.

In the meantime you'd have a duty of care to all to face Rory with what you've been informed about and as we've seen from his release, he probably told them (or would have told them) that these claims have been "dealt with" during the custody case and he's been cleared and now has custody of the children.

What do Derry CB do next?

They really can't be ignoring an email of that type all the same, that's really bad if they did.

[oakleaflad]

I've a relative that was out partying with the Derry team. Said there was no sign of RG.

[seafoid]

Last time I looked, it's the court of law that has to sort out the issues raised by the claimant but no, we get it sorted by the court of Facebook.

Do you think she was wrong to upload that post to Facebook ?
Do you think that it was  unfair that he was removed as Derry manager?

[brokencrossbar1]

In terms of the alleged email without seeing full sight of the content it is wrong to comment on it, positively or negatively. If it went to a defunct email address then my experience is that generally something like that in most organisations have bounce on emails or auto replies,  if they are official email addresses. If it was the like of a gmail account then that is more complicated.

I am not doubting the email but I have seen situations where emails were 'sent' but never 'received' so it's hard to know. There's an awful lot of he said/she said, supposition and denial. Somewhere in the middle you often find the truth. If a fraction of the allegations are true then there is a real question to be answered. My gut is that Nicola Gallagher does not put herself out there for public interrogation without there being sufficient substance to what is being alleged. Her parents are strong characters and she has people now backing her. The absence of denial from RG is hard to accept.

In terms of the GAA, I genuinely think they are in a difficult position until there is clarity on the email. If it was a case that no one saw the email then fair enough but if it could have been viewed by someone and ignored then there are questions,  subject to the content of the email. If there were allegations of serious DV then they have an obligation to act on it, if only under their child protection policies for the children of the family. As someone who has been part of this there is a strong onus where there may be concerns for children....but as I said we don't know the actual content.

[rosnarun]

This has gone way past Denial Stage. She has made it all Public and family law cases ae normall far to complex to be Covered by a single statement .
no (reputational) Good Can come out of a court room People think they have the Facts and will judge accordingly.
As regards Football the Derry board have to make a call and they will be wrong either way

[93-DY-SAM]

Why is this all being dumped on Derry as if they have any legal authority to investigate anything? Why are people on social media not hounding everyone else from the story in Sunday's paper which Mrs Gallagher said failed her - The PSNI, the PPS and the Western Health Trust? The organisations who should be investigating and dealing with and who have the authority to do so, not the Derry County Board or any other County Board in the country for that matter.

But that doesn't suit the narrative for the faux outrage and rumour spreading for a few on here who are more interested in taking glee that Rory Gallagher has been taken down due to their dislike of him before this news than any welfare considerations for Mrs Gallagher herself. Derry are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.

[Keyser soze]

I know that my e-mail accounts are set up to filter out emails from spam accounts which would include unknown addresses, they will automatically go to junk and there could be up to a couple of dozen coming in there every day.

I never look at it unless someone claims they've sent me an email which I haven't received, which does happen on occasion.

[general_lee]

Why is this all being dumped on Derry as if they have any legal authority to investigate anything? Why are people on social media not hounding everyone else from the story in Sunday's paper which Mrs Gallagher said failed her - The PSNI, the PPS and the Western Health Trust? The organisations who should be investigating and dealing with and who have the authority to do so, not the Derry County Board or any other County Board in the country for that matter.

But that doesn't suit the narrative for the faux outrage and rumour spreading for a few on here who are more interested in taking glee that Rory Gallagher has been taken down due to their dislike of him before this news than any welfare considerations for Mrs Gallagher herself. Derry are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.

If I was from Derry I'd be wanting to disassociate with RG completely unless he made a statement containing a clear, robust denial of all allegations.

An innocent man would absolutely refute something of such a serious nature right from the off - RG hasn't done this - just a waffle statement from his solicitors. Whether guilty or not, these allegations are bringing Derry GAA and the organisation as a whole into disrepute. It's literally that black and white. For a society that suffered the brunt of the British judicial system, we should know that you don't always need a court of law to determine guilt or innocence.

I have zero sympathy for the man, and previous to last week's revelations I actually had some admiration for him.

[seafoid]

Why is this all being dumped on Derry as if they have any legal authority to investigate anything? Why are people on social media not hounding everyone else from the story in Sunday's paper which Mrs Gallagher said failed her - The PSNI, the PPS and the Western Health Trust? The organisations who should be investigating and dealing with and who have the authority to do so, not the Derry County Board or any other County Board in the country for that matter.

But that doesn't suit the narrative for the faux outrage and rumour spreading for a few on here who are more interested in taking glee that Rory Gallagher has been taken down due to their dislike of him before this news than any welfare considerations for Mrs Gallagher herself. Derry are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.

We don't know much about the back story. We don't know who else she wrote to.
And it isn't "faux outrage". A woman was brutalised over a prolonged period and there has been no denial to date.

[Armagh18]

Why is this all being dumped on Derry as if they have any legal authority to investigate anything? Why are people on social media not hounding everyone else from the story in Sunday's paper which Mrs Gallagher said failed her - The PSNI, the PPS and the Western Health Trust? The organisations who should be investigating and dealing with and who have the authority to do so, not the Derry County Board or any other County Board in the country for that matter.

But that doesn't suit the narrative for the faux outrage and rumour spreading for a few on here who are more interested in taking glee that Rory Gallagher has been taken down due to their dislike of him before this news than any welfare considerations for Mrs Gallagher herself. Derry are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.

If I was from Derry I'd be wanting to disassociate with RG completely unless he made a statement containing a clear, robust denial of all allegations.

An innocent man would absolutely refute something of such a serious nature right from the off - RG hasn't done this - just a waffle statement from his solicitors. Whether guilty or not, these allegations are bringing Derry GAA and the organisation as a whole into disrepute. It's literally that black and white. For a society that suffered the brunt of the British judicial system, we should know that you don't always need a court of law to determine guilt or innocence.

I have zero sympathy for the man, and previous to last week's revelations I actually had some admiration for him.

Nail on head.

[93-DY-SAM]

Why is this all being dumped on Derry as if they have any legal authority to investigate anything? Why are people on social media not hounding everyone else from the story in Sunday's paper which Mrs Gallagher said failed her - The PSNI, the PPS and the Western Health Trust? The organisations who should be investigating and dealing with and who have the authority to do so, not the Derry County Board or any other County Board in the country for that matter.

But that doesn't suit the narrative for the faux outrage and rumour spreading for a few on here who are more interested in taking glee that Rory Gallagher has been taken down due to their dislike of him before this news than any welfare considerations for Mrs Gallagher herself. Derry are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.

We don't know much about the back story. We don't know who else she wrote to.
And it isn't "faux outrage". A woman was brutalised over a prolonged period and there has been no denial to date.

You misunderstood me. I'm in no way defending Rory Gallagher. If a fraction of the allegations are true then he should face the consequences. All I'm pointing out is that there are certain posters with a fixation on seeing Gallagher fall by any means necessary who appear to have little or no regard for Nicola Gallagher as she is secondary in their thoughts.

[armaghniac]

I know that my e-mail accounts are set up to filter out emails from spam accounts which would include unknown addresses, they will automatically go to junk and there could be up to a couple of dozen coming in there every day.

I never look at it unless someone claims they've sent me an email which I haven't received, which does happen on occasion.

Spam is what you use a spam filter, Gmail does a good job on this. The GAA can hardly filter out emails from unknown addresses unless it keeps a database of all its member's emails.

[RadioGAAGAA]

An incredible post. Show me where I said Derry had to conduct a criminal investigation?

Right here: "the matter will have to be fully investigated" along with all the preceding sentences

Then straight after, again you were at it: "if a county board receives such a serious allegation that they need to take steps to, to the best of their ability, reassure themselves that there is no truth to the allegation"


Unless your happy with a half-assed investigation by ill-equipped and ill-qualified volunteers that could turn up anything? Oh wait, you'd likely be first in the queue to decry them for not doing it right.

All the CB could do would be to ask the person the allegation was made against, and take their word for it if they plead their innocence. They aren't in a position to do anything else.

[smelmoth]

An incredible post. Show me where I said Derry had to conduct a criminal investigation?

Right here: "the matter will have to be fully investigated" along with all the preceding sentences

Then straight after, again you were at it: "if a county board receives such a serious allegation that they need to take steps to, to the best of their ability, reassure themselves that there is no truth to the allegation"


Unless your happy with a half-assed investigation by ill-equipped and ill-qualified volunteers that could turn up anything? Oh wait, you'd likely be first in the queue to decry them for not doing it right.

All the CB could do would be to ask the person the allegation was made against, and take their word for it if they plead their innocence. They aren't in a position to do anything else.

And not one of those posts by me even mention a criminal investigation.