Relaxed Mulvihill sticks to the plan

 GAA director general retires Seán Moranwas at Liam Mulvihill's last press conference after 28 years as GAA director general

The curtain finally came down on Liam Mulvihill's tenure as director general of the GAA at Croke Park yesterday. It was hard to credit that over six months had flashed by since he announced his intention to retire last July and harder still to countenance that it had been 28 years and eight months since he had walked in the door for his first day at work in the old administration offices wondering how he would fill his empty briefcase.

"I can tell you it's never been empty since," he told his farewell media conference, "except on two occasions when I'd the bad luck to have my briefcase stolen in the office - not by fellow workers or not by journalists I hasten to add." - "As far as you know," interjected GAA president Nickey Brennan.

This morning Mulvihill's successor Páraic Duffy takes over and the wheels of the association will simply keep turning, pretty quickly as things stand given the various matters in the DG's in-tray, from the stand-off between the players and county board in Cork to renegotiating commercial and broadcast agreements.

"I don't think you can talk about a natural break in the affairs of the association," said the outgoing director general. "One of the issues that I've found hard in recent years since I had a bit of an illness is that I'd started thinking about taking life easier and then, 'what about next year?, what about the following year?'

"But there was always something that you thought needed to be finished, some project that you'd like to see through to the end but I eventually decided I'd go for a particular time and stick with that.

"I don't think it could be said that there's a lull in the activities of the association or that's it's the end of an era in any sense. Páraic's taking over a very active and a very vibrant association with a lot of strengths and a tremendous amount of self-confidence but with plenty of problems as well and he'll be busy."

As might be expected of someone on the threshold of a less strenuous existence, Mulvihill was relaxed and reflective as the questions popped at him for one last morning.

Having recounted the highs - the number of counties winning breakthrough All-Irelands from Galway and Offaly hurlers to the sequence of football champions from Ulster and the stadium renewal that spread expansively all around yesterday's conference - and the lows of attending funerals of Northern GAA members murdered during the Troubles, he made a slightly surprising claim.

"I've enjoyed every day. There were portions of some days I didn't enjoy but I always found there were satisfactions in every single day and I can say that I always went home feeling happy in myself with what I had done that particular day."

Work took him in and out of four different office buildings throughout the decades and the second of those, Áras Daimhin behind the old Hogan Stand, summed up for Mulvihill one of the great developments within the association, the growing self-confidence.

Áras Daimhin was built as part of the Centenary Year celebrations in 1984, a year that he believes regenerated the association, and served as the GAA's nerve centre for 15 years.

"We agonised over it for two years," he recalled, "and it took four years to pay for it and we were very worried that the association would be in financial difficulties as a result. When you see clubs now spending five, seven, 10 million on developments there's a new climate out there and a new confidence."

Asked whether it had been frustrating to have the responsibilities of a CEO in a corporation but not the power to implement his own initiatives without having to go through the GAA's complicated network of committees and councils, Mulvihill said that for those who understood the association such restraints weren't a problem.

"It's an organisation that values its volunteers and that's the difference between the GAA and a company or a plc. No company could get the level of support and co-operation and level of voluntary effort that the GAA can get from people all over the country.

"I was born into the GAA and knew it before I came in here. When you're born to that you don't get frustrated; you know how it works. I think as well that the system has sharpened up a bit. It's only when you look back at the past 15 years - people say the GAA is slow to change but there have been enormous changes.

"In fact a worry I would have is that the association is losing a tremendous amount of experience over a short period of time because of the motions delimiting the period of time (served by) county officers are coming into effect."

Tributes were paid by association president Nickey Brennan and the incoming director general Páraic Duffy.

Liam Mulvihill's first visit to Croke Park was for the historic 1955 All-Ireland football final between the modern innovators of Dublin, captained by Kevin Heffernan, and the orthodox ball players of Kerry.

Tradition won out that day but it's fascinating to think that in that massive crowd of 87,000 was a young lad who would change the face of the GAA beyond recognition.