HEARTLESS DECISION SIMPLY DEFIES BELIEF
Heartless decision simply defies belief
Open letter to Danny Lynch,
GAA Public Relations Officer, Croke Park
AChara
If you or any of your management committee are in any doubt of how the ordinary GAA person in Tyrone feels about your decision to refuse the use of Omagh St Enda's club grounds for a fundraiser, in the aftermath of the Omagh bomb, then I would invite you to come and meet us at club level.
The GAA personnel I talk to find it beyond their comprehension to understand how, in such extraordinary circumstances any group of otherwise intelligent, considerate human beings, could be so inflexible in outlook and so hide-bound by dogma that they could publicly fly in the face of common decency.
Only a heartless bureaucracy could fail to acknowledge that such an extraordinary atrocity required an equally extraordinary response.
Local GAA members here in Tyrone have made their own response. Across all divides, they have stood in sorrow and solidarity with their neighbours: in hospitals, at removals, wakes, church services, funerals and burials.
They have been benumbed beyond the power of words to admit, even to themselves, that in an era of hope and peaceful political progress, others -perhaps amongst them supporters of our own association - could be so callous as to inflict so much heartbreak on an already long-suffering community.
They are even more benumbed to find themselves treated so shabbily and so high-handedly by the management of their own association.
Let me say at once that the offer of �1m from our association will be appreciated by all who will benefit from the victims' fund, and as clubs and individuals we will contribute to it. But it has often been said that it is not so much the value of a gift that counts but the thought behind it.
What is the thought behind a refusal to lease GAA grounds for a fundraiser given the extraordinary circumstances that prompted the request?
What bias lurks behind a reliance on an outdated rule to prevent neighbours who have stood together in suffering and in sorrow from again standing together on the terraces of a GAA ground on a sporting occasion which might help dispel the gloom?
What logic is used to tell us through the press that a GAA pitch which has already sported an Australian rules game cannot now be used to sport another football game?
Are we really expected, in this day and age, to believe against the evidence of our own eyes, that a decision from congress was needed for the proposed Omagh game when we know that no such decision was needed to permit American rules football to be played in Croke Park, or rock concerts to be promoted in Cork, Dublin or Thurles?
Where is the consistency?
For the sake of protocol, if not for consultation, why could 60 letters not have been posted to the clubs in Tyrone to consult with them or at least to inform them of this unbelievable decision, instead of having them hang their heads in shame as even (indeed only!) the nationalist press flayed the indefensible.
When the request came for the use of the GAA grounds only two questions should have been necessary in response.
The first - when do you need it? The second - how can we co-operate to make the event worthy of the occasion?
Any other response, however ill-conceived, portrayed to the general public a pettiness and mean-mindedness not in keeping with the ethos of our association or with the qualities of leadership shown by the officers and members of the Omagh St Enda's club who know at first hand the sporting mix and makeup of our local community.
The membership of St Enda's club and all neighbouring clubs understand the terrible reality of the August 15 bomb and its implications for this part of Tyrone.
They have publicly indicated that the horror of that atrocity supersedes an outdated rule. And they know how the general public would welcome an initiative which would maintain the dignified togetherness shown to date by the entire community. Not being on the spot, the Croke Park administration has got its response wrong.
For the record, my own club, Carrickmore St Columcilles, was amongst those foremost in the campaign to remove the ban on playing 'foreign
games' almost 30 years ago.
The roof of the world did not cave in when that ban was lifted. Neither did the GAA decline or fade into disrepute. In fact, the opposite happened. It has grown in popularity. It has increased its holdings, enlarged its membership and improved its facilities. It has attracted the young, both male and female in greater numbers than ever before and increased in confidence with each passing year.
It is that confidence in our own ability to present ourselves as we really are, to take our place with our neighbours in respecting their pastimes, to sympathise with them in their terrible sorrow, that prompts letters like this, defending in public what we take for granted amongst neighbours as the decent thing to do.
I will be asking my own club to endorse the inspirational leadership shown by the membership of the Omagh club in attempting to heal communal wounds and to support them in any steps they may take to do what neighbourliness demands.
Mise le meas
Frank McElroy, Lower Carrickmore,
Co Tyrone
Open letter to Danny Lynch,
GAA Public Relations Officer, Croke Park
AChara
If you or any of your management committee are in any doubt of how the ordinary GAA person in Tyrone feels about your decision to refuse the use of Omagh St Enda's club grounds for a fundraiser, in the aftermath of the Omagh bomb, then I would invite you to come and meet us at club level.
The GAA personnel I talk to find it beyond their comprehension to understand how, in such extraordinary circumstances any group of otherwise intelligent, considerate human beings, could be so inflexible in outlook and so hide-bound by dogma that they could publicly fly in the face of common decency.
Only a heartless bureaucracy could fail to acknowledge that such an extraordinary atrocity required an equally extraordinary response.
Local GAA members here in Tyrone have made their own response. Across all divides, they have stood in sorrow and solidarity with their neighbours: in hospitals, at removals, wakes, church services, funerals and burials.
They have been benumbed beyond the power of words to admit, even to themselves, that in an era of hope and peaceful political progress, others -perhaps amongst them supporters of our own association - could be so callous as to inflict so much heartbreak on an already long-suffering community.
They are even more benumbed to find themselves treated so shabbily and so high-handedly by the management of their own association.
Let me say at once that the offer of �1m from our association will be appreciated by all who will benefit from the victims' fund, and as clubs and individuals we will contribute to it. But it has often been said that it is not so much the value of a gift that counts but the thought behind it.
What is the thought behind a refusal to lease GAA grounds for a fundraiser given the extraordinary circumstances that prompted the request?
What bias lurks behind a reliance on an outdated rule to prevent neighbours who have stood together in suffering and in sorrow from again standing together on the terraces of a GAA ground on a sporting occasion which might help dispel the gloom?
What logic is used to tell us through the press that a GAA pitch which has already sported an Australian rules game cannot now be used to sport another football game?
Are we really expected, in this day and age, to believe against the evidence of our own eyes, that a decision from congress was needed for the proposed Omagh game when we know that no such decision was needed to permit American rules football to be played in Croke Park, or rock concerts to be promoted in Cork, Dublin or Thurles?
Where is the consistency?
For the sake of protocol, if not for consultation, why could 60 letters not have been posted to the clubs in Tyrone to consult with them or at least to inform them of this unbelievable decision, instead of having them hang their heads in shame as even (indeed only!) the nationalist press flayed the indefensible.
When the request came for the use of the GAA grounds only two questions should have been necessary in response.
The first - when do you need it? The second - how can we co-operate to make the event worthy of the occasion?
Any other response, however ill-conceived, portrayed to the general public a pettiness and mean-mindedness not in keeping with the ethos of our association or with the qualities of leadership shown by the officers and members of the Omagh St Enda's club who know at first hand the sporting mix and makeup of our local community.
The membership of St Enda's club and all neighbouring clubs understand the terrible reality of the August 15 bomb and its implications for this part of Tyrone.
They have publicly indicated that the horror of that atrocity supersedes an outdated rule. And they know how the general public would welcome an initiative which would maintain the dignified togetherness shown to date by the entire community. Not being on the spot, the Croke Park administration has got its response wrong.
For the record, my own club, Carrickmore St Columcilles, was amongst those foremost in the campaign to remove the ban on playing 'foreign
games' almost 30 years ago.
The roof of the world did not cave in when that ban was lifted. Neither did the GAA decline or fade into disrepute. In fact, the opposite happened. It has grown in popularity. It has increased its holdings, enlarged its membership and improved its facilities. It has attracted the young, both male and female in greater numbers than ever before and increased in confidence with each passing year.
It is that confidence in our own ability to present ourselves as we really are, to take our place with our neighbours in respecting their pastimes, to sympathise with them in their terrible sorrow, that prompts letters like this, defending in public what we take for granted amongst neighbours as the decent thing to do.
I will be asking my own club to endorse the inspirational leadership shown by the membership of the Omagh club in attempting to heal communal wounds and to support them in any steps they may take to do what neighbourliness demands.
Mise le meas
Frank McElroy, Lower Carrickmore,
Co Tyrone
Further Information
Publisher: THE IRISH NEWS
Ref: IN/0409
Published Date: 26-Sep-98
Related Images
There have been no images archived for this article.