Tommy Martin: Club glory all about wanting the parish to 'last ever more'

An Ghaeltacht chairman Dara Ó Cinnéide expressed brilliantly the truth in the club championships’ often homogenised message.

An Ghaeltacht chairman and selector Dara Ó Cinnéide celebrates with Éanna Ó Conchúir after the All-Ireland Club IFC win. Pic: ©INPHO/James Lawlor

It’s GAA club finals season and a reminder that, as Tolstoy might have said, all happy GAA clubs are alike, and each unhappy GAA club is unhappy in its own way.

There is a familiar ring to the tales that emerge from those clubs living the dream in these weeks across the codes and up and down the levels; classic tropes and familiar characters that recur. If the intercounty game is the GAA’s box office, these are its folk tales, the stuff that tells you what it is really for.