GAA in North fears isolation will be real cost of Brexit
THERE are four cross-border contests in the final round of the Allianz National Football League this afternoon. Tipperary and Longford footballers won’t have to go through a security checkpoint on their way north, but nobody knows what the future will hold. Brexit is going to impact every part of Irish society, including the GAA. If Croke Park have remained somewhat quiet on what they believe the implications will be for Gaelic games, now that the UK Government has triggered Article 50, some within the association have risen above the parapet.
Last Tuesday evening, in Tyrone’s impressive complex at Garvaghey, former GAA president Peter Quinn spelt out in stark terms the implications which Britain’s departure from the European Union will have for the association.
Quinn reckoned that those who believed there wouldn’t be a hard border ‘were living in cloud-cuckoo land.’ For anyone of a certain age, the spectre of a hard border evokes memories of travelling to Ulster Championship games in the 1970s and 1980s in Clones, when crisscrossing the border, could mean supporters being held up for hours at security checkpoints.
Nobody is expecting a return to those dark days, but the idea of border crossings will certainly have an impact on the Ulster Championship, although for the minute, that is all speculation as nobody knows what form the border will take.
However, the economic impact of Brexit is already being felt by GAA clubs and counties in the North.
It was particularly pertinent that the talk was taking place at Garvaghey, as Club Tyrone’s Mark Conway pointed out, the loan that was taken out from Croke Park to build the centre of excellence, became a lot more expensive than it had been, simply because of the collapse of sterling following the UK referendum last June.
‘We built Garvaghey for about £7 million, but all our borrowings was through Croke Park, which was through euro obviously,’ Conway said.
‘We still have about €1m to pay on it, but because of the devaluation of the sterling, that automatically became an extra €300,000 overnight.’
The devaluation of sterling means that the cost of centrallyfunded coaches has already increased by 15 per cent while Conway feels that the devaluation of sterling, and the inflationary effects of that, may be one of the greatest challenges facing the GAA in the North as a result of Brexit.
‘Peter Quinn took the economist’s view with history showing us that whenever a currency is devalued, every time one of the effects is a rise in inflation. And what are the GAA in the North going to have to do to combat that inflation? Well, admission prices will be increased because everything else will be getting more expensive – light and heating for clubs, the price of gear,’ added Conway.
‘The impact of Brexit won’t be confined to just being held up at border checkpoints on the way to an Ulster Championship match. They are much wider implications. Admission prices for matches will go up. Our farming community and agri-feed industry, which is big in the North and a big part of our GAA community, will be adversely affected and that will have a knock-on effect for clubs, who will find it more difficult to find sponsors.’
He also pointed out that the redevelopment of Casement Park, which is key to the 2023 Rugby World Cup bid, is dependent on between £60-£70 million of British government money and there’s a possibility of that project now having to be scaled back because of Brexit.
All of these issues are potential headaches for the GAA but there’s a frustration in the North that Croke Park have remained quiet on its implications. The association has been part of the all-Island Civic Dialogue on Brexit in Dublin Castle, but planning is difficult as we are still in a period of uncertainty over what the UK’s exit from the EU actually means.
Aside from the economic impact, the fear in the North is that Brexit will create a sense of isolation for the GAA in the North, similar to what they felt in the 1970s and ’80s, during the worst years of the Troubles.
‘The GAA was an anchor for this community during the dark times of the conflict, and that hasn’t been forgotten and it is why its values remain so important,’ Conway said.
As they enter another period of uncertainty, perhaps the GAA will once again act as an anchor for people in the North.