Paul Rouse: The GAA still firmly holds the belief in evolution not revolution

Ard Stiúrthóir of the GAA Tom Ryan. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

The launch of the GAA’s annual report and financial statement in the Museum at Croke Park on Thursday was an understated event. Tom Ryan’s opening address was wide-ranging, but cohered into one clear organising principle: the GAA believes in evolution not revolution.

It was spelled out in plain language in the section of Tom Ryan’s report where he considered the prospect of a new format for the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. Noting that the last two football championships had been thrilling, he nonetheless said there were still obvious shortcomings (“imbalanced matches, counties without realistic incentive or prospect of success, and so on”). The solution to this situation was not going to be any form of “emergency intervention”. Instead, it would involve “delivering change via incremental progression”.

At the forthcoming annual congress, it seems most likely that evolution will involve the linking of the league and the championship, with the acceptance of the Green Proposal. This proposal retains a role for the provincial championships in the seeding of teams for the All-Ireland championship. But this is clearly just a staging post.

The evolution of the GAA’s All-Ireland senior football championship will ultimately see the provincial championship retreat to the status of pre-season competitions. In the way of things, this will not happen for years – or maybe even decades. But it will happen.

This is a process that began more than 20 years ago with the introduction of the All-Ireland Qualifier series. It was altered again in 2018 with the introduction of the Super 8s. Neither of these developments paid heed to the provincial structure. Again, they were staging posts to other change. The Tailteann Cup, similarly, has no provincial aspect.

And it is also a process that is well underway in hurling. The Joe McDonagh, Christy Ring, Nicky Rackard and Lory Meagher competitions are all played without reference to the provincial structure.

And even with the counties that ultimately play off for the All-Ireland senior hurling championship by competing for ‘Leinster’ and ‘Munster’ championships, all is not what it appears to be on the surface.

It is true that five Munster counties compete for their provincial championship, but if Kerry win the Joe McDonagh Cup in 2022, they will enter the Leinster hurling championship in 2023.

And that ‘Leinster’ hurling championship has already played host to both Galway and Antrim.

More than that, where once losing a provincial final was experienced as a devastating defeat, that no longer holds through in quite the same way. The fact that defeat is cushioned by a second chance in an All-Ireland quarter-final surely lessens the sting. That in itself is a telling fact.

None of this is to say that winning a provincial medal no longer means anything; of course, it does. It just means less than was once the case. And when that starts happening there is only one direction of travel.

A great example of this can be seen across the Irish Sea in the FA Cup. This competition was in the first decades of soccer, the most important one within the English game. It was displaced in the 20th century as the most important competition by the League. In the last decade of the 20th century, it slipped further in importance as European competitions gathered in scale and importance. And in a new millennium, the fact that the FA Cup weekend is viewed by managers pursuing league honours or trying to escape relegation as an opportunity to rest key players and give a run out to fringe players speaks volumes for its status. Of course, clubs still wish to win it; it just doesn’t really matter a huge amount anymore, except as some sort of exercise in nostalgia.

It will be interesting to watch how the GAA’s new Strategic Plan – to be launched shortly – will position the role of provinces. This is no straightforward matter. The provincial councils obviously do hugely important work in the organising of schools competitions and in coaching officers.

But the long term evolution of the structural organisation of the GAA in terms of flows of money are clearly moving more and more towards direct relationships between Croke Park and individual counties.

The weight of money flowing is increasingly through a channel that links the GAA at central level to the county. Where does the provincial council fit in that scenario?

Apart altogether from the issue of organising championships on provincial grounds, there is a serious conversation to be had about the long term merit of the provinces as an organising basis of the GAA.

This was something that made great sense in the first days of the 20th century when travel and communications were much more challenging. In those circumstances, it made absolute sense to have a regional structure that facilitated localised collaboration.

The question now is whether that structure remains fit for purpose in a new millennium. Is it the best way for the GAA to manage its affairs and to develop as it wishes to develop, or is really just an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that is hindering things that need to be done?

Can their endeavours be streamlined and fully aligned with the needs of the central GAA and individual counties?

These are questions that are not easily resolved. Perhaps it is the case that, after all, the provinces is precisely the way to run some aspects of the GAA. What is more and more apparent though is that the future role of provincial councils is not at all clear.

Perhaps this is a story that is prefigured by what happened to the Railway Cup. From uncertain beginnings this competition – a tournament between teams representing provinces – became central to the GAA’s calendar. In its heyday in the decades after the Second World War, it drew enormous crowds. Through those decades, it was impossible to conceive that it was a competition that would ultimately be abandoned by the GAA.

But abandoned it was. There were many attempts to save it, many efforts at reimagining it.

All failed; its time was done.

There is no suggestion that a similar experience is imminent for provincial councils themselves.

These are institutions that now have a lengthy past. But the long sweep of history would suggest that they are in the process of a slow retreat in importance.

- Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin