Was Sean Kelly in Hayes Hotel in 1884 when the GAA was founded?

[Tatler Jack]

From todays Examiner; Seems even though he has left office he still craves publicity and his love affair with himsef and the media contnues.


Lynch rejects Kelly credit claims

By Jim O'Sullivan
THE GAA has reacted strongly to comments from Sean Kelly on a number of current issues expressed in an interview earlier in the week, with PRO Danny Lynch saying yesterday that he "shouldn't be taking credit" for the negotiation of the government grants scheme.


And in relation to the International Rules Series, which is expected to resume later this year, he contradicted the former President's view that the series should never have been abandoned following the violence in the second test in Croke Park in October 2006.

Describing comments attributed to Mr Kelly about the grants scheme as 'rather surprising and disingenuous', he said he could also confirm that he (Kelly) had not spoken to either Director-General Paraic Duffy or current President Nickey Brennan and advised them how the grants should be paid to the players.

Outlining the chronological order of how the grants situation evolved, Mr Lynch pointed out that then President Sean McCague issued a statement in response to the tax break initiative for professional sports people introduced by Charlie McCreevy (in 2002) when he was Minister for Finance.

"In it, Sean McCague bemoaned the fact that professional players were getting special breaks from the Government in a financial context and that GAA players who made a major contribution were not," he said.

"That is where all this started. During Sean Kelly's term of office, it progressed nowhere. The increase in mileage which Sean Kelly refers to as happening in his term was a part of a package of proposals developed in Sean McCague's time, when he appointed a committee under the chairmanship of the late Gerry Brady, (Dublin's Central Council delegate) to examine player welfare issues. It just happened fortuitously that Sean Kelly was there at his first Central Council meeting, when this proposal could be put to Central Council and approved. But it happened on Sean McCague's watch and I think that Mr Kelly shouldn't be taking credit for it.

"In Sean Kelly's own presidency, there was much toing and froing as regards the grants issue or the players awards issue, but nothing materialised. In fact it wasn't until Nickey Brennan set up a committee which included people like Senator Joe O'Toole, the former INTO general secretary and Con Hogan the former Tipperary County Chairman and myself to progress matters. It is they who discussed it over a two-year period — and it took two years — with the Government and with the GPA and with the GAA's own constituency, where there have been three Central Council meetings to bring it to the stage where it was announced this week.

"I found Sean Kelly getting involved at this point in time and appearing to want to take credit indirectly for a potential satisfactory solution to this — remember it has to be sanctioned by Congress — to be amazing.

"He also refers to the International Rules in the statements attributed to him — that in his view it should never have been suspended and (we) should have gone back to the status quo immediately. I'd like to ask him, is he seriously suggesting that the violence that occurred here last October was acceptable to him, to the GAA constituency or the broader public?

"And is he seriously suggesting that the concessions that the Australians made, most notably that the suspension system will now apply and transfer into their own premiership, would have been conceded? Players, everybody, stated that the only way the series would be resumed would be if players were protected and if new measures were put in place to ensure that there would be discipline in the future.

"That wouldn't have happened if the series had immediately resumed.

"Sean Kelly, I suppose, is maybe out of the loop a bit in the sense that he hasn't been President of the GAA for up to two years and has his own brief in terms of the Irish Sports Council and the Irish Sports Institute.

"I just felt that there has been a considerable amount of innuendo and suggestion on various issues and that I should put the record straight.''

[heineken_on_tap]

Love the title of this thread Tatler . Kelly should sit back now and stay out of the limelight for a while

[magpie seanie]

Another example. What a tool this man is.

[Zapatista]

Yes he was. I was chat'n him.

[orangeman]

He was there surely - he was sitting besdie me ! 

[johnpower]

Love the title of this thread Tatler . Kelly should sit back now and stay out of the limelight for a while

I agree he was rightlty critical of the infuence of other former presidents at the start of his presidencey and should now stay out of it .It is Nicky Brennans job not his

[Main Street]

Maybe Sean Kelly and Chuck Norris are the one and the same.

[Pangurban]

The Man was ,is,and always will be a self serving publicity seeker

[orangeman]

The Man was ,is,and always will be a self serving publicity seeker

Never !!! 

[ONeill]

He was good to Tyrone.

[paddypastit]

While Kelly has made his own bed, I would take a very dim view of a paid official of the GAA engagaing in such a direct personal attack on any volunteer, irrespective of their views. 

[orangeman]

Good to Tyrone ? How so ?

[ONeill]

Sure didn't he hand us Sam twice.

[orangeman]

     Very true !

[Rufus T Firefly]

Danny Lynch said

In Sean Kelly's own presidency, there was much toing and froing as regards the grants issue or the players awards issue, but nothing materialised.

I would suggest this all comes down to what exactly your interpretation of 'toing and froing' is. The critics of Kelly, both here and elswhere, would see his presidency as producing nothing concrete - he may argue that it wouldn't have happened without the 'toing and froing' referred to above.

The best analogy I can think of is the peace process up here. A lot of the kudos for our current state of peace will go to Sinn Fein and the DUP for coming to agreement and setting up the current executive, i.e. they carried it over the finish line. We would not have been here though but for the likes of John Hume, and indeed David Trimble, and their names tend to be forgotten in the current success that is devolved government.

Similarly with Kelly - I can't believe that there was not significant movement during his watch - call it 'toing and froing', if you will, that allowed the current situation to develop.

I would say that the comments from above do point to an underlying antipathy towards Kelly.

The comments here reflect the same, whilst consistently remaining hostile, vindictive and vitriolic. The more things change, the more they remain the same!