Kieran Shannon: GAA must read the mood music and change outdated provincial structures

By going with another do-or-die championship, they’ve killed it off. Perhaps it had to be seen to fail spectacularly for something more spectacular to take its place

DOWN AND OUT: A dejected Darren O’Neill after Kerry ended Clare’s Championship season for 2021 after just a single match in Saturday’s Munster SFC quarter-final at Fitzgerald Stadium. Picture: Dáire Brennan/Sportsfile

Not only does a song tell a story, so does the choosing of one.

Seconds after Limerick won the 2018 All-Ireland hurling final, the voice of Delores O’Riordan rang around Croke Park, offering the perfect soundtrack for the moment. After 45 years of waiting for Liam MacCarthy to arrive back on Shannonside, ‘Dreams’ had come true for a people. Although the song was by then quarter of a century old, it was totally right for 2018 in a way ‘Limerick, You’re A Lady’ could never have been: The same year we’d lost The Voice that she was, we finally had a championship format as modern and awe-inspiring and refreshing as hearing The Cranberries and their lead vocalist for the first time.