GAA share in the pain

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people seek to attack the GAA when other targets would be more appropriate. I refer here to extreme and grossly unfair criticism of the association for not postponing last Sunday's All-Ireland hurling semi-final and this weekend's two football semi-finals.

By coincidence, I was in the company of the GAA's PRO Danny Lynch when the first news of an explosion in Omagh came through. Neither of us knew the enormity of the event until several hours later.

Members of the Central Council of the GAA had left Croke Park after a scheduled meeting and were on their way to various parts of the country before the awful news became clear. By that time it would have taken a logistical reappraisal of gargantuan proportions to have called off the match. One of the competing teams was already in Dublin, thousands of supporters were either in Dublin or on their way, Garda were in place for traffic control, stewards had been notified, television cameras were in place for live coverage, security personnel and match officials were on the alert and so on. With the best will in the world, and I am convinced that such will was there within the GAA, a postponement would have caused massive problems on many fronts and would have done little to assuage the grief of people of Omagh and beyond.

What happened instead was that more than 50,000 devoted GAA followers were brought face-to-face with the enormity of the Omagh bomb when they arrived in Croke Park on Sunday afternoon and responded in a most impressive and moving way to a call for one minute's silence.

Now, to this weekend. Two matches are scheduled, one today and one tomorrow. Tomorrow's programme involves the appearance of the Derry senior football team and the Tyrone minors. The county boards of both Ulster counties made it clear to the GAA authorities that they wished to go ahead with the games.

The GAA has arranged a multi-denominational prayer service at Croke Park for this afternoon. Once again a huge crowd of people from all walks of life - and of all religions and none - will be given an opportunity to express their grief and their solidarity with the victims and the bereaved. This will be far more impressive and, if my feelings are right, will convey much more profoundly to all and sundry the horror that GAA people feel at this cruel and savage attack.

Throughout the week, senior GAA figures, notably president Joe McDonagh, his predecessor Jack Boothman and director general Liam Mulvihill have spent many, many hours in the homes of the bereaved and at the funerals of the dead victims. The GAA in Tyrone and elsewhere has been deeply involved in trying to comfort all concerned from all sectors of the community.

The people who were horrendously wounded and maimed will not be aware of the matches going on in Croke Park this weekend, although many of them are closely involved with the GAA in Tyrone and elsewhere.

They will, however, in time be able to see how hurling people from Kilkenny, Waterford and Galway last week, and from Clare and Offaly today, stood in prayerful silence to show their shock and shame at a deed of devilish proportions, by people who sullied the common name of Irishmen.

Let those who have so virulently criticised the GAA go to Croke Park this afternoon and, with some humility, observe how the GAA can conduct its affairs with dignity and compassion.