Brian Cuthbert: Within 20 years, half a million people will live around Cork city. The GAA needs fresh thinking

In delivering player development solutions, context is key and that is why comparing the life of a club footballer in Kerry where he will play nearly 30 football matches a year, with that of a club player in Cork, makes little sense.

CITY SLICKERS: Douglas' Joe Mouret and Cian O'Sullivan of St. Finbarr's contest possession in a Premier 1 MFC clash in Douglas.

According to the 2022 Census, Cork has the highest proportion of residents living in their county of birth. Why this is the case in Cork was not revealed in the census but surely it can’t simply be the case that Corkonians just can’t bring themselves to sample life anywhere else. Connection to our county of birth is innate in Irish people and was well understood by Cusack and others in Hayes Hotel in 1884, when they set about drawing up the terms of engagement for the GAA. 

In the intervening 140 years, rivalries, storied games and victories have managed to intensify this connection to place and it has become a marketeer’s dream as the inter-county games become more and more commercialised and professionalised.