History will view GAA’s vision well

Millions of people will tomorrow witness the culmination of an historic journey for the Gaelic Athletic Association, without realising the awesome significance attached to the advent of rugby onto the revered turf of Croke Park.

Tomorrow, the excitement and drama of the Six Nations match between Ireland and France at the Jones’s Road stadium, will cloak the trauma and anguish which that verdict entailed.

It will also showcase to a vast television audience the magnificent stadium that is Croke Park, one of Europe’s finest sporting arenas. This state-of-the-art facility has a capacity for 82,000 people, more than double that of Lansdowne Road, which it replaces while the latter is given a major facelift.

A decision taken by the GAA’s congress in 2005 to remove Rule 42, which forbade the playing of foreign games in Croke Park, was the real beginning of that journey, and made tomorrow possible.

To bring forward a motion that had the potential to inflict damage on the GAA, through what could be construed as the abandonment of its roots and what it stood for, was courageous and innately democratic.

To a large extent, the arguments which were evinced when the ban on members attending foreign games was struck down in the early ’70s were not just mirrored, but were more intense.

At stake was not whether GAA members could merely attend rugby and soccer matches, but that those codes could actually be played on the hallowed turf in the shrine that defined Irishness and Irish independence. That such a concept was unthinkable, and would be unforgivable, was propounded by members, some of them with considerable influence, arguing that Croke Park, because of its history, should be exclusively for the use of Gaelic games.

That history, among other things born out of the fight for independence from Britain, partition, and haunted by the murderous events of Bloody Sunday in 1920 in Croke Park, tied some to a turbulent past.

In overcoming such vociferous resistance were voices which urged greater inclusiveness and sportsmanship, led by Sean Kelly, a man of vision, who was then president of the GAA. He steered it towards its momentous decision, acknowledging the public enthusiasm for the change but, more importantly, recognising that within the organisation there was a mood for it also. Ultimately, congress voted to erase Rule 42 by 227 votes to 97, with seven motions listed to support such a move.

Croke Park represents a massive investment to the GAA in relation to its own future and in the financial sense. Realistically, it was impractical that a stadium of its calibre and capacity remain unused for most of the year, and that the Irish rugby and soccer national teams be forced to play “home” internationals in Britain. They will, instead, be able to play in “Croker”, temporarily at least, until Lansdowne Road is transformed into a multi-million euro 50,000 all-seater stadium.

At the time, Sean Kelly commented that the vote would probably be seen as more important to the public at large than to the membership.

He was right, as he was in saying that it was a generous decision reflecting confidence and a desire to help out people in need, for which history would judge them well.