Sweet days on and off the pitch

It started first of all as a half-believed rumour. Down Crossmaglen way they'd heard this sort of thing too many times before to drop everything and start dancing around the old market square in the centre of the village. But last Saturday afternoon, as a small crowd filed in for Armagh's last National League qualifying game against Leitrim, the men on the gate were animatedly passing on the news to anyone who would listen. "It's been on the radio," one said. "They're going to give it back."

As the formalities of Armagh's half-paced demolition of a rudderless Leitrim side were played out in front of them, the report that the land owned by the Crossmaglen GAA club and occupied by the joint British Army-RUC base since the early 1970s was to be returned dominated most of the supporters' conversations.

The base was built on ground requisitioned from the club over 25 years ago at the height of the Troubles and the effect on the club and on its activities has been insidious and it has been ongoing. It ranges from the inconvenience of footballs kicked into the base that are never returned to the taking off and landing of helicopters when games are in progress. As if to drive this point home, the start of Saturday's match was accompanied by the cacophonous roar of a huge machine coming into land. It was like it always is here on match day - Apocalypse Now meets Gaelic games.

The continued occupation of the ground has been a running sore for the GAA and motions calling for its return have been annual events at Congress. There were years when it was possible to detect a certain level of ennui among some Southern delegates as the articulate club and provincial representatives meticulously laid bare their grievance and made an eloquent case for the return of what had been taken. Throughout it all, they never allowed the apparent disinterest to deter them. Last weekend's decision was a tribute to their level-headed persistence and to their unyielding insistence that right was on their side.

There was also a determination that normality would, as far as was possible, continue. The yellowing newspaper photographs and the accompanying reports that cover the walls of the modern clubhouse are documentary history of a club with fierce pride in its own achievements. Nestling in amongst them is a victorious under-12 side from around 10 years ago. Holding the ball in the middle is the team captain, a slight little boy called Oisin McConville. In the rows behind him are brothers, John and Tony McEntee. A decade later all three are double club All-Ireland medal winners. Crossmaglen have welded excellence on to the hard-won normality.

If as, seems eminently likely, the timing of last Saturday's announcement was carefully planned, then Mo Mowlam's Northern Ireland Office would have been delighted by the organised chaos of the first floor tea room as the rumour became confirmed fact.

Top of the interview wish-list was Crossmaglen manager and former Armagh country colossus, Joe Kernan. His personality has been imprinted all over the team from this small part of south Armagh and he is very much the figurehead of the team that has won two All-Ireland club titles in the last three years. His mantra through this year's campaign was that a good team wins a national title but that it takes a great side to come back to win two.

Having scaled that peak on the park, this was a sweet day off it. "I suppose like everyone I was a bit sceptical when I heard it first," he said. "But now that it has been confirmed this is just such great news for the club and for everyone here. After beating Ballina (in the St Patrick's Day final) this is like a double celebration for us."

Kernan's scepticism was typical of the muted joy around the ground and clubhouse as the afternoon wore on. First there was no definite withdrawal date, only Mo Mowlam's commitment to do so "as soon as practicable". After almost three decades, there was concern about the lack of precision and the seemingly conditional nature of the commitment.

Causing even more concern was the fact that the announcement had been made just two weeks before the annual GAA Congress was due, once more, to debate the issue. A similar motion last year had attracted more attention than usual because of aborted attempts to graft it on to the Rule 21 debate. Twelve months ago - amidst the anything-is-possible, post-Good Friday Agreement euphoria - the rule barring members of the RUC and security forces from joining the association was put up for discussion by the president, Joe McDonagh.

Sensing that they were about to be railroaded into a fundamental change that many did not even have the authority to sanction, the Ulster delegates dug in their heels and a compromise commitment to remove the rule at some stage in the future was agreed. Privately, many expressed dismay at the linkage that was being made between Rule 21 and the Crossmaglen issue whereby the resolution of the latter would in some way pave the way for reform of the rulebook.

Crossmaglen officials have insisted time and again that their particular situation had nothing to do with Rule 21 and was instead a simple matter of a wrong having been done to them for which they were seeking redress. The concern last Saturday was that the return of the occupied ground would be interpreted as paving the way for a re-examination of Rule 21. The inevitable yoking together of the two issues has been made in some sections of the media here and some Unionist politicians have duly hopped on board to apply Rule 21 pressure.

But if Ulster delegates were resistant to change 12 months ago, then all the indications that events of the past year have only hardened attitudes. With the report of the Patten Commission on RUC reform due during the summer, there is change in the air here and the preferred option is to wait and see what will happen. Significantly, Sean McCague, the Ulster front-runner in the upcoming Congress election to succeed Joe McDonagh, was avowedly non-committal when asked about Rule 21 over the weekend. "We had to be conscious of the need for policing reforms and the growth of the Good Friday Agreement and I think we took a measured and balanced position last year," he said.

For the people of Crossmaglen, that is an unwelcome distraction. Saturday was their day, the day for which some members had waited almost 30 years. It was vindication of their repeated refusal to be side-tracked into the ever-present political whys and where-fores of life here. And it was proof for everyone that there is more than one way of bringing about change.