NEWS:IT'S NEARLY two years since the ESRI caused consternation within the GAA by widely publicising the assertion that Gaelic games were in "relative decline". That was in the institute's report on sport – the fifth study in conjunction with the Irish Sports Council – Sporting Lives: An analysis of a lifetime of Irish sport.

There was also confusion, as the data on which this was based was the same as had formed the basis of the 2005 report

The Social and Economic Value of Sport

, a document that painted a different picture of a vibrant sporting organisation with a strong community base, whose participation rates ran soccer a fairly close second at the top of the team sports.

Croke Park was also puzzled because its own figures for participation were healthy and showed no signs of deterioration. The two views were reconcilable because the ESRI wasn’t measuring active participation in Gaelic games but asking a sample of the public what sports they remembered playing at school and what they now played as adults.

One of the GAA’s problems in such comparisons has been its emphasis on formal competition. The lack of casual, recreational outlets placed football and hurling at a disadvantage to soccer, which has a substantial participation rate (five per cent of its global figure) for the popular activity of its five-a-side game and also to tag-rugby. The GAA was unhappy with comparisons being drawn on what it felt was vague evidence.

“In terms of methodology there were what we felt were serious shortcomings in the methodology of the whole thing,” says Pat Daly the association’s head of games. “The biggest issue was that Gaelic games were detected as sports in ‘relative decline’.”

That was highlighted out of all proportion to what was actually happening. “In defining participation you need a standard measure. If you kick a ball around a beach you would be deemed to have played soccer. Any casual or informal involvement was classified as participation. You need to define and quantify more clearly what participation is”.

He does, however, accept the lack of an organised social or recreational outlet was a shortcoming in the GAA’s range of activities, something that is currently being explored in relation to both football and hurling. “As a research finding we took that seriously and knew that we would have to address the recreational issue.”

Daly's misgivings were vindicated by the publication last month of the second annual report of the The Irish Sports Monitor(a rolling project also under the aegis of the ESRI), which assessed the impact of recession on sport for the year 2008. Gaelic games held their own in terms of participation with soccer declining slightly but still being the most popular and rugby recording an increase.

Individual activities, which were highlighted as recording the greatest levels of growth in the 2008 report have predictably been hit hardest by the economic downturn with gym and exercise classes declining and no longer being the most common sporting activity, which for the year in question was swimming.

The volunteerism in the GAA so notable in the 2005 report has held steady although with soccer, despite its slightly lower participation, making up some ground.

“It’s more palatable and a more accurate reflection of what’s happening,” says Daly of the recent report. “That’s where we would have had an issue with the previous one. It didn’t seem to stack. Our only measure of playing participation is the number of team affiliations. That has been steady at around 20,000, showing no drop but a slight increase. We are also satisfied that the games development system we have in place will sustain our numbers and allow for growth.

“There were 82,500 at the Cúl Camps (summer coaching for children, sponsored by the VHI). There have been some suggestions that we could push this up towards 100,000 but I think that would over-tax our capacity to deliver camps with the positive responses we currently get.”

One negative finding of the recent report was that attendance levels for sport in general have fallen with Gaelic football particularly affected, a trend detectable in the GAA’s own comparative figures for 2007 and 2008, which showed the football championship average attendance falling by around 1,000 from just over 20,000 to just over 19,000.

Nonetheless it’s difficult to detect trends year on year given the different draws in the championships and the unpredictability of replays. According to the GAA’s figures last year, as the recession began to bite harder, attendances held up to 2008 levels.