Clash of the ash erupts in Galway over new executive

A major dispute has broken out in Galway GAA over who is to head up hurling in the county.

There were fractious scenes at the Galway hurling committee convention on Thursday when the issue arose.

Galway county committee chairman Noel Treacy and Galway hurling committee chairman Joe Byrne went head to head over the proposed membership of the hurling executive next year.

This would include Byrne’s replacement as hurling committee chairman.

Under GAA rule, sub committees such as the Galway hurling committee, are not permitted to elect their own officers, which is the job of the county committee, which Treacy chairs.

The county chairman ordered that the identities of those recommended for the roles could not be made public as it would “make them invalid to be appointed”.

Byrne (pictured) insisted that they had not held an election by seeking the clubs’ preferred choices, but just wanted the voice of the hurling clubs in Galway heard. The hurling chairman agreed not to divulge the identity of the clubs’ preferred candidates for the county committee positions, but instead agreed to pass all the relevant paperwork to Treacy, as well as privately divulging the name of the preferred candidates to him.

Several club delegates voiced their anger at their lack of input into the selection of their new chairman, while other clubs insisted that GAA rules on elections be followed to the letter of the law.

During heated discussions, Byrne called Treacy to task for his “scant” attendance at hurling committee meetings this year and insisted he didn’t “want to be lectured at” by the county chairman.

“We have developed a monster guys, but make sure the monster doesn’t eat us. I mean that,” said Byrne.

“All we want to do here as a hurling committee is make a recommendation. And by the way, it wasn’t an election,” said Byrne, who has just completed his fifth and final year as chairman of the hurling committee.

“With all due respect now, I don’t want to be lectured to. We are a hurling committee trying to promote hurling in Galway.

“We had a hurling committee meeting in November and Mr Chairman, to be quite frank about it, your attendance at our hurling committee meetings this year was very scant,” said Byrne.

“I am not obliged to attend any sub committee meeting,” replied Treacy. “I am not a member of the sub committee, but under the rules of the association, I am obliged to attend any meeting I deem required to do so.

“On the night of that meeting I was at another GAA meeting elsewhere tying to resolve an issue with a club. That was the position on that night. I can’t be in two places at one time,” said Treacy.

Former football board chairman John Joe Holleran, who was in attendance as vice-chairman of the county committee, appealed for calm.

“I would say it would be an awful tragedy if we saw in the paper that there was loggerheads between the county chairman and the hurling chairman. I would hope that calmness would prevail and that our media people here tonight would refrain from giving bad reporting from what went on here tonight.”

Byrne said: “Be clear now. We had a threat from our county board chairman that if we divulge the name of the person our clubs want to recommend for chairman of Galway hurling, that he will not propose that person on the night of the county committee meeting. I cannot put that person at risk, to be fair to that person.”