There was a television series in the 1970s about two brothers who took different paths in life. It was called Rich Man, Poor Man. Life did not work out well for one of the brothers.
I was reminded of the show as I read through two county secretary reports last week – John Costello’s in Dublin and Declan Bohan’s in Leitrim. One is dealing with problems in a county with a population of well over a million and the other with just 32,000. The main issue in Dublin is land, or more specifically, the lack of it, and in Letrim it’s a lack of people, especially the young.
In Leitrim the number of boys in any age group averages 225, in Dublin very many of the clubs would have way more than that. And in Leitrim it is not evenly distributed with nearly 20pc attached to one club. It spells big problems for the majority of clubs, they won’t be able to have underage teams in many places and the ability to field even one adult team in many clubs will be questionable.
Part of the problem here is a shortage of people and the other is that they are naturally enough migrating to urban centres like Carrick-on-Shannon. The rural areas and rural clubs are in decline, hopefully it is not terminal even if the wonderful people who work in these clubs must feel that they are now rolling the boulder up the hill on an annual basis .
The days of the big families have gone. The days of a few families providing most of a team are long over and are not coming back so there is a need for more rural development.
The importance of big families was brought home to me even more last week with the passing of Martin Quinn, a legendary figure in Meath football. He and his brothers Jack and Gerry played for Meath and won All-Ireland medals in 1967. Along with another brother Jimmy they were the backbone of the Kilbride team who won five Meath senior championships in the 1960s and early ’70s. Four or five families provided most of the team and when they went Kilbride slipped down to junior level. A similar pattern is evident in many parts of the country.
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If rural clubs in many places are to be saved there needs to be a reversal of current and future planning policy. The principles of having people living in urban areas may be sound in that it is easier for local authorities to provide services yet future policy which emanates from Europe is going to be even more restrictive. The Green Party may be blamed for some of it but this is not a case where one size fits all.
There is unique character to living in rural areas and there is a need for a sustainable policy for people not just houses. Every parish should have a village type, one where there is enough young people encouraged to live there which protects the local school, shop, pub and football and hurling club. Otherwise everyone is herded into towns where schools are big factories and there is not the same type of community spirit or pride in the local area. And people don’t even know most of their neighbours.
Meanwhile places like rural Leitrim will be carbon sinks with trees, wind turbines and solar panels with old people living in the woods. No clubs either as planning laws are all against one-off housing so we can merely use these places to meet our greenhouse targets.
Now I’m not some sort of objector to any sort of initiative to save the planet. A cleaner more environmentally friendly country with recycling as a core policy is healthier for everyone and economically more sustainable too but people, parishes and a functioning society has to be at the core. The two are not mutually incompatible.
This problem is not one just for western counties. The same issues arise in North Meath. Rural parishes with very few children has become the norm because of the difficulties in getting planning permission. We should have some Irish model of the Jewish kibbutz where people can live in rural communities and work together.
In Dublin the problem is that there are too many young people for the available resources, the most scarce of which is land. Now as land is harder to move than people then the obvious thing is to bring the Dubs to Leitrim and solve a lot of problems. This has worked with Harry Bohan in Clare and has been taking place in Leitrim too. Moving a hundred thousand though might take a new Land Commission in reverse.
Leitrim GAA secretary Declan Bohan. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Now of course there was plenty of land available in Dublin but after the great crash NAMA ignored one of its founding principles and decided to sell off the best of land to foreign vulture funds rather than make it available to the GAA and other sporting organisations at a discount. It was an historic opportunity lost, and it showed a complete lack of vision. Not surprising really. Nobody could get a job near the top of NAMA if they had any property issues at the time which was going to cause financial grief.
They must have had to work hard to get these people as nearly everyone of calibre had a bit of skin in the property game. Those left would not be the type to build skyscrapers in New York. So many with new-found power and often petty vindictiveness lined the pockets of foreigners when the GAA in Dublin could have been set up for life. It will take a thousand years to get our own assets back while NAMA will parrot their operation as a success.
Meanwhile the contrast with Dublin and Leitrim is further reflected in the push for change in the championship system. There is nothing in the present model for Leitrim in things as things stand. They made that clear at Congress. Dublin sat on their hands. Now a new committee has been tasked to try and square the circle. There was a collective groan of dismay from many when this new group was announced as it is stuffed full of those who were against the proposal for radical change at Congress.
Dublin GAA CEO John Costello. Photo: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Yet they must be very careful if they try to retain the provincial system as the central arm. There could be revolt at that prospect. The dawn chorus for change was also laid out by Chrissy McKaigue from Derry last week. The players know the game is up, even in Ulster where the championship is worthy of the name. This could end up with the United Nations or the European Court of Justice. Torture is illegal unless administered by the GAA on their own.
Hopefully the proposals for change will mean this time that all the rich men will support the poor. It did not happen the last time when the votes were counted. There was no happy ending in Rich Man, Poor Man either. Yet the GAA should be able to do better and help save their own. A new year of hope looms.
