‘We’re lucky in the North, to have that little bit of hope’
We look down the line and can see there is an opportunity to get back on the pitch
OISíN McConville already has the morning spin done by the time he takes the call. The player who will forever be linked to Armagh’s glorious summer of 2002 – and the goal that defined the county’s sole All-Ireland triumph – has put down roots just a few miles out the road from his native Crossmaglen.
He describes Creggan, where he lives with his wife and young family, as ‘a wee hamlet… a quiet wee spot.’
And so, like half the rest of the island, his days have been passed in part doing circuits of a lockdown loop in keeping with the ‘stay local’ message.
How it’s going? ‘Aw sure, living the dream, you know yourself,’ he says with the trademark dry wit that has made him a popular and familiar voice on the airwaves and goes hand-in-hand with his reputation as a sharp-eyed analyst with BBC and RTÉ.
‘I mixed things up myself this morning. I went up the other hill and back down the other way.’
McConville is immersed in the game, stitched into the coaching circuit, whether with club giants Crossmaglen – with whom he won a remarkable six All-Irelands,
‘WE WEREN’T FIGHTING FOR KIDS – IT WAS A DERELICTION OF DUTY’
Dundalk IT – where he enjoyed Trench Cup success – or, more recently, with Monaghan club Inniskeen Grattans. He says the first lockdown gave him a chance to slow down and spend more time in a hands-on role at home with his wife Darina, sons Ryan (8), and Conall (6) and daughter Freya (2).
But, no more than most, he has been feeling the impact since the new year. ‘This one has been tight alright.’
Perhaps it is a mixture of all of the above, that he felt he needed to speak out on the prospect of Gaelic games returning.
Indeed, he was the first to state so publicly that club gates needed to open in the Six Counties from April 12 as per the new roadmap issued by the Northern Ireland Executive.
‘If we have the opportunity in the North to go to back on the pitch, that’s exactly what we should do,’ he insisted.
‘Don’t punish 25 per cent of the association because we don’t have our ducks in a row elsewhere.’
He was out in front of the posse in terms of the return to play happening first in Northern Ireland and that the GAA would have to open the clubs. What he said was officially endorsed by the association’s Covid Advisory Committee last Monday night – a significant moment that has prompted a mood change on the ground.
He explains why he couldn’t stay silent. ‘I think it’s actually staggering the way it hadn’t been mentioned enough. It almost was the case that a couple of politicians grasped the nettle after a certain amount of time and badgering, but there didn’t seem to be any real consistent push to make that happen.
‘I just thought, “Do these people really know what’s happening on the ground? Have they any idea? Have they kids? Are we the ones who are isolated or half f **** n’ mad in the head that we want this to happen so much? Are we so out of touch with reality?
‘You sort of start to question yourself – until you talk to other people who are of the same opinion.
‘I’ve two wee boys who play a bit of Gaelic and a bit of soccer in Dundalk as well and everybody is missing it.
‘We talk about the GAA but it’s not confined to one sport, it’s sport in general has suffered. The kids have suffered. You think of all of the things that are going on, the rollout of the vaccine. People are fatigued. They want a bit of hope.
‘We’re still a couple of weeks away but we’re lucky in the North to have that bit of hope. We look down the line and can see there is an opportunity to get back on the pitch.’
When it comes to sport, he sees lockdown, too, through the eyes of his two sons. ‘They’re very much missing it. Along the way at different stages, they would have got a bit disenchanted with the whole thing. Once that date came in, the wall is getting a lot more of a battering (with practising).’
Which ties in to the idea that if you give people hope and optimism you’ll get more compliance. In the Republic, things have gone the other way. There is a clear sense of people losing faith in the guidelines. Yet McConville always had faith that the news from the GAA’s Covid Advisory Group last Monday night would be good, that it was never going to be a case that the GAA would keep the club gates locked when a return to play had been mapped out by the Northern Executive, on the basis of a notional all-island approach.
‘I don’t think that was ever going to happen. I know we knock it at times but the GAA has a lot of knowledge in that group. A fair degree of common sense, which in other areas of society seems to be badly lacking at times. It’s just when you have people in your own province – the Tyrone chairman coming out and saying we need to all come back as one – I don’t think he captured what people are thinking up here.
‘I was talking last week and made the point, “If it was in Munster, what would my reaction have been?” I’d be very jealous. But I wouldn’t be trying to hold them back so we all move forward together. It was a no-brainer. ‘A couple of things have irked a lot of people, including myself. I don’t think we should have been off the pitch anyway, as far as local and in particular juvenile sport. Because everybody has to be politically correct these days everything has to be preempted with “only if we can do it in a safe manner”. But I felt recently that that meant we were losing the point. ‘Because that point has already been very well made. As far as outdoor sport, and in particular outdoor juvenile sport, science has told us around the world that these incidents haven’t been happening.
‘I was talking on Second Captains last week and I didn’t feel the need to say “as long as we can do it in a safe way” because it has been proven we can do it in a safe way. So we need to get back.
‘The thing with the different jurisdictions is not a simple one. Let’s face it, people in this area here don’t want to be party to partition or don’t want to separate ourselves in any way, shape or form but that has happened so far with crowds and different things.
‘Another thing that irked a lot of people in the North was when (Minister of State for Sport) Jack Chambers met with the GAA, that there was no member of Stormont or no political member from the North involved in that. I thought that would have been important given both jurisdictions are involved.
‘I just felt it was important to make sure that after having, what we would feel, the rough end of the stick a little bit, that when the opportunity was there, and we are ahead of the posse with rollout of vaccinations and cases, that it was rewarded. That we use the opportunity. Some people took it out of context, as if we wanted competitive matches back. No, just to be back on the pitch.
‘This has given the GAA a kick up the backside to say, we need to start moving things along. My feeling was that we shouldn’t have accepted Jack Chambers taking us off the
‘WE SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT HARDER TO KEEP OUR ELITE STATUS’
elite list the way we did. I think we should have fought harder for our members. We were able to do it safely last year when numbers were higher.’
He also feels strongly about the government either side of the border letting down the next generation to an extent over the course of the past year, by not putting more of a priority on children’s activity, on outdoor sport and activity.
‘The main thing for most people – and anyone who is a parent will realise – was that at one stage kids had no opportunities to meet their friends, no schooling, and no sport. I feel as if we are responsible for what happens in kids’ lives. And there was an air of dereliction of duty that we weren’t aiding them or fighting harder for them. ‘The vibes we had heard from the GAA was about getting elite players back, we need to sort out the Championship structures, then all of a sudden one of the debates at
Congress was whether there should be two f **** n’ captains lifting the cup! And still no word of the big thing – getting people back on the pitch.
‘Even when we got that date in the North, we were still three and a half weeks away. Even just to have that bit of positivity. Something to plan for, set a target towards, and to tell the kids – they are on the countdown now – has been a big fillip for a lot of people.’