Playing in five green fields

Lord knows, but it's time to start picking out nursing homes when you start seizing on the things politicians say and using them as the platform for a column. Still, it's January and times is hard and the Liam Lawlor stockpiling his soap-on-a-rope joke won't stretch to 950 words, therefore Mr Eamon O Cuiv shall be press-ganged into service this Monday morning.

Young Dev was speaking at the weekend (At a dinner party? In Mandarin? To his manicurist? I just don't know.) about the development of extra counties and the possibility of creating an extra province, thus returning ourselves to the historical quotient of five provinces (Cuige, he said being the word for both a province and fifth. True. You'll often hear Yanks asking for a cuige of bourbon at the liquor store).

This is an idea about which I have no consistent line of opinion and, frankly, two narky letters from readers will be enough to make me change my mind again. For the moment, however, I am passionately with George W Dev III. I hereby declare my intention to fight for a 35-county socialist republic.

As with any job which I like the look of, it's half-done already. I am here to argue (and this is novel) that the GAA should look at following the example of the real world. Hold on to your hat Bridie.

The cradle of modern civilisation, which we know as Dublin, has already been split administratively into four units. In reality people now live in Fingal or Dun Laoighaire/Rathdown or South-Dublin or Dublin. Why can't they play Gaelic games for those places?

I know, I know, I know, there will be those who say that there is no need to see trees any other way than the way they always have been seen. The argument will be made that 32 counties and four provinces is the mathematical ideal for GAA competitions.

There are many good reasons, however, for converting Dublin into four counties. Firstly, having four votes would give us a little of the influence which the Galway hurlers have on GAA affairs. (Galway can dictate that they would like to play in a championship which guarantees them two games, on Sundays when there is a full moon and nothing good on the telly, these games to be played mainly against teams composed of Pisceans and Taureans provided that the temperature is "balmy".)

More critical, however, is the state of the game here. Dublin is a huge, teeming area to have to administrate, and through nobody's fault (I doubt there is a better county secretary than John Costello in the country) the games are struggling. Despite ourselves, we are struggling.

People often ask how come a city with one-and-a-half million people only wins an All-Ireland once a decade (with the Kevin Heffernan years being a major aberration), and the question presupposes that winning All-Irelands would be unavoidable to any other county if they had that population.

People don't get it. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that a population of 1.5 million people is a weakness in itself. The city is alive with distractions, the fixture lists are chaotic, there can only be 15 players on the field anyway so a tiny proportion of the playing population gets to play representative football or hurling, while the majority just drift away.

Inevitably there is a dilution of the sort of intimacy and passion which other counties thrive on. There are 1.5 million people here, but the GAA community doesn't reflect that in its size.

Recently the county has begun to select development squads at underage level and hot-housing those kids through to senior level. Fine idea, but the game as a whole would benefit from this being done in each of the "Dublin" counties. In a place like Tallaght, which has become a city in itself, the GAA has light years to make up on soccer. Right now it's possible to imagine an Irish national soccer team made up entirely of Tallaght lads someday.

So why not recognise reality? Establish a seven-county GAA province involving the four Dublin counties and perhaps their hinterlands of Kildare, Wicklow and Meath. I don't believe that Dublin would win fewer All-Irelands, but I do believe that the 1.5 million people living here would play more GAA. Besides, the needs of the game are greater than the needs of one county (Are you getting this Galway?).

Sure, there would be a tricky transition period, and Fingal might have to send out a team with 15 John O'Leary haircuts. But in Dublin as it stands the game offers its best opportunities to too few players. People will carp about the relative club strengths in a divided county, but that's the point in a way.

Why should Sylvesters be the only strong team in Fingal right now? The current structure disguises the huge areas of Dublin which are GAA wasteland. With 1.5 million people we can manage to compete, but not to get the best out of ourselves.

Hurling would benefit from the micro attention. It's not that Dublin people can't hurl or won't hurl; there are hurling people in this city who love the game with a passion that's unequalled anywhere. It's just that the game gets lost. Too few players get too little intercounty experience, the standard of club hurling is poor, football is pre-eminent, we need a separate hurling board and more money for primary school players. Much more.

So here's the plan. Dump Rule 42 at Congress. Cut a deal to make Croker the National Stadium. On GAA terms: £100 million tax-free up front, plus rentals plus charitable status for the national games. Split Dublin up. Pour the cash into development and promotions. Live happily ever after.

Complaints? Contact Eamon O Cuiv at Dail Eireann. It's in the book.