Fergus Finlay: Leaving people behind is stupid and yet we continue to do it

The house surrender scheme. Zappone. Holohan. Retrofitting. And now turf. You'd wonder if we'll ever learn from our mistakes

Under the surrender grant scheme, virtually every family with a stable income left places such as Ballymun, leaving behind a far higher proportion of people with challenges from mental health issues to addiction. A generation of us could have learned from this debacle. It did not. File Picture: Arthur Carron/Collins

If I write about the GAA it’s from a position of abysmal ignorance. I hugely admire the organisation for its social and community role and I know the history. Every year I get drawn in by some human story or other into aspects of the championships — the never-ending Mayo curse, the mystery of Biddy Early and her influence on Clare hurling, that sort of thing.

But the intricacies of the games and their appeal to an audience have always eluded me. I guess it’s because I was raised with an oval ball in my hands, but I would seldom watch a game of football or hurling just for its own sake — there’d have to be something else involved.