TWO CO Kerry schoolboys are being deprived of their right to play GAA football because they have been told they must play for a club seven miles from their home rather than one a mile away, the High Court has heard.
Brothers Pádraic (14) and Colin (8) O’Sullivan want to play for Listry GAA club, just over a mile from their home at Ballytrasna, Faha, Killarney.
However, because they are geographically in the parish of Firies, they have been told by the Kerry County GAA board they must play for Ballyhar-Firies GAA club, more than seven miles away.
Through their mother, Christine O’Sullivan, they want an order restraining county board secretary Peter Twiss from preventing them playing for Listry.
They claim the failure to exempt them from rule 20 of the GAA bylaws, governing playing for one’s parish, breaches their constitutional right to freedom of association.
Ercus Stewart SC, for the family, said if the boys could not play for the club they loved, they may give up sport altogether because the GAA had “a monopoly” on the organisation of the game.
“They may be technically from Firies but their hearts and souls are in Listry,” Mr Stewart said.
Their parents would not allow them to walk or cycle to Firies and there was no public transport from their home to the club.
He said the family brought High Court proceedings in 2009 over the matter, which were resolved with the parties agreeing to refer it to the GAA’s disputes resolution authority. It found the county board had adopted an impermissible fixed policy of allowing derogations from rule 20 only if the two clubs reached agreement on the matter, Mr Stewart added.
The authority found the board had in effect delegated its decision-making power to the clubs and conducted itself in a manner that would give rise to a reasonable apprehension of objective bias.
The matter was sent back to the county board with a requirement that written submissions be invited. The family’s submission was not circulated in advance of a board meeting last July and its contents were only read out to delegates, Mr Stewart said.
Delegates voted 33-21 against allowing the boys to play for Listry. There were 20 abstentions, however, because many delegates wanted the matter put back so they could consider it more carefully. The board had not complied with the spirit or letter of the authority’s recommendations, Mr Stewart said.
The case continues.