Sean Kelly Questions and Answers

Spirit of the Gael now sprouts in Brussels, says proud Kelly

He’s still a GAA president. Not of the association itself, of course, but with the day job taking him to Brussels, of the Belgium GAA club.

It’s a club with a difference. It must be the only club that holds its AGM in a parliament, since he’s been able to swing having theirs in the European parliament itself.

But increasingly, he’s finding it’s becoming like a club at home. “The rivalries are growing,” he smiles. “What you have now between Paris and Brussels is now what you’d have with Legion and Crokes in Killarney.”

What he finds the club has also managed to do though is bring other kinds of rivals together.

“In a place like Brussels where politics is so strong, it kind of helps depoliticise the place for many people. You’ll have people from Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Labour all playing together, being friends, when otherwise they wouldn’t associate much at all.”

Often in that parliament he’s struck by how well served he’s been by the GAA and his experience as an administrator. Recently a data protection law came before a committee in parliament. “They wanted it that anyone with more than 250 clients would have to have a data protection officer. Sounded good. Populist. But with my background in the GAA, I said to myself, ‘That’s ridiculous. My barber at home probably has 250 clients. The butcher as well. This will break SMEs.’ So I put in an amendment and they changed it to 5,000 clients and your officer doesn’t have to be full-time.

“That came back to the GAA. You get great practicality from it. You can have all the theories in the world but how does it break down on the ground in Killarney? If you don’t win the match, you’re useless there.”

All the while, he continues to serve the GAA on the ground. The club he presides hosts next month’s European finals. Their male membership is about 80% Irish, 20% European. With the ladies football and camogie teams, it’s more 50-50. One of their players is Jelena Radokovic, a Serbian. She first started playing the games when an Irish friend told her about the games and invited her down to the club. Now she is the club’s secretary. And the day job is as Kelly’s office assistant. Ten years on from opening up Croke Park, Kelly’s spirit of openness and opportunity continues.