Meath aren’t but there are thirty other counties one of which is Kerry with a very good record at underage and that is is still coming through. I don’t know why you pick Meath out...
Splitting etc would be a massive shift. You talk like it is a matter of course. It isn’t.
Moving from the super eights to proper knockout would help too.
How the thing pans out post gavin a big factor too.
I think it’s not a matter of if Dublin is going to be split but more a question of when this will happen. It isn’t just a question of All Irelands won but of the size of the county’s population. toio
Right now, the Dublin region has approximately one third of the population of the republic and, just as importantly, roughly 40% of the national resources. (Recent govt. estimates, not mine.)
By 2040, the population will have increased to 40% of the state and the share of the resources or the country’s wealth will have risen to 50% of the total.
I think those figures understated. Dublin is outstriping the rest of the country by a greater rate than govt. Figures indicate. That’s not got anything directly to do with Dublin GAA, you can put it down to social, political and economic factors but it does have a knock on effect on the way the GAA interacts with the general population.
Every county has a county board, regardless of the county’s population. So it will have just one senior intercounty team, one senior club championship etc. Dublin have a fairly small number of very big clubs but only a single premier team. All counties have the same setup but the difference between underage and senior clubs isn’t as great.
Na Fianna club claims to have 2,000 kids involved at weekends but how many of them will ever get to play for the club at senior level? If other counties had the same dropout rate,the GAA would be banjaxed long before now. The number of clubs in Dublin is not increasing and the price of land means the clubs in existence can’t afford to acquire new land so forget the ballyhoo about increasing numbers of kids joining GAA clubs, Dublin is losing its market share of active membership.
Dunno the exact figure but it was stated on another thread on this board that Dublin has less than 100 registered clubs. According to the county website, Cavan has 41 clubs.
Now, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that Dublin has 18 times the population of Cavan but less than three times the number of Gaelic clubs.
Like every other sport, THe GAA has to fight for its market share of active members and to increase it if possible. Cavan has a far higher percentage of the population involved in its affairs than Dublin has and it hasn’t won an All Ireland since 1952.
Awards at the highest level doesn’t always lead to higher participation numbers down the line and Dublin is a prime example of this. That is one reason why Dublin needs every cent it gets from HQ or anywhere else to keep its crazy club structure operating.
Sooner or later, reality bites or the GAA is going to go tits up. Right now, I reckon it’s an each way bet.