A shadow across the summer
Many are unwilling to draw a line under this and let Limerick carry on with their bid for sporting immortality
AND so, we can all move on; there is history to be made. It didn’t take long for the gaze of social media’s outrage brigade to shift elsewhere. They had barely digested the news that Kyle Hayes had received a fully suspended sentence for two counts of violent disorder before everyone’s attention was diverted by what was occurring outside Leinster House.
But some won’t move on. This will be a shadow across Limerick’s summer as this extraordinary team look to go where no hurling side has gone before. Their march towards what many believe will be a place in the record books begins in Ennis on April 21 and one imagines there will be plenty of noise directed at the Treaty’s talented wingback from the stands of Cusack Park that afternoon.
And that noise is likely to follow the player, and the team, all the way to Croke Park in July if, as we all expect, Limerick get there. That’s the nature of tribalism and the nature of sport. Hayes is one of the most gifted players on what may be the greatest hurling team in history. Opponents, and opposition supporters, will look for any edge.
There is no doubt that Limerick made the decision to play Hayes against Dublin in the Allianz League, as a way of trying to quell the fury. John Kiely’s assertion that he had no hesitation in playing one of his best players was indicative of a manager who is determined to stand by his man, but after being so impressive in the manner that he has guided his team through their period of dominance, it felt like a serious misstep to play someone who was awaiting sentencing for a criminal conviction.
In suspending the sentence yesterday, Judge Dermot Sheehan told the court that a custodial sentence would be of ‘no benefit to society’ and that Hayes had appeared to improve himself in the meantime. However, as the judge also pointed out, Hayes had not pleaded guilty to any of the charges, so mitigating factors were limited.
In the years since the incident occurred, Hayes has become one of the most recognisable faces on this Limerick team. He has scored wonder goals, won All Star awards in both the halfback and half-forward lines and is just one of the many marvels on a side that it can be a joy to behold.
And that is why this is unlikely to do much to derail Limerick’s five-in-a-row bid. If anything, it might galvanise Kiely and his players even more, make them more determined to have a page of GAA history all to themselves.
However, we shouldn’t forget that there was a victim in all of this, someone who hasn’t been able to enjoy the greatness of this Limerick team. Cillian McCarthy said yesterday that he is glad the chapter is closed, as it had hung over him for four years. He gets to move on now and that is what others should do.
Not that they will. You didn’t have to trawl too far on social media yesterday for some to posit that Hayes’ talent allowed him to escape jail-time. However, he had no previous convictions and his youth were mitigating factors, although the lack of remorse was strangely overlooked. But his fame, and his gifts on a hurling field, is also what brought this case into the spotlight. And that again throws up the awkward question about whether our sporting stars should be role models, should they be held up as moral exemplars because they possess a rare ability to do extraordinary things on a field or in an arena? While we can scoff or tut-tut when a professional footballer in the Premier League falls short of the high moral standard expected of our role models, it hits home that little bit more if it happens in Gaelic Games because of the enhanced sense of kinship we have with our heroes. It may occur less often but there is still the idea that we could run into the player on the street a couple of days after cheering them on in Croke Park.
We feel that we know GAA players, much more than professional athletes, because they are part of us. But we can’t know what drove them to their level of greatness, why they worked so hard on their talent to develop into one of the outstanding players of their generation.
‘Do you know who the f**k I am?’ Hayes is alleged to have said to the victim on that night in October 2019. Maybe, the lesson from this is that none of us truly know who our sporting heroes are, no matter how much we want to believe that we do on those summer days when the light is bright, the sun is shining and a team like Limerick remind us how beautiful sport can be.
“We shouldn’t forget there is a victim in this”