The GAA's people problem: 'We're sleepwalking into something that's going to be catastrophic'

The GAA's hot-button issue feels like football's ills or championship structures, but in reality it's people and clubs - there are either too many or too few of both. Can Croke Park provide solutions to a looming crisis?

BENNY HURL: "We are just leaving so many players behind us who want to play. If we are not about games what are we about?" Picture: Diarmuid Greene / SPORTSFILE

BENNY Hurl doesn’t mind if he’s thought of as the John Healy of the GAA. In 1968, the Irish Times journalist wrote ‘Death of an Irish Town’ about the government neglect and subsequent decline of his native Charlestown in Mayo. He was resented for it. Resentment waned as Healy was proven right. The train station which was once the busiest part of Charlestown – but only due to emigration – was abandoned when Healy returned there for a piece with RTÉ in 1981. There was no one left to leave. Seven years later, his book was republished as ‘No One Shouted Stop’.

Hurl, a Tyrone man who chairs the GAA’s Demographics Committee, believes we need to start shouting about future of Gaelic games. Shouting because we’ve been talking for too long. The numbers are there in black and white, and also stark, easily digestible, but hard to stomach graphics, generated by the association’s Data Insights Hub. Hurl recently met with the chairs of various committees to outline the people problems facing the GAA. They were 'taken aback' by the presentation.