Why the GAA must be wary of social media skullduggery

Eventually the dust settled on what had become known as the Great All-Ireland Social Media Scandal of 2018. In the end the gardaí were unable to find the perpetrators and the DPP refused to take proceedings. It was unclear what laws, if indeed any, had been broken.

But this much emerged through the fog. In the run-up to the All-Ireland final, a bunch of shadowy, tech-savvy supporters of one of the teams had embarked on an attempt to destabilise the other county — the hot favourites — by means of an insidious social media campaign.

It began on Twitter on the Thursday week before the final, with murmurings about disharmony in the reigning champions’ camp.