GAA PRO Lynch to retire next year
He’s doing so, he explained, because he felt the need for ‘a change of direction in his life.’ And, he had decided to make his decision public at this stage in case it might be linked in a negative way with the upcoming appointment of Mulvihill’s replacement.
Apart from the fact that the President has asked him to stay on until his successor was in place, he didn’t want ‘the impression to go out’ that he didn’t get on with the new Director-General.
Both Liam Mulvihill and Nickey Brennan were present to hear him make the formal announcement.
Said Brennan: “Danny has done a tremendous job. I want to record the Association’s tribute for the work he has done, not just with me but with previous Presidents and the Árd Stiurthoir. During Liam’s illness he was the ‘main man’ and guided the ship for what was a very difficult time for the Association and a particularly tough time for Liam and his family.”
Describing it as ‘truly the end of an era,’ Mulvihill praised him for the ‘enormous work’ he did over so many facets of the Association during the period of his appointment.
“Over the years there were various roles he took over that were not way part of his brief and he dealt with them with the professionalism he was able to show,’’ he said.
Lynch, 56, is from Kilfountain in Dingle. He came to the GAA in 1988, at a time when he was in line for promotion as a Principal Officer with the Civil Service. “My heart and soul was in the GAA,’’ he explained.
Reflecting on his career, he said that the redevelopment of Croke Park was one of the major highlights, saying that he was proud to have made a contribution to what was undoubtedly a monumental achievement for the GAA.
He revealed he had played a vital role in the background, in ‘brokering’ an agreement between the Croke Park residents and the Dublin City Council planners.
He also engaged in lobbying the planners and ended up getting 12 out of 13 ‘on side!’
“It wasn’t all plain sailing,’’ he admitted. ‘‘I remember one meeting where a local councillor called me an ‘urban terrorist.’ The importance of the planning was that if it hadn’t worked out, the redevelopment mightn’t have been finished yet. We could have run into long delays and encountered new planning restrictions.”
One of the ‘biggest issues’ he had to face — the only time he said he ‘actually considered resigning’ -was around the time of the promotion by the Clan na Gael Fontenoy club of a soccer game in the RDS along with an intercounty football game between Dublin and Down. “I found it a very trying period both for myself and my family. I felt and I still feel that the promoters of the whole concept were a bit disingenuous and probably a bit economic with the truth in terms of how it evolved and we were kept in the dark.
“Unfortunately the Association didn’t have a policy on the issue and mixed signals came from the Management Committee at different times. And when people looked for a scapegoat, it was portrayed as a PR management disaster — in other words that I didn’t get the message out there. I had a meeting with the Management Committee and told them that if there wasn’t a corporate policy in place you couldn’t articulate PR policy.”
Describing his time in Croke Park as ‘a roller-coaster’ he said he’d got on very well with all seven Presidents he worked with at a personal level, adding interestingly: “there might be an odd one that I mightn’t have got on that well at a professional level.”
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