Court of public outrage doesn’t get to decide on Hayes’ punishment

OUT there in X Land, formerly known as the sewer of societal discourse, rage, as ever, was the only currency of value this week. A special mention goes to the alleged Limerick author who, in his post, managed to marry embarrassment to his outrage when announcing he would be ashamed if Kyle Hayes togs out for the county hurlers this summer, while signposting that John Kiely’s drive-for-five would not have him along on the journey for company if it comes to pass.

As indeed it will.

That Hayes will play for Limerick this summer was never in doubt from the moment he was selected to start in last month’s Allianz Hurling League fixture against Dublin, little over two months after the five-time All-Ireland winner was convicted by a jury of two counts of violent disorder inside and outside a nightclub in the autumn of 2019, which left his victim Cillian McCarthy with significant facial injuries.

Judge Dermot Sheehan ruled, while handing out a two-year suspended sentence on Wednesday, that there would be no ‘benefit to society’ to issue a custodial sentence, removing the final obstacle to Hayes’ participation in this year’s championship. As ever, the judge’s words were not the last ones, but they are the only ones that truly matter.

Hayes will bear the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life with a blemish on his character, one now validated by a conviction on his record.

There are those who believe that is not enough, who summoned their court of outrage and came to the quick and convenient judgment that Hayes playing in this year’s Championship would be a stain on the GAA, Limerick and the game.

That call was John Kiely’s to make and he made that decision quite some time ago, long before he entered court to act as Hayes’ character witness.

Why he would take this view may be down to loyalty, to a belief that Hayes is a more mature man than the 19-year-old back in 2019 or maybe simply because he believes him to be an indispensable presence in a team of greats.

His reasons are his reasons but what fascinates is the thinking of those who believe that somehow, outside legal jurisdiction, the court of public outrage must have the final say. That having escaped a custodial sentence, another should be imposed to ensure he does not play his sport.

Why?

Perhaps, it is because top sportspeople, even those who don’t get paid, are confused for role models.

For pity’s sake, they puck sliotars better than the rest of us but there is a fair distance between doing that and becoming paragons of virtue, whose visage should be framed on an illuminated altar.

Maybe there are people out there who believe that GAA players live by a higher moral code, one encapsulated by those clips of grocery deliveries, and pharmacy runs during Covid, but listening to too much diddly-eye music can do that to you.

In the real world, GAA players, like everyone else, are capable of doing good and bad things, because that is, as they like to say in the GAA, part of what we are rather than who we would like to be.

Only those, blushing with their shame and rage behind smartphones, believe differently.

And the day their hand is on the scale of justice is the one when we will truly have something to be shameful and fearful of.