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[President Obama invite for Croke Park rally is confirmed]

President Obama invite for Croke Park rally is confirmed
80,000 expected at Dublin venue to hear US president

By CATHAL DERVAN , IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, April 11, 2011, 7:04 AM

President Barack Obama has been invited to speak at Croke Park during his visit to Ireland next month.

GAA sources have confirmed that Croke Park is the likely venue for a major public address by the US President on May 23rd.

Washington sources had told Irish Central that the venue was favored because of security considerations over a street venue in central Dublin.

The story was first revealed by Irish Central last week and has been confirmed by the Irish Times in their Monday edition and in the Sunday Business Post.

The paper of record reports that Croke Park is: "Being considered as a venue for a rally when President Barack Obama visits Ireland next month."

A top Croke Park source confirmed to the Irish Times that the GAA headquarters is being looked at as a venue ahead of a decision on Obama's full itinerary for his first visit to Ireland.

The Dublin venue is available that weekend as the National League will have concluded and the championship schedule doesn't begin until June at the stadium.

American Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney is to hold a number of meetings to finalise the Presidential itinerary this week.

Rooney will visit Obama's ancestral homeland at Moneygall in County Offaly when he will hold talks with Offaly County Manager Pat Gallagher.

The Ambassador, a Croke Park patron in the past, will also discuss the likely  rally at the GAA ground with officials.

GAA will welcome Queen Elizabeth to Croke Park during her state visit. Details at eleven.

[Munster chief Fitzgerald aims to take 400 club players off dole every year]

GAA propose €8m back to work scheme
Munster chief Fitzgerald aims to take 400 club players off dole every year

Thursday March 31 2011

Hard times demand brave decisions and, in the case of the GAA, that involves paying out €8m over the next five years to help club players who have fallen victim to the recession.

That's the view of Munster CEO Pat Fitzgerald, whose proposal to introduce a €1.6m-per-year support scheme for unemployed club players is one of the most far-reaching in GAA history.

It means, in effect, that the GAA would subsidise employers to the tune of €4,000 per person to hire an out-of-work club player for a year. It would be paid as part of the salary, providing a four-way gain for the player, the business, the GAA and the state.

The player would benefit from becoming re-employed; business would be boosted by having a salary subsidised by €333 per month, the GAA would retain players who might otherwise emigrate, while the state's social welfare bill would be reduced by over €3m per year.

"The GAA has always been more than a sporting organisation," said Fitzgerald. "We're deep-rooted in our communities and, at a time of crisis such as the country is going through at present, we need to figure out a way of helping people in a practical way. This scheme wouldn't solve all the ills of the country, but it would do an awful lot for the 400 unemployed players -- and their clubs -- who benefited."

Fitzgerald envisages that, from a business viewpoint, the scheme would be attractive to employers with a strong interest and/or involvement in the GAA.

"There are plenty of them out there and some may be in a position to hire a player if they got some financial help. If the €4,000 payment to an employer made the difference between taking on somebody or not, then it would be money well spent from the GAA's viewpoint," he said.

"It's heart-breaking for families and communities and devastating for clubs to see so many young people emigrating and I believe that we in the GAA have a duty to try something that will help the cause in whatever way we can. We can't stop the drain of talent through emigration, but if we were able to keep 400 club players at home each year, it would be something at least."

Fitzgerald doesn't anticipate any major administrative hitches as the qualifying rules would be tightly managed, while the scheme would be run by the provincial councils and, if required, Croke Park. Clubs would provide details of their unemployed players and only those currently on the dole would be eligible. County boards would identify businesses with a GAA leaning, after which the matching process would proceed as in any regular job application situation.

The €4,000 grant would be paid directly to the employer so that everything was above board on all fronts.

Fitzgerald believes that the €1.6m required to fund the scheme could be diverted from grants for facility development in clubs. He estimates that if even one quarter of that money was re-directed towards the job-support fund by the provincial councils it would come close to raising the €800,000 required. The rest would be paid from a similar Croke Park fund.

"What I'm proposing is that, after investing heavily in developing grounds and other facilities in clubs over several years, we invest in people at a time of great need," he said. "I'm not saying we should end all development, but we've got to scale it back to what's appropriate in these changed times."

proposal

Fitzgerald plans to put his proposal before fellow provincial CEOs Michael Delaney (Leinster), John Prenty (Connacht), Danny Murphy (Ulster), GAA director-general Paraic Duffy and the heads of the various Croke Park departments over the coming weeks. That group meet regularly to help streamline administration nationally.

Fitzgerald, a former Limerick county board chairman who took over as Munster CEO in 2008, believes that the devastating impact of emigration on the GAA won't be fully realised until some of the smaller clubs, especially in rural Ireland, are unable to field teams.

"We have to do something to keep as many of our players as possible at home," he said. "The GAA is a great organisation for contacts and networks and we should use it at a time like this. There are people who will say that playing games should be our only business, but there's more to it than that.

"We are a community-based organisation and, at a time like this, when the country is going through such hardship, we should harness everything we have in the GAA. As far as I'm concerned, that involves making a financial contribution if it helps create jobs for some of our unemployed club players."

Irish Independent

I have a number of problems with this.

• 
  Are these payments something that are going to go on in perpetuity? Surely the money is going to run out eventually and the lads won't be making enough to get by. This might only delay the inevitable.


• Is it really the GAA's job to subsidize make-work schemes like this?


• Is it a good idea to scale back on capital investment? Spending that money on grounds and facilities leaves something to show for it. Pouring it into peoples' pay packets does not.


• The GAA does not lose many people who emigrate. Most of them join GAA clubs wherever in the world they go. It pisses me off when people keep talking about the GAA as if it only exists in one country. It's not a national organisation. It's a global organisation. Whether someone's playing for a GAA club in Washington or Waterford he's still part of the GAA.

[Marketing is the key to the GAA's future]

Marketing is the key to the GAA's future

Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

The beauty of professional sports is that they tend to give the punters what they want. They do this because this is where the money is, writes Emmet Moloney...

Money, logically enough, is what makes professional sports tick. It pays for the players and everyone else down the line. It's a simple enough system and it gets tinkered with every now and again to ensure we, the paying public, don't miss out.

Rugby is a wonderful example of how to do so many things right. The professional game is only about 15 years old but already the fixtures are being created, hyped and held to gain maximum effect. This means full houses and huge television audiences.

This weekend, Munster play Leinster and even though it is only the Magners League and even though this game will matter little in the grand scheme of things, as both teams will comfortably qualify for the closing stages, this game matters. It will fill Thomond Park and it will fill pubs and living rooms around the country. Twenty years ago, you could have driven the car into the ground when these two sides played. If you were going to be late, you could nearly have called ahead and they might have put the game back for you. They rarely got 500 to these games. So, what has changed?

In a word: marketing.

Now, contrast Munster playing Leinster with Kilkenny playing Tipperary. As things stand, Kilkenny and Tipp are guaranteed one meeting a year in the National Hurling League. This year that match drew around 7,000 spectators on a cold night in Semple Stadium in the early days of February. If these two manage to avoid the pitfalls of the Munster and Leinster championships, they just might meet again in the All-Ireland hurling final, as they have done for the past two years. If we're third-time lucky, there will be 82,000 on hand to witness the third instalment of a thrilling series. A small bonus sees them reach a league final where perhaps 25,000 are there to see the skin and hair flying.

It's always a classic when these two clash. But guess what: they can go years without meeting each other when the stakes are highest. They have been known to go 10 or 12 years without their supporters getting the chance to ball-hop each other in the confines of Croke Park. Before their latest escapades, over the past 40 years they had met only in 2002, 1991 and 1971 in Croke Park.

Now take Kerry and Dublin. A guaranteed bumper crowd in Croker for the championship. The two teams that lit up the golden '70s with a rivalry that will live forever in Micheál O'Hehir's voice and Paddy Cullen's startled look. They can go decades without seeing each other when it really matters. Cork-Tipp? Clare-Limerick? Armagh-Tyrone? Galway-Mayo? You know the rest; the list is endless.

Yet Munster and Leinster know that every year, once early in the season to get it going and once around Easter to kick-start the season's climax, they will meet. Their players know it, their supporters know it and even the publicans around Limerick know enough about it to break the holy day that was Good Friday.

In the GAA, we can be at the mercy of the hot balls and the cold balls. Not so the rugby fraternity. Following this Saturday's game, there is every chance that these two could meet again in the Magners League final or semi-final. No matter, the two full houses are already booked in, a third contest would be a bonus.

Looking at last weekend's National Hurling League match-ups would whet the appetite for this type of hurling on a summer's day. Cork-Tipp, Cats-Déise, Dublin-Galway, Offaly-Wexford. Between the four games we had an average of a puck of a ball between them. We need those Sundays in July and August. Those eight teams are legitimate top-table counties. Why can't they all be playing each other every second Sunday in the blood and thunder of championship hurling?

Answers on a postcard to Croke Park and the latest committee that will be formed to try fix hurling. Last Sunday's March menu could fix it in a heartbeat if you just change March to July.

The rugby heads deserve all the credit for what they have done. Who cares if Munster and Leinster are a very recent phenomenon. They're here, they entertain us and they've made us care again about rugby more times than the usual four games a year we used to see on television. The lesson is hardly hidden. Build it around the product and people will come. Make it mean something and people will come. Put some imagination into it and people will come. That's how to do it.

The game of soccer is a perfect example of how not to do it. I'll shout for anyone wearing the green jersey in any code, but international football is fast losing all relevance. Is there anything more devalued now than an international soccer friendly? Did you watch Ireland play Uruguay on Tuesday night? Who? Yeah, me neither.

So the international game of soccer moves backwards while the game of rugby rebuilds and fills Thomond Park, a ground steeped in history, but falling apart as recently as 15 years ago. Why? Because the rugby crowd are smart, that's why!

There is no disconnect between players and province, players and supporters. Forget the professionalism, you are more likely to see Munster rugby players like Paul O'Connell and Ronan O'Gara visit kids in your local school than any hurler or footballer. With the helmets, you wouldn't recognise the hurlers anyway. (Be honest, Tommy Walsh, possibly the most outstanding hurler of his generation – do you know what he looks like? Can you picture his face?)

The rugby crowd have shrewdly looked at their marketplace and decided to give supporters ownership of their provincial teams. There's your blueprint right there. How have they done it? Who has done it? Can we poach them?

The GAA stands still, offering GAA solutions to GAA problems like the qualifiers, the use of technology, discipline and television saturation. We're being passed out. Our greatest strength is often our greatest weakness and within the GAA our greatest asset is the sheer size and democratic nature of the organisation. But that strength also serves to slow down the pace at which change can come.

The solution? We have plenty of good and progressive people in Croke Park. Let's trust them to get on with the job, not send them back to clubs, conventions, county boards, congresses and councils, waiting for the okay to change the colour of the referee's jersey. Let's try some changes. If they don't work, fair enough. But let's try.

Fifteen years ago Limerick and Clare filled the Gaelic Grounds on the Ennis Road for a classic Munster semi-final that drew 44,000 people. It would be 12 years before they met again in the Munster championship. Twelve years! I remember that 1996 day because of Ciaran Carey's point (naturally, as it broke my heart!) and the fact that I parked outside a dilapidated looking Thomond Park.

How times change. On Saturday I'll probably park near the Gaelic Grounds, a stadium that Limerick haven't filled in years, and walk up to Thomond Park, a state-of-the-art facility that will be overflowing and not for the last time this season.

Is anyone listening?

What is it with this "he fixed the road" syndrome? Why do crooks and fraudsters like Michael Lowry keep topping the polls instead of being hounded out of office in disgrace?  Is there something in the voters' mentality that sympathises with them? Is it the anti-establishment mentality? The idea that people in authority are not to be trusted, and anyone who games the system is admired for it no matter how much damage they end up doing to the country as a whole? I mean, in a "nation of begrudgers" there's no reason why the working man would go out and support someone who helped a big shot like Denis O'Brien to become the second richest man in Ireland. But that seems to be what's happening, people are led to vote for something that ends up actually working against their own interest.

Boggles the mind.

RTÉ Sport commissioning editor, Cliona O'Leary and assistant commissioning editor, Paula Fahy are currently inviting programme ideas for an 18 episode Sports series to compliment RTÉ Sport's GAA Championship coverage in 2011 that is to air on Wednesdays or Thursdays on RTÉ Two between 8:00pm and 8:30pm or 8:30 pm and 9:00pm.

The maximum budget available for the series of 18 programmes is €160,000 -together with RTÉ studio (incl EFPs), facilities/resources. In addition, RTÉ Sport will provide a programme set, opening animation and programme graphics for the series, subject to further discussion with the successful company.

The midweek series of 18 x 26 minute programmes should compliment RTÉ Sport's GAA Championship coverage in 2011 and should be ready to start broadcasting on the 18th or 19th of May, running until the 14th or 15th of September. A release from RTÉ Sport states that the group is also open to submissions for programmes 52' in duration.

The submitted programme ideas should include the following: A proposed title, a running order for the first programme along with a list of guests/packages for the series. details of the production team including previous experience and suggested presenter(s). Producers submit ideas into the RTÉ eCommissioning system at e-commissioning.rte.ie under the programme category "Sport - Tender - GAA Midweek Programming" by close of business on Monday 11th April 2011.

The RTÉ Sport website gives further advice to would be applicants, saying: "The series will be hosted from our Donnybrook studio but we would like to hear your ideas on how best we might use facilities at our regional studios. Thought should be given to introducing an interactive element that will enhance the editorial content of the programme. Evidence of an understanding and knowledge of the GAA at county and club level will be crucial to our final decision."

For further information contact RTÉ Sport's Lorraine McFadden by clicking here: lorraine.mcfadden@rte.ie.

'The Irish Examiner'


Drop  the GAA's deadwood, declares angry Lynch
By John Fogarty

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

FORMER GAA PRO Danny Lynch has warned the association is at risk of neglecting their core strengths by continuing to facilitate peripheral activities such as rounders, handball and scór.

Dingle native Lynch, who stepped down from his Croke Park position in 2009, is concerned the GAA is taking its eye "off the ball" by accommodating what he views as minority pursuits, which he insists are "ego trips for a small group of people".

"The GAA tries to be all things to all people and react to each and every pressure point from where it comes from, no matter how small the source of it is," said Lynch.

"The GAA would be better served if it concentrated on its core strengths, the two field games. The GAA shouldn't be embracing things like rounders or handball, ego trips for a small group of people.

"Likewise, we've seen the number of quangos established by the Government to deal with the Irish language.

"Yet the GAA seems to have this inherent responsibility to do the same.

"It's the same with the unemployment issue and rural isolation. The GAA is attempting to tackle that despite all the Government bodies whose duty it is to tackle it."

Scór contestants provide the vocals for the national anthem at several inter-county games outside Croke Park. However, Lynch is adamant the body holds too much sway in the Association.

"Scór, Irish music and the culture end of it is all really fine but it is the hobby of a few on the back of the GAA," he blasted.

"You have GAA presidents going around the country feeling pressurised playing a quasi-political view and having to bend to Scór people.

"It used to be part of the scenario in Congress for years that Scór did the entertainment but they went away from that."

Lynch also counters strongly against the GAA's need to explain itself for accepting sponsorship from alcohol companies such as Guinness.

"There's this incessant lobby against it from a minority pressure point and no other sporting organisation in the country feels they have to justify it other than the GAA. On a point of holding the moral high ground, the GAA shouldn't react to such criticism."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Are the peripheral divisions of the GAA really causing a 'distraction'? Are they  over-represented at Congress? I see no harm in keeping them under the GAA umbrella.  They're already semi-autonomous anyway, they have their own committees in place, it's not like county board meetings have to spend any time dealing with Scór-related matters. And they get to plug into the GAA's considerable infrastructure when needed. Sounds like a gale in a pail.

If you don't mind me asking, what's that sicko doing in your avatar?

The NCGAA announces the first ever National College Hurling Finals to be held at Chicago's Gaelic Park on Memorial Day weekend, 2011.

There will be two competitions running in parallel:

• A collegiate competition between UC Berkeley, Indiana and Purdue who are sending full teams. Round robin format, top two teams go to final. Any ties in the round robin will be settled by scoring differences.
• An East v West competition to be contested by select teams made up of players who may be from other colleges that cannot send full teams. Best-of-three format.
  

Schedule (subject to adjustments):

Saturday May 28th

10:00am UC Berkeley v. Indiana
11:30am East v. West Game 1
1:00pm Purdue v. UC Berkeley
2:30pm Indiana v. Purdue

Sunday May 29th

10:00am East v. West Game 2
12:00am National Collegiate Final
3:00pm East v. West Game 3 (if needed)


More...

[UUP adviser sacked over sex claims]

UUP adviser sacked over sex claims

A minister in Northern Ireland's outgoing power-sharing government has sacked a top adviser over alleged online sexual indiscretions.

Brian Crowe, 40, strenuously denied any wrongdoing, but was shown the door by his boss Danny Kennedy who claimed his position had become untenable.

The married former Church of Ireland minister in Co Tyrone was also suspended from a voluntary role in the church in Lisburn, Co Down.

With May 5 Assembly elections looming, the claims come as the UUP was already under political pressure following a senior resignation and after prominent members clashed over relations with Sinn Fein at Stormont.

The controversy around the ministerial adviser centres on newspaper transcripts of alleged conversations in an internet chatroom with an unidentified lobbyist. The reported exchanges include references to alleged sexual indiscretions.

An initial statement from the Department of Employment and Learning said the adviser had been suspended as a precautionary step after he made the department aware of "serious allegations" levelled against him.

And while it stated that he had strenuously denied the claims, his minister Danny Kennedy said: "The recent allegations about the special adviser Dr Crowe have in my opinion made his position untenable. It is for this reason I have decided to terminate his employment with immediate effect."

A spokesman for the Church of Ireland said: "The Church of Ireland is aware of the allegations made in the Belfast Telegraph concerning Dr Brian Crowe, who has undertaken non-stipendiary ministerial duties in a parish in Lisburn. These are matters which the Church takes very seriously. While the investigations are carried out and the outcome of this process is awaited Dr Crowe's permission to officiate has been withdrawn and he will not undertake parish duties."

The Ulster Unionist Party declined to comment on the claims. But in a statement issued prior to the adviser's dismissal, the Department of Employment and Learning said he had been suspended pending an investigation.

It added: "The allegations have been strenuously denied by the individual concerned. Pending the outcome of this investigation, the department will not be making any further comment. The department has also advised the individual that in accordance with their terms and conditions, they should not make any comment."

Hehe. It's always the anti-sex religious nutjobs that turn out to be either riding all round them or at least trying to, isn't it?

[Ireland's victory over England in the Cricket World Cup must rank as one of our greatest sporting achievements ever.]

Posting it here because he mentions the GAA:

Going batty for willow can make Ireland A driving force

Plant it and make most of growing global demands for cricket bats

By Joe Barry

Tuesday March 22 2011

Ireland's victory over England in the Cricket World Cup must rank as one of our greatest sporting achievements ever. It certainly cheered us all up and, judging by the letters to the newspapers, it dramatically lifted the spirits of Irishmen and women living and working abroad and those of us at home.

Cricket used to be widely enjoyed in rural Ireland and was played on summer evenings on village greens throughout the country, by people of all ages and from all walks of life. That was, of course, before the infamous GAA ban on anyone taking part in games that were perceived as being British.

Thank goodness that particular piece of bigotry has since been put to bed and we can now enjoy all sports regardless of their perceived origin.

When you consider our small population and the relatively tiny numbers of sportsmen and women we have to choose from compared to other countries such as France and England, our successes down the years at international level have been quite spectacular. We compete successfully against the world's best in rugby, along with many other sports, and now our cricketers are showing their mettle.

But is anyone here growing the willow required for the manufacture of cricket bats? We are soon going to be self-sufficient in ash for hurley making and, given our damp climate and rich soil, we can surely also grow willow for cricket bat manufacture.

I ran the idea past Neil Foulkes, who featured in this column recently, and he replied with the encouraging statistic that there are more than a billion people in India alone and 90pc of them are cricket mad. Add to that list Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia and other countries throughout the world where cricket is almost a national sport and the picture starts to become clear.

The potential for growing willow and making cricket bats must be huge and anyone with suitable land should at least examine the possibilities.

Up to now we have focused on growing willow for biomass but with a bit of horticultural expertise and lots of hands-on management, good willow for the cricket bat industry can undoubtedly be grown here.

Neil sent me some pictures of willow he had grown on his farm near Ballinamore. The growth rates are remarkable and it appears that it can reach a saleable size in less than 20 years.

If you log onto www.cricketbatwillow.com you will get information on how one firm in England supplies, grows and manufactures bats from Salix alba 'caerulea', or English cricket bat willow. This is considered to be the best variety by the cricket industry, the original was first discovered in Norfolk around 1700.

To properly establish willow, ground preparation, fencing and subsequent weeding and grass cutting or spraying are essential. During growth, side shoots must be rubbed off carefully as they appear and, like any tree, the object is to grow a clean, straight stem to produce the maximum usable material.

As with all silviculture, the first five years are the most important to ensure the trees are given the best start possible. When harvested, depending on the length of clean stem, numerous sections can then be used from the one tree. I wondered if ash could be used in cricket bats but perhaps there is some subtle difference in flexibility. It might be worth investigating but then if willow can reach usable size in such a short time, why wait for ash?

The most common areas used for planting willow in Britain are along watercourses and low-lying, often disused water meadows. Soil types naturally have a varied effect on the growth and quality of the trees and good-quality soil over clay, with a high water table, is ideal.

Pat Farrelly, of Farrelly Bros, who is well known in the willow biomass industry here, told me that his company has had enquiries from India regarding the possibility of sourcing Irish-grown willow for cricket bat manufacturing.

But be warned. It is not just a matter of getting bundles of willow stems and sticking them in the ground and waiting to reap your rewards. There are things such as watermark disease, honey fungus, goat moth and even woodworm to be countered alongside damage from rabbits, hares, sheep, cattle and man to protect against.

However, being ever an optimist I intend to give it a go. Wouldn't it be great if there was a grant available!

- Joe Barry

Hmm.  Okay, two things.

1 - I can think of a lot of Irish sporting achievements over the years, and while this one is notable, to say that it's "one of the the greatest ever" is debatable at best. In any case, why should beating England be considered more notable than beating any other country? This wouldn't be a bit of latent "bigotry" that you're so eager to denounce in others, would it?

2 - Let's start a cricket bat manufacturing industry in Ireland? To sell to India and Pakistan? Are you serious? You seriously think we can compete with people who can get by on a few dollars a day? Have you not heard what has happened to manufacturing in the last 20 years? These are the people who are making sliothars for export to Ireland  and to GAA clubs worldwide for next to nothing and can undercut O'Neill's by a huge margin.

In computing, multithreading is a great job, isn't it?

That other thread got me thinking...


Pole vaulting:


Ladies Gaelic football:


Notice any difference in the style of outfit?  One is comfortable, modern looking and form-fitting while the other seems designed to hide the fact that women have curves?

Makes me wonder who designs the cut of ladies football and camogie uniforms. How come girls get to look good in every sport in the world, unless they're playing Gaelic games in which case they have to look like inmates at a Magdalene laundry?

I'm not saying we should switch to beach volleyball styles, but FFS look at indoor volleyball, it looks good without being too revealing:



And don't get me started on tennis, they're putting us to shame!



Maybe O'Neill's should hire Paul Galvin. I'm sure he could add a bit of spice into ladies football and camogie gear.

What do you think northern nationalists should do?

A - Keep the pressure on for a united Ireland because Irish self determination is paramount and we in the south will support you all the way.
B - Suck it up, learn to live with unionists, and do what you have to do to reach out to them and make them feel better.

[Fightback must begin on the ground in rural areas]

Fightback must begin on the ground in rural areas
The GAA's place is more important than ever in these difficult times, writes Páidí ó Sé

By Paidi O Se
Sunday March 06 2011

TWO of the three great bastions of the old order in rural Ireland have collapsed -- the Catholic Church and the Fianna Fáil party. While the third, the GAA, is in robust good health, there is nonetheless great uncertainty about the future in many rural clubs.

By virtue of the single-mindedness, wisdom and vision of many of the people who ran the GAA over the years, in many ways the association has never been stronger.

But we are in danger of creating a rural wasteland because of bureaucratic red tape, emigration and economic decline, and all this is being exacerbated by the exodus of good players to the big clubs as revealed in Damian Lawlor's story in this newspaper today.

There is no doubt that the big clubs can offer substantial incentives to the most talented young players such as cannot be matched by small clubs in the country.

Some very big clubs have the backing of leading business people, many of whom are in the position of being able to set up jobs for young players who join their clubs.

Jobs are like gold dust in the midst of this terrible recession, and it is a temptation hard to resist for many young men who want to get on in life. As well as that, it is often the case that such businessmen have lots of spare property on their hands, with the result that the players they recruit can be fixed up with apartments or houses.

Rural Ireland is in danger of becoming a wasteland because of red tape. I am not arguing that farmers' sons and families should be allowed to build houses wherever they like, but the present situation is far too restrictive.

The planners -- who seem to know everything -- want to have an urbanised structure in society and they don't understand the appeal of a countryside dotted with modern dwellings.

We all know that the great curse of emigration has resumed and this is in danger of denuding GAA clubs of some of their best players in the remoter parts of the country.

We know that dance halls were one of the hubs of social life in rural Ireland and that they have now disappeared. The country pub is in danger of going the same way because of the restrictive drink-driving laws. It is all too depressing a vista and the prospect of a rural wasteland is something we must fight against with every fibre of our being.

It is no use having great football and hurling pitches and excellent facilities and dressing rooms if there are no players to use them. We can all do something, every single one of us. This weekend, I have been once again running my own Tayto Topaz Comórtas Peile Páidí ó Sé in West Kerry. Eight men's and eight women's teams

have been taking part, including three from London, and the finals are in Gallarus today, the ladies' at 12.30pm and the men's at 2.0pm.

In its own way, this Comórtas is a measure of what can be achieved with a bit of commitment, and I have got the most tremendous support in West Kerry for this venture. In this area, 85 self-catering houses are completely full for this weekend, as are the hotels in the region.

It is a very badly-needed boost for us all and if the same effort could be replicated in every village in Ireland, the economic landscape would be dramatically altered.

PS: I've never mentioned cricket before in this column, but I would like to congratulate the Irish cricket team on its fantastic win over England in the World Cup last Wednesday in India.

Kevin O'Brien's sensational innings and his scoring of the fastest century in the history of the World Cup now ranks with the greatest achievements in sport by any Irishman or any other nationality for that matter.

My congratulations to those great sportsmen.

- Paidi O Se

I'm going to disagree with you there, Paidi.  This isn't going to be a popular view, but rural depopulation and increased urbanisation is a sign of a developed country. It's inevitable. It took place in the UK at the time of the industrial revolution, it happened to a certain extent in the north of Ireland at the same time, but it passed a lot of Ireland by.  Ireland went straight to the IT/service industries which doesn't depend on urbanisation so much, but it still works better in towns and cities. 

People move from the country to city because the bigger the city, the more employment options are open to them. Farm work is so automated or mechanised now that you don't need an army of rural workers. That's the way it is everywhere, not just in Ireland.

I can see the appeal of living in a single house out in the country, I grew up in one, but is that kind of living sustainable?  What if everyone tried to live the same way?  You'd have bungalow blight all over the country far worse than it is now, and traffic on country roads would be diabolical because everyone lives so far away from everything that driving is the only feasible way to get around. Forget about the carbon footprint for a second, but look at what all that driving does to quality of life. The 'quiet country road' becomes a myth because of everyone trying to commute into town where the jobs are and young fellas ripping and tearing up and down the roads in their souped-up cars at other times.  Pollution is not to be sniffed at either. With everyone driving diesel cars to save money, the amount of particulates in the the air has everyone breathing in a cloud of soot. Not good for you.

Then there's the small matter of rural isolation.  People are sociable animals. This business of living in isolated locations is not natural. Even the GAA recognises this problem, sure they launched a program called the GAA Social Initiative to reach out to men living in the country who have little or no social contact.

Rural pubs are closing? Play me the world's smallest violin! There's enough alcohol consumed and the last thing we need is pubs in areas where drunk driving is the most popular means of getting home.

And what of the small matter of maintaining the roads and taking away the waste produced by country dwellers? Are you happy having a big chunk of your pay packet going towards the cost of that in your taxes?

In England, if you live in 'the country' it means you live in a village. You still have acres of fields to admire out the back, but when you need a pint of milk you can still walk to the store and get one instead of having to strap yourself into a two ton vehicle and drive there. 

I'm not saying people should be forced to live in cities, but the fact is that's the way people are increasingly choosing to live. It's a long term trend that becomes more noticeable during a recession when people are the most desperate for work and are more inclined to make the move. You can sit there like King Canute ordering the tide to go back out, but you're going to look a bit silly.

[Sits back and waits for the feather to fly]

Just curious, does anybody here do any editing on the GAA articles on wikipedia?  I've been doing it for a while. Wiki has become a wealth of info about Gaelic games, a lot of it more informative than www.gaa.ie.

I remember seeing a news report one time about some competition called the Waterford Crystal Cup.  I tried looking up the GAA's website to find out what this competition was and couldn't find anything, and then I realised there's a lot of competitions with names like that and it's very hard to figure out what they are since the press releases never explain it, it's like you're expected to know.  So I started a page called List of GAA competitions to explain what they all are and before long other people started adding to it and it's fairly complete now. Comes in handy now any time there's a report in the news and you didn't happen to know what the competition was. 

Amazing what you can do when you get enough people collaborating on stuff like that.

About 6000 Germans did a youtube or google search for Gaelic Football yesterday. Anybody over there know what might have prompted this?

The Irish Times - Wednesday, February 16, 2011

No need for annual panic over attendances

SEÁN MORAN

ON GAELIC GAMES: We should just appreciate the different strengths of Gaelic games rather than fret over inapposite comparisons with rival sports

IF YOU were the GAA's psychiatrist – apart from being wealthy from constant demand – you'd have identified the peaks of existential angst that take place around this time of the year as well as in June every four years. It's at these times that the association appears to feel most uncomfortably the heat of competition from other sports. The World Cup crisis of confidence generally outstrips the impact that live coverage of such spectacles as Iran-South Korea actually has on early championship attendances but, regular as clockwork, the quadrennial panic still erupts.

February concerns are a response to poor attendances when league matches go up the odd time against rugby internationals but at the weekend attendances fell only by an aggregate of around 5,000 on last year's opening schedule if you except Tipperary-Kilkenny, which was twice postponed 12 months ago.

It has to be remembered last Sunday's pairings weren't terribly attractive with away fans having to travel long distances rather than watch Ireland-France on free-to-air television. In the past decade rugby has become a competitive presence in the early spring. For instance last year's televised sports ratings featured four rugby internationals in the top 10 broadcasts whereas 10 years ago, the game struggled to get one entry.

Yet three of the top four broadcasts were GAA fixtures – and the hurling final the second most watched programme in Ireland in 2010 (behind The Late Late Toy Show) – underlining the undimmed attraction of the national games. More importantly those matches are played every year regardless of what happens elsewhere whereas mass audiences for the rival sports depend largely on the fortune of Irish teams in international competition. That's the upside; balancing that however is the simple reality that there's little the GAA can do to compete with the attraction of international sport.

Is there a country in the world as riveted by what other people think of them? Even before the opinions of others became quite so important to our future, there was an insatiable appetite for affirming views from abroad. Few international successes go by without the judgments of overseas observers being ventilated in the national media.

Consequently it's hardly a surprise that when local teams compete and do well at an elite international level, which has been rugby's experience in the past five years, there's a willing audience to cheer them on.

Less commented on is the fact the GAA's own structures, schedules and fixture calendars are as much an obstacle as competing events. Football and hurling are amateur games with deep traditions, which ensure intense levels of interest. Their nature also ensures they can't compete over seasons of comparable length to rival field sports.

Creating spectacle and making money from the season are primary concerns for professional sports whereas the GAA has to factor in any number of other considerations. Gaelic games won't move to a subscription-based television rights deal but supporters can view rugby's European Cup and soccer's English Premiership – the two biggest areas of interest for Irish viewers outside of internationals – only on satellite channels.

Therefore the games are streamlined to suit that presentation. Rugby switches seamlessly between its club fixtures and terrestrially accessible international windows, shifting the focus but always maintaining interest for six to eight months – depending on how the provinces do.

Key to this is player eligibility. You play for a province and if good enough you also play for a country and when you do, provincial fixtures go ahead without you. There is some friction between provinces and the national squad but that's the extent of the problem – two teams administered to inconvenience each other as little as possible.

This month, as the leagues struggle with vile weather and rugby internationals, there are players all over the place with significant competitions taking place in profusion: football league, hurling league, club championships, Sigerson Cup and Fitzgibbon Cup – all very important to the elite players taking part. It's the equivalent of a younger Brian O'Driscoll taking time out from Leinster and Ireland to play for Blackrock in the AIL and UCD in a colours match. And that's just senior. The time he was scoring three tries in Paris 11 years ago he'd have also been eligible for under-21 competitions.

Multi-eligibility restricts the availability of top players and makes a coherent, marketing strategy very difficult outside of the summer months and even then a format still heavily orientated towards knock-out is unpredictable and difficult to promote.

Without front-line players matches can lack authenticity even if the committed follower is always interested to see how the wider playing panel is shaping up. Dublin attempt to negotiate these challenges with the first of the Spring Series this weekend. The hope is the latent demand for sporting occasions can be awakened by a bit of floodlit hoopla. It's a spirited attempt but not without its risks.

Croke Park's previous big spring crowds (bar the replayed 1993 league final) have been once-off promotions against Ulster opposition. The full houses against Tyrone in 2007 and '09 were also specifically celebratory occasions (turning on the stadium floodlights and launching the 125th anniversary).

Cork and Tipp are All-Ireland champions but the former don't draw what you could categorise as die-hard support. Croke Park is too big to make advance ticket purchase essential so Dublin will be largely relying on a walk-up crowd but the team has done its best to set the scene and a decent crowd is likely for the first match in the series.

Disappointment with the crowd in floodlit Semple Stadium illuminated another emerging pattern – night-time matches are more popular in football than in hurling. Whenever hurling matches have to move outside of the traditional Sunday afternoon slot, there's a lack of enthusiasm. Fewer than 10,000 were in Thurles on Saturday and accepting it was desperate weather, that's still more than 50 per cent down on 2010's postponed fixture, which eventually took place on a Sunday afternoon.

Even the All-Ireland under-21 final last September, played as a triumphant coda to the week that saw Tipperary take home the Liam MacCarthy attracted a smaller-than-expected 21,000. Although the Cork hurlers pioneered floodlit league matches eight years ago, the initiative died off initially because opponents were unwilling to participate.

Noel McGrath, one of Tipperary's already garlanded younger generation, said at a press conference this week when talking about Saturday night lights in Croke Park: "You can't beat playing on a sunny afternoon in championship or league action."

Things would be great if the GAA season could be more neatly packaged for box-office appeal but, as things stand, that's just not possible. We should just appreciate the different strengths of Gaelic games rather than fret over inapposite comparisons. smoran@irishtimes.com

Hear hear. I get sick listening to obituaries being written for hurling year in year out when the game is as strong as ever. And it's a great point about looking for validation from outside and worrying about what other countries are thinking of us. Whether it's looking for a pat on the head for "our magnificent stadium" or glorying in the slightest glimpse of international limelight for a pitiful handful of Olympic medals, this inferiority complex is not just confined to the GAA and it's something we need to lose.

[The GAA needs to get past its suspicion of hype]

Something I've been saying for years.  His punctuation is terrible, but his point is bang on... 

The Irish Times - Monday, February 7, 2011

The GAA needs to get past its suspicion of hype

TOM HUMPHRIES

LOCKERROOM: We have a huge problem in the GAA. How to accommodate the existence of money around amateur games

THIS IS rugby country. Guinness says it is and Guinness is one of the few institutions left to us which has any credibility. What an ad. Fishermen. Farm folk. Cleaners. Supermarket employees. The very seed stock of the Irish rugby world, all staring proudly and defiantly at the camera, thinking hard about patriotism while wearing their bold green jerseys.

It's so ludicrous and overblown that it reminds me of Guinness' hurling ads in the mid 1990s. Not men but giants. Ludicrous. Overblown. Brilliant. What hype should be.

Makes me regret not rounding up and extraditing all those godbotherers and pioneers who moaned endlessly about a drinks company sponsoring the GAA. Makes me regret Guinness riding off on the zeitgeist and getting behind rugby.

We have a huge problem in the GAA. How to accommodate the existence of money around amateur games. How to promote those games so there is a sufficient inflow of money to secure the future of those games.

We just don't know what to do. We have men worrying their lives away in Croke Park about other men getting paid to coach our games in clubs and counties, while elsewhere in the same stadium we have players receiving sums of €1,000 and up from sponsors just to utter complete banalities at dreary little press conferences. They do this after photo opportunities which involve the players getting into their county jerseys and smiling vacantly at the camera as they join in the tricky task of holding a football. God help us.

Why is the Gael so allergic to hype?

Why is he so embarrassed by and afraid of it. Why is it beyond the powers of WikiLeaks to extract even team line-ups for Sunday games, let alone decent feature interviews.

Why has every GAA player who has been a bit different, a bit more individual (Jayo, Ciarán McDonald, Seán Óg, Paul Galvin, Donal Óg, Johnny Pilkington) been subject to suspicion and often hostility.

There's not one in that list who couldn't have been a brilliant selling point for the games they played. How can we have fellas such as Eddie Brennan and Michael Kavanagh walking about the place in almost complete anonymity when they have seven All-Ireland medals won on the field of play? Why has RTÉ got no GAA magazine on its TV schedule?

Look at Brian O'Driscoll. You can't but.

Every ad break now there he is bursting into a public toilet and asking lads if they are up for it, surprising innocents at the hand basin with his challenge to sample the glide over the old tug and pull. Nothing George Michael about it. Pure Drico. Keeps the brand up there. Keeps rugby out there.

The GAA has to decide how it is going to get through the next decade and how it is going to cope with the challenge from rugby.

In fairness, the GAA is good at this sort of thing and if it comes to the game late it will at least come with a coherent game plan.

In a competition between the GAA and the cockroach I'd bet my money on the GAA surviving further into a nuclear winter, but it's time to get moving. One suspects, though, that as the world crumbles around us the GAA has to do something boldly counterintuitive. To spend some money and make a bit of noise.

The four instalments of Dublin's Spring Series will be a fascinating study in the potential of the games. Somebody with a brain and a large set of carraigs has come up with the novel idea of making the National League fun. Making it an event. Double-headers and cramming good entertainment into the gap between the games. And keeping the costs down to keep the foot fall high.

It deserves to succeed for so many reasons.

For Vodafone, whose commercial, narrated by Seán Boylan, has been the best GAA promotion of the last five years. For Allianz, who have stuck with a competition which all too often has been treated with disdain by those playing and organising it.

For the Dublin County Board, who have put a whole lot on the line. For those parents who will never be able to bring their kids to an event in the Aviva.

For those Dublin fans who need to prove that they aren't a migratory species.

And for the GAA which needs to get past its suspicion of hype. The men who gathered in the billiard room in Hayes Hotel won't spin in their graves if the GAA goes out and hustles.

Personally, I love all that stuff. Did you know that in the early days of baseball massive Bull Durham (tobacco) signs were a feature of every ball park. So immense were they that they created a nice shaded area where relief pitchers would go to warm up. Which led to the creation of the term bullpen for the area in which pitchers warm up. Which kept the Bull Durham thing alive in the popular imagination right through till 1988 when Ron Shelton made a low-budget film called Bull Durham which made enough money to earn a breakthrough for the sport on the big screen.

There followed a whole slew of movies (Stealing Home, Field of Dreams, Major League, Mr Baseball, The Fan, Hardball, Fever Pitch, Perfect Game, Rookie of the Year, to name a small fraction) which for free re-enforced baseball's place in the American consciousness. (Where is the great movie or novel in Irish life which reflects how deeply ingrained our games are to our sense of ourselves?)

There is talk (exciting for me anyway) that Vodafone are looking at promotions to add to the sense of occasion in Croke Park through the Spring Series. Great stuff.

One of the joys of American sport is the hustle. People catapulting free T-shirts up into the stands. The One Million Dollar Supershot at basketball games. Best Seat in the House promotions where the winner and friend get to sit in large armchairs with serfs bringing free food all during the next game.

Minor league basketball fans were once invited to make a paper plane from the centerpages of their game programme (each one had its unique serial number) and to throw the airplane down in the hope of getting it through the sun roof of a car. The winner got to keep the car. I've seen Madison Square Garden or United Centre go crazy in the final quarter of a dull, one-sided game because everybody is going to get a free slice of pizza if the home side wins by 20 points or more.

In the years which we call BC (Before Cowell), American sports were holding sportscaster contests to find the new Marty Morrissey. Imagine contestants commentating on the mini league half-time games and advancing by means of popular acclaim to commentate against winners from other counties. It could actually be, ehm, fun.

From Barnum to Tex Rickard to Ali and beyond, pro sport has always sought to be fun, always looked to create a sense of the mythical, always hustled to get the punter through the turnstile, the kid into little leagues. Just because the GAA is an amateur body is no excuse for po-faced abstinence, no reason not to take the public imagination by the collar.

The next few weeks are a step in the right direction. Rugby has raised the bar.

The GAA has to find its confidence, get down to the fairground and start barking.

2010/2011 Northern California College Hurling Championship starts on Saturday. Stanford University v UC Davis at 1pm, Páirc na nGael, Treasure Island.

This is the third year of this championship, Stanford and UC Berkeley (Cal) have won the Gary Duffin Cup once each.  Saturday's game will be the first competitive outing for the UC Davis team that was just founded last year.