Congress stalwarts dream of what can be

SIDELINE CUT:The delegate is a maker of dreams. If he succeeds, he won't be carried aloft into his local tavern by adoring crowds, no, his will be a quieter glory

IS THERE any more fascinating anthropological phenomenon in Ireland than that of the annual congress of the GAA? “Yes” is almost certainly the resounding answer but nonetheless, there is something reassuring about the annual gathering of the clans, which this year takes place in Mourne country and includes motions on the clár covering everything from the subtleties of the hand-pass to the possibility of booking Crystal Swing for the All-Ireland half-time show.

The GAA delegate is a breed apart. Black and white photographs of congresses held in the mid and latter part of the 20th century are frightening curiosities, featuring row after row of fearsome and God-fearing men wearing dark suits and faces that banish all notions of frivolity.

There is a good chance all GAA congresses before the removal of the “Ban” in 1971 were so conservative and rigidly observed that they actually took place in black and white. Given the ratio of Sweet Afton smokers at any given congress, technicolor was more or less blocked out in any event: most GAA congress halls contained clouds of smoke that would have made the current Icelandic emissions look frankly second rate.

What is it that attracts delegates to the administrative and legal labyrinth that holds the GAA together?

They certainly aren’t in it for the glory. In fact, the delegates to congress all but repel all notions of individual fame and prestige, preferring to hide under the umbrella of a judiciously-phrased motion, diligently arguing their case and then taking their place among their fellow men.

It is true some delegates achieve their own kind of fame – Frank Murphy of Cork is well-known as the Clarence Darrow of the rule book. But congress attracts many Gaels blessed with the forensic mental qualities and the sheer doggedness that is required to lose oneself in the finer points of the GAA handbook.

There is something wonderfully tribal about the whole process, with the delegate sent forth from his county armed with a set of motions devised at club meetings and tasked with persuading his fellow delegates to breathe life into these ideas.

In that way, the delegate is a maker of dreams. If he succeeds, he won’t be carried aloft into his local tavern by adoring crowds, he won’t sashay up the red carpet to be interviewed by Marty Morrissey on All-Star night. No, his will be a quieter glory emanating from the knowledge that his argument has set into being some tiny rule that could have a global impact.

There is no statue to the delegate who successfully proposed that far-flung notion that Gaelic football players should be at liberty to take a free from their hands instead of having to place the ball. Who remembers his name? But he has had an enormous influence on the game.

Having a motion passed is a process both transparent and incredibly mysterious. It is based on the simple and universally recognisable action of raising one’s hand to agree with the motion.

But hands are not raised lightly in congress. This is not a group likely to break out into an impromptu routine of the Y-M-C-A. There are veterans of congress who have sat through decade after decade of debate without ever once allowing their hands to leave the table. They operate on the notion that no news is good news and therefore reject the various intercessions from younger delegates, some of whom don’t even wear ties, as needless tinkering.

All motions are phrased in sober and entirely sensible language but the actual thrust of the motions often reveal the deep anxiety that the Gaels feel about their self-image. In fact, more or less every motion that has ever appeared on the congress clár can be translated into the old fashion chestnut: Does my butt look big in this?

For Gaels are as vain and insecure as everyone else on earth. They just hide it better. They love and worry about their association and about their games.

They look at other sports, the once-derided “foreign” sports and secretly fret that they are somehow sleeker and sexier in their presentation and they liberally cut and paste elements of those international sports and tack them onto the native games.

Hence the proposal to introduce the Australian Rules-type “mark” to Gaelic football, the experiment with abolishing the “square ball” and the suggestion that the ball must be kicked “dead”, a la rugby, before a game can finish.

Individually, these are small changes but, if they are passed into being, they would fundamentally change the game. Such is the deep and silent influence the delegates exert.

Overall, the delegates will debate 123 motions this weekend. Included in that hefty programme are several calls to keep Croke Park open, thereby permanently erasing Rule 42 where the headquarters are concerned. That motion will inevitably lead to reminiscences of five years ago, when the GAA congress was held amidst the kind of glitzy hoopla normally associated with the Oscar bash.

The motion to open Croke Park was skilfully marketed as proof that the GAA was up to speed with 21st century ideals – that it was a progressive, confident, sophisticated sports organisation.

Those delegates who voiced resistance to the proposal – who can forget Con Murphy’s wonderful aphorism that ending the rule would create an association “that caters for everything and stands for nothing” – were derided by everyone from rival Gaels to radio disc jockeys as “backwoodsmen”, relics of a different time.

The moral pressure to surrender the chastity of Croke Park was irresistible. Yes, they said. Yes, yes. The outcome was a landslide: 227-97. A bright new future lay ahead of the famous stadium. And now that future lies behind it. For all the misty-eyed talk about “helping” their neighbours in the IRFU and the FAI, the bottom line was hard cash and now that the international sports have fled back to the southside, the Croke Park calendar is looking a bit lonely and the balance sheet not anything like as tasty it was.

Therefore, of all the motions before congress this weekend, the delegates are likely to vote to extend the open-door policy. But there will be no talk of helping out neighbours or answering the national cause this time; the decision will be based on money, pure and simple. In that way it will reflect the times.

And the delegates will be too good-mannered to state it, but if they had been charged with guarding the nation’s financial machinations for the past decade, the books would balance perfectly now. Delegates are, by their nature, prudent and deliberate and careful people. But their gesture may be in vain. Soccer and rugby have their own home again, their own financial obligations and their own sponsorship contracts. They won’t be coming back anytime soon. The delegates do not hold the cards anymore.

Still, they can only do their best.

The most admirable thing about the delegates is that they are not really bureaucrats at heart, they are dreamers. They come armed with plans to change, in small but tangible ways, the world that shapes their lives on Sunday afternoons when no sound in Ireland matters more than the roar a GAA stadium.

They may come determined to alter the very championship system itself or they may arrive with the modest – but crucial – proposal that butterfly buns as well as plain buns be provided for the Ard Comhairle in Clones on Ulster final days.

Whether they get the show of hands or not, they expect no praise for it. The delegates will never raise the cup nor give the speech. But where would the GAA be without them?