The "quick resolution" theory of Saturday's special GAA congress had been discredited by the time president Seβn McCague arrived at the media conference. But not by much. There had been a short debate on the proposal to drop Rule 21, the ban on northern security forces joining the association, but dropped it was.

"I feel that the decision is now in the past," said McCague. "We've taken a step, which means we don't have an exclusion rule and going on from here I think we have the confidence that we don't need exclusion rules. I think we're a better organisation for that."

What discussion had taken place in the in camera meeting had been generated by the cross-Border counties opposed to deletion. Yet even these contributions appeared to have been perfunctory and without acrimony, said the president.

"Our northern delegates are honourable people and they accept democracy and they were gracious in the manner in which they spoke after the event and they were satisfied that we were a united organisation. I think that next week you people will have another story, fresh news and this will be forgotten about."

This was a great moment for McCague's presidency. Few thought he would have called the special congress without the certainty of winning but even within that context the scale of his achievement was impressive. The motion for change was carried overwhelmingly by the surprisingly large attendance of 301 delegates.

Twenty-seven counties backed him and the northern units who didn't (Armagh, Fermanagh, Derry, Antrim and Tyrone) accepted the game was up after nearly 100 years of the rule.

McCague explained his motivation. "We looked at the ongoing developments under the Good Friday Agreement, we looked at the movement of people to join the new policing service, we looked at many issues and we consulted with our membership nationally and found there was a mood there that people wanted the rule deleted.

"You've got to realise that what we did today was delete an exclusion rule. We did not make any endorsement of a political party, political grouping or police service. We don't encourage people to go into any walk of life. We don't encourage people to join the Garda but we won't discourage. We're neutral; it's nothing to do with us."

Finally, he was at pains to stress there had been no political pressure exerted on the GAA to reach its decision. "I can assure you that he (the Taoiseach) did not intervene, nor indeed did any other party politician in the South or North. There was no pressure put on us by anyone outside the association. The decision was taken by us ourselves without any outside interference. I thank those in the media and the people out there who had an interest in it for giving us the time and space to deal with this matter on our own."

This was a point that had been made earlier at the congress when McCague outlined his case. There, he said that while he appreciated the concern of those opposed to change he felt it was time to reconsider the 1998 decision to drop the rule when progress had been made on the policing issue in Northern Ireland. He also said the GAA was vulnerable to equality legislation because of the ban.

Former president Pat Fanning said that as everyone had been mandated, the issue should proceed to a vote. The motion was proposed by Christy Cooney, chairman of the Munster Council, and seconded by Gerry Brady of Dublin. The president allowed speakers to the motion and Tyrone, Armagh and Antrim made their cases.

One delegate suggested the rule be dropped for a trial period of three years in order to see how the new Police Service of Northern Ireland progressed. Another challenged the view that the GAA was vulnerable on human rights legislation but McCague reiterated his legal advice on the matter. The vote was taken on a show of hands and achieved its two-thirds majority without the need for a count.

One man happy with the outcome was McCague's predecessor, Joe McDonagh. He had tried to abolish the rule in 1998 and although he didn't succeed, his initiative laid the ground for what happened on Saturday. "It's the culmination of a three-and-a-half year process," he said, "and the association has recognised that with the progress that has been made, now was the appropriate time to give effect to the decision arrived at in 1998. Undoubtedly, it created a roll, particularly with the opportunity it afforded counties to consider the motion in fairly open and extensive debate. Perhaps this gave an opportunity to counties and delegates to exorcise the pain and the experiences of their members. I knew that evening that this wasn't something that would have to be engaged in again once we had done that."

He was hopeful that the implementation of the removal wouldn't prove too difficult.

"Attitudes don't change overnight when you're dealing with deeply-held feelings. It takes time. "

Gene Duffy, from Crossmaglen in Armagh, explained his county's decision to oppose removal of the ban. "We came mandated to vote for the retention of the rule. The reason for that was that within Armagh and the other counties a lot of injustices had happened in the last 30 years and led people to feel they couldn't support removal of the rule. Our job now is to make sure those people don't feel isolated and left out of it."

Like McDonagh and McCague, he didn't feel there would be much of a fall-out from the decision. "I don't. People will find it difficult but the GAA is unified and we'll get on with it, doing what we know best - the promotion and development of our games."