Michael Moynihan: This is not, ultimately, a Dublin issue or a GAA issue. It is a moral issue

With due respect to Cork and Down (and assorted clubs), the Dublin development is on a different level, writes Michael Moynihan

Almost 30 years on, that Cranberries album title has really come into its own.

You may remember Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? for giving us tracks like Dreams, but as an articulation of the mindset which leads to lockdown breaches it could hardly be bettered.

On Thursday we had the Dublin footballers outed for an early-morning training session. On Tuesday night this newspaper revealed Garda investigation of a lockdown breach by a GAA club in west Cork.

Earlier this year, of course, we had both the Cork and Down football teams disciplined by the GAA for similar offences.

That’s quite a charge sheet, particularly when anecdotal material is also entered in evidence. Of clubs turning a blind eye to groups training. In one particular case witnessed by this columnist, players were carrying out organised drills in a public park while wearing club gear.

Again: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?

With due respect to Cork and Down (and assorted clubs), the Dublin development is on a different level. This is a team which has won six All-Ireland titles, enjoys the biggest following in the biggest city in the country, and routinely figures in the most-watched TV programme of the year (the All-Ireland football final). What they do is a big story all the time.

The GAA-specific subplots here include the early challenge to the authority of new President Larry McCarthy, as if his in-tray weren’t full enough as it stands.

On that score the GAA’s swift response to the revelations was welcome, with a statement outlining its “frustration and extreme disappointment”, though the organisation’s strange attitude to discipline is no guarantee of action.

In his farewell address as GAA President John Horan congratulated Cork, among other counties, for accepting punishment for Covid breaches rather than “tolerating a culture where the knee-jerk reaction to a suspension or penalty is to appeal and try to shift blame or dodge responsibility.” 

Yes, that means congratulating a county for accepting its punishment for a breach of the rules - even though its senior football manager appealed against a punishment for the same breach of the rules.

In that context Dublin GAA deserve credit for suspending Farrell for 12 weeks within hours of the story breaking.

Inexperienced GAA-watchers may not be mollified by Dublin appearing to police themselves, but it was the kind of action conspicuously absent in the other counties.

Experienced GAA-watchers will point out, however, that the Dublin officials who suspended Farrell may themselves face suspension, as they are ultimately responsible for the senior team’s activities.

Will Croke Park act?

There may be other consequences for Dublin, but in the short term the GAA knows that it needs to send a message to ensure clubs and counties aren’t responsible for more breaches.

However, those are all talking points within a certain context, the endless chatter of GAA kremlinologists.

Beyond that context there are real-world considerations, because this is not, ultimately a Dublin issue or a GAA issue.

It is a moral issue. Breaching the lockdown for this purpose is wrong, selfish, and potentially lethal.

There is no ambiguity about that, despite the blowhard ‘epidemiologists’ you may encounter. If you need further clarification on that I refer you to people whose worlds have collapsed in grief at losing loved ones, sitting in empty churches for their funerals, or the elderly who have been separated for months now from family members, or those waiting anxiously, and angrily, for vaccinations for relatives with medical conditions.

These are the people who haven't played the Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? card.

They’re the ones who have buckled down and who may be feeling vaguely foolish now after this week’s revelations.

They shouldn’t, because they’ve done the right thing despite the difficulties involved. 

Despite the fact that in sport, as in other fields, they were led to believe that we were all in this together.

Note: This article originally stated, in relation to Mr Horan's comments that: "Yes, that means congratulating a county for accepting its punishment - even though it appealed against that punishment." The Cork County Board wishes to clarify that it did not appeal any punishment and we are happy to make that clear. Cork senior football manager Ronan McCarthy appealed against a suspension imposed by the GAA, not the Cork County Board.