Don't forget the good in the GAA

Diarmuid O'Flynn

Last week, for the first time in my life, I was asked to be the keynote speaker at a big event. No problem says I, in my usual keen ignorance, and so it was that on Saturday evening, at the luxury Maritime Hotel in Bantry, I stepped up the lectern in front of 300 people at the Tim Buckley Financial Carbery Club awards night.

I was nervous. In these pages I can hide behind the pen, take my time, rewrite if necessary, but up on a stage it’s all a bit different. Still, as I walked up the steps after a flattering intro from MC Paudie Palmer I was sure enough of myself, had a fair idea what I was going to say, a few little topical jokes thrown in to get the laughs, a definite end.

You know that expression ‘he froze on the night’? I didn’t. I melted. As I looked out into the sea of faces, every club in Carbery represented, what’s left of my brain was gripped by a sense of growing panic. Everyone was hushed, polite, respectful, but most of all, I thought, expectant. Unnerved by the silence, I felt they were waiting for me to say something profound, and all I had prepared were a few simple words of praise.

I started to stumble; the few notes I had written in my spidery scrawl were too small to read, the jokes were forgotten, the line of thought lost. Eventually, shirt now sweat-stuck to my back, my patter petered out and meekly, I sidled from the stage.

We already had the individual awards, Mark Foley (remember Munster final 1990, 2-7 from play against Tipperary?) was presented with the Hall of Fame award, humbly accepting: “I’d like to correct a few points – I didn’t ‘retire’ from the Cork team in 1994, I just wasn’t picked anymore!”. Mayoman Ned Cleary got the Distinguished Services to the GAA award for a lifetime of work in Castlehaven. Now it was time for the team awards.

Club of the Year for 2012 was Goleen, little Goleen out in the extreme tip of west Cork, and to accept the award on their behalf, club chairman Con O’Driscoll stepped forward. And brought the house down. He was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Everything I should have said, Con said. He spoke with humour, sincerity and eloquence. He covered every base, how Goleen had been up on that stage for the first time only a year previously, being honoured for having won their first championship game – that’s right, one game — at adult level for five years. Last year, 2011, and for the first time since 1959, they had won the Carbery Junior B football championship – it was as though they had won the All-Ireland, and in a way, they had.

I don’t know how long Con went on, I do know he could have gone on for as long as he liked – he had us all spellbound. As he spoke of the parish, of its people, of the place of the GAA in that community, lovingly and movingly, he spoke for us all, he spoke to us all, struck a chord. He left the stage to a rousing ovation and a few minutes later, when the young representative of the Bandon intermediate hurlers and U21 footballers who jointly had won team of the year stepped forward, he finished his speech with a reference to Con — “that man from Goleen who spoke a few minutes ago spoke for us all”.

And I couldn’t help thinking; for the past few weeks the sports pages of our newspapers, various radio and TV shows, have all echoed to the outcry over the loutish behaviour of a few at a football game in Portlaoise, the GAA with another black eye. Yet all the time in that same GAA, day after day and week after week, great things are happening on the quiet.

People like Con O’Driscoll and all those in little Goleen lifting the club to success, true stars like Mark Foley giving back to their own, new arrivals like Ned Cleary in Castlehaven immediately getting involved in their new community – all over this country, all over the world wherever the Irish are gathered, this is happening.

On that same Saturday that I stood to mumble in Bantry, we had a ‘Scrap Saturday’ in my own club, Ballyhea; it was our second weekend of it (and we’re going again this Saturday, for anyone with a few bits n’ pieces!), more than 20 people involved all day, local farmers with tractor-and-trailer giving up precious time to help us out in the collection process. There’s not a word about it, anywhere.

I failed miserably last Saturday evening in lovely Bantry as a keynote speaker; perhaps here, in this lonely spot, I can make amends. Hail to the GAA, hail to all those like Tim Buckley who honour its heroes, hail especially to all those like the men and women of Carbery, down at the grassroots.

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/h29xhkTS7x0/post.aspx

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