Mark Conway: ‘We have allowed Dublin to choke Ireland in GAA terms’

Mark Conway was a member of the GAA’s Strategic Review Committee in 2002 which recommended the splitting of Dublin into two (he among other members of the group suggested it be divided in four based on the county’s councils)

Dublin’s population means it is unlikely to ever again dip into the doldrums when it comes to Gaelic football. Unless there are fundamental changes to the intercounty competition they will dominate in perpetuity according to Mark Conway.

Frithionsaí a Dhéanamh… Rural Strikes Back?’ 

When a County of 1,345,402 people, 479,683 households/families, 4 x Universities, 49 (!) x Hospitals, 8 x national railways, the LUAS and DART, 8 x national motorways, 200 bus routes, 43 x museums, 30 x art galleries, 46 x libraries, Ireland’s biggest port and airport, the national Parliament, the seat of government and administration, 19 x government departments, over 150 x national public organisations, the national media and broadcasting base, the national GAA stadium, the GAA’s National (???) Games Development Centre and the biggest and unrivalled levels of GAA funding, comes up against a ‘brother/sister rural County of Ireland’s periphery’ in tomorrow’s All-Ireland final, then our hearts have to be with the men and women of the West.” 

- Kildress GAA Facebook page, December 18, 2020.

Mark Conway is ranting, something he is conscious of, but he is vexed as his post on his club Facebook page two months ago suggests.

Last time we spoke to the Club Tyrone and former Of One Belief chairman prior to the Dublin-Tyrone All-Ireland semi-final in 2018, he was frustrated about how he felt the capital was cannibalising the GAA. Three more Sam Maguire Cups later and the furrows in his brow have deepened.

A member of the GAA’s Strategic Review Committee in 2002 which recommended the splitting of Dublin into two (he among other members of the group suggested it be divided in four based on the county’s councils), Conway’s area of expertise is planning, his company Venture International having worked from city and county councils from Cork to Dublin to Sligo.

The decision not to split up Dublin back then, he maintains, showed a distinct lack of strategy to the point that the capital’s dominance of senior Gaelic football is now the most worrying trend in the GAA.

“Until Dublin gets fed up with winning, which can happen, or makes a hames of thing, which can happen, the rest of us are all squabbling over second place and it all has to do with numbers. In Tyrone, we’re picking our team out of 110,000 people. Dublin are picking from 1.4 million people and that’s the bottom line.

“When the GAA was set up, Dublin’s population was about 400,000, Cork was close to 400,000 and Mayo’s was over 200,000. It was sort of level. Dublin is now what it is, Cork is heading towards 600,000 and if Cork get their act together they’re coming up on the rails.

“Look at the sponsorship - there are two big organisations sponsoring those two counties. It’s all about market share and saturation for the big hitters in sponsorship and a county with 1.4m people is always going to be more attractive in that regard than one with 110,000 every time.

“Sponsorship has nothing to do with success. I always say if that was true then Linfield and Celtic should get more sponsorship than Manchester United.

It’s all to do with market share and as long as we have one county that is the outlier in every aspect.

“Dublin didn’t have to build a Garvaghey (centre of excellence). We had to because there is no DCU in Tyrone, no Abbotstown in Tyrone. The closest thing to DCU for us is Jordanstown, 75 miles up the road on the other side of Belfast. We’re not whinging about that; it’s reality - that’s the same for every rural county in Ireland.” 

Mimicking the centralisation of Dublin in Irish life is doing the GAA no favours, Conway believes. “I rant on about it but Dublin for quite some time has been choking Ireland physically, politically, infrastructurally, economically because everything is concentrated there. Everybody has to live there but nobody can live there. If you want a career in all sorts of life, a lot of doors are closed to you if you’re not there but equally the cost of living there is through the roof. The GAA is now following suit; we have allowed Dublin to choke Ireland in GAA terms.” 

Mark Conway speaking at GAA Annual Congress

Conway accepts there was a need to inject extra funding into Dublin in the early 2000s. He has never had much issue with the additional monies sent to the capital: his argument is primarily based on demographics.

“At any one time, Dublin have 15 men with shirts on them representing Dublin and we have 15 men doing the same for Tyrone and Leitrim are the same when their men are decked out in the green and gold. Leitrim have 32,000 people if they’re all at home and it produces one county team.

“If we’re true to what we should be true to then all the players of county standard who will never get a county jersey should be given that opportunity. Some people ‘well, let them go to Leitrim or Tyrone’ but I oppose that because that then attacks what the GAA is all about, 'who are ya and where are ya from'. That’s the lifeblood, that’s what is driving it and the genius of it.

The GAA gives you answers to those two fundamental questions in life. If we lost that, our model is broken.

The argument about Dublin having more competing sports doesn’t wash with Conway. “If you look at the Irish Rugby Football Union, I think there is one rugby club for every 40,000 in Dublin and one for every 38,000 in Tyrone. The presence of rugby on the ground per head of population is stronger in our county.

“Now, you have Leinster and all that but that’s an artificial thing. It’s part of a global game and players from all over the world and that’s the nature of professional sport. The GAA is different and yes Dublin is different but compared to the disadvantages rural Ireland has it’s different in the most beneficial way.” 

Conway doesn’t hear too much in the way of constructive debate about Dublin right now other than former Westmeath footballer John Connellan’s hopes of equalising Dublin’s funding imbalance.

“If you’re to be doing a fair analysis of Tyrone then you don’t involve us in it because we’re biased. The so-called discussion that is heavily overlain by Dublin people and Dublin-based people and led by a Dublin-based media who have vested interests in the city it’s not a proper discussion. We’re not having it.

“Thank God for John Connellan in Westmeath because he and his movement are trying to broaden the discussion. They’re trying to have a proper discussion but in our great GAA democracy that’s incredibly difficult to have.”