Congress veteran moves on to any other business

A GLUTTON for punishment surely, Seamas O’Brien heads off to Down this weekend for his 54th consecutive annual GAA Congress, that great two-day talk-fest when the massive wheels of the GAA can be at their most grindingly slow.

“I suppose I am,” laughs this veteran stalwart of the Abbeyside/Ballinacourty club in west Waterford; “I haven’t missed a Congress since 1957, when I was a deputy for someone else; I was there again in ’58 and ’59, and in 1960 I was elected to the executive of the Waterford county board.

“Between Annual Congress and Special Congress, I think I’ve now attended about 64, of every description. Some of them are very interesting, but it can also be absolutely boring. You’d wonder at young people going – a lot of people are standing up talking, but they’re only repeating what others have already said before them. Oh, I was at some very, very boring Congresses.”