GAA reprieve seems likely

CYNICISM probably isn’t the most attractive quality a person could have. It’s a somewhat bleak way of looking at the world. Always looking for what kind of angle this actor or that actor might have in a given situation. It’s better to take people at face value as and when you can until proven otherwise. That’s not being naive, it’s just trying to live as a decent person seeing the good in people. When it comes to politics though a healthy dose of cynicism is probably for the best.

Like a lot of people we were left disheartened and disappointed by the news last week that the inter-county GAA was no longer designated as an elite sport, making it unlikely that we’d see a ball kicked or pucked before the May Bank

Holiday weekend. The cynic in us considered that the Government was displaying an eaten bread attitude to the GAA. The coalition needed the Championships to get over the hump in the lead up to Christmas, mollifying the masses, and now that it’s no longer as politically advantageous they’ve proven fair weather friends to the Association. Maybe that’s an overly harsh way of looking at it. Then again when we read the thoughts of independent TD and Louth GAA Chairman Peter Fitzpatrick at the weekend suggesting that the GAA’s elite status would likely be restored as soon as next week, after the initial relief, a certain amount of cynicism took hold. Could the Government’s approach to the GAA’s status be analogous to the leaking that goes on in the lead up to the Budget? Such that when the Budget is finally announced people think to themselves, ‘that wasn’t too bad at all now was it?’. So the question we’re asking is this: has the Government withdrawn the elite status so as to make a great virtue of restoring it later on? It wouldn’t at all surprise us.