I have major concerns about one-cap-fits-all funding for counties
IDON’T think people realise what’s involved to get hurling off the ground. Martin Fogarty was at the coalface, working as the GAA’s National Hurling Development Manager, until his five-year term ended in 2021 and the position was discontinued. He is on record as saying how difficult it is.
Since the controversial proposal to deny League participation from 2025 to counties with less than five clubs, there has been plenty of talk about money and funding and equipment and building up the base at club level, particularly in weaker counties where the game has always struggled to take hold.
For me, fundamentally, whether it’s club or county, it’s really all about people. That’s what it boils down to. Having the right people in position to do whatever the job is.
In Offaly, we have some clubs that play football but not hurling and vice versa. As a county though, as a set-up, we are completely dual, from adult down to underage.
I would have serious concerns about how counties are funded nationally, the one-cap-fits-all approach, when that is clearly not the case. You have one county – Kilkenny – who don’t play football at all at senior intercounty level. Don’t enter a team into the National League, Leinster championship or All-Ireland. You also have strong football counties that don’t pay much heed to hurling.
In Offaly, our turnover for 2023 was of the order of €2.75million. We spent €1.5million on county teams and coaching and games, including underage. In 2019, the figure Offaly spent was roughly half of that.
To look after players properly in terms of proper gear, mileage, S&C, nutrition et cetera, we need more financial support. Every county gets the same regardless of what you’re spending, which doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re going to be a dual county like us and properly promote both codes, then I think that should be recognised with more financial support.
Those counties are trying to do their best for both games – that needs to be rewarded.
Population wise, we’re a small county. We still have that ambition to win senior All-Irelands in both codes. But to do that, we need more support. It would be easier if we said: ‘We’ll focus on one. We’ll just play football or hurling.’
If you’re driving dual development squads and promoting both, then that should be recognised in terms of financial support.
If a county isn’t doing that, paying token lip service, they shouldn’t get the same. If you want to change the culture, it’s really about the people on the ground. You need people with a love of the game and the knowledge to instil that love in the next generation.
When you start, you’ll have kids with the wrong hand on top of the hurley, or with the toe facing the wrong way when they try to pick up the ball. If you have a teacher with a love of the game, who quietly goes about coaching the basics, players will slowly get there.
But it’s still hard. Hurling is not like Gaelic football, basketball or soccer where you throw in the ball and off you go. I don’t want to sound like a sporting snob but if you take golf, which is a very technical sport, most hurlers can pick up a golf club and hit the ball a mile. The hand-eye coordination required for hurling is invaluable. Time and patience is needed.
When you see hurling going well in certain places or pockets, it often comes down to a teacher in a school. The answer is not to stop counties with less than five clubs from participating in the National League from 2025. That controversial proposal for Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Longford and Louth was little more than a cost-cutting exercise. Thankfully, it has been buried.
A club I went to visit a couple of times in Louth is St Fechin’s. A friend of mine from school, Cathal Ryan, who played minor hurling for Offaly, he moved up there. He was involved as they won four or five underage titles in a row and then a couple of senior. When they won a first club championship in 2015, I was invited up to present the medals.
When the GAA launched their National Strategic Plan in 2022, it was launched in St Fechin’s. In light of the proposal to remove Louth from National Hurling League competition, I thought that was ironic. And that plan was all about the six GAA sports cohabiting. So you have a high-powered committee who launch a Strategic Plan in St Fechin’s and then you talk about a year or two on and we’re not going to have hurling at all, bar a few months of championship?
In Louth, they don’t think they’re going to win the All-Ireland – that’s not the point. But they too want to represent their county with pride, compete at their own level.
So it shows you how hard it is. That words aren’t enough. A Games Promotion Officer can go in and do a bit but if you don’t have people on the ground that can teach the basics, then it’s always going to be a struggle.
Growing up in Offaly, I remember the guys who were there in the background, the likes of Tommy Fogarty, Jackie Ryland, Harry Gunning. Whose love of the game meant the hurl was with us morning noon and night. Seven in our club went on to win minor All-Irelands in 1986 when Offaly won for the first time.
The same in Durrow, where I’m living now. There was no massive tradition of producing senior players. Jim Troy came to live there, Pat Cleary and Andy Bourke as well. Between my lad, the two Ravenhills beside us, the two Bourkes, Mark Troy and Ciaran Burke – there are seven senior hurlers in with Offaly. All living within half a mile of each other.
So it’s about culture. In a club, a parish, a town. It’s amazing how quickly it can change. It’s all about people. Getting the right people into clubs, into schools.
When I was chair of Ballinamere Durrow juvenile section, I went to Antrim. I was telling them about our games programme that ran from April til September. The other months players went off playing soccer, rugby, whatever.
They told me they basically closed down for just two weeks at Christmas. They ate me for not putting on enough games. We almost have a games programme now in Offaly that goes the year around.
They were challenging me about being a leader for the GAA, not for other sports as well.
It does need funding, coaches on the ground, and I’ve pointed out how dual counties need to be better rewarded for promoting both codes.
But fundamentally, it boils down to people. Even one person can make such a difference in a parish.