The GAA serves communities well, but don’t expect it to solve the housing crisis
David McWilliams’s piece in this newspaper last Saturday, outlining how the GAA could help solve the housing crisis, made for typically thought-provoking reading. So much so, that I went straight to his podcast on the topic, where I discovered that the kernel of this idea struck him while driving from Sligo to Galway city, doubtless passing through my home village of Milltown along the way. He didn’t specify whether it was Milltown, Ballindine or Tubbercurry that got him thinking about co-operative housing and how the GAA’s organisational infrastructure could be utilised to make it a reality, as it is for one-third of Copenhagen’s population. But it was striking to see, in just one 24-hour period, three stories about what the GAA can and should be doing about life in 21st century Ireland. In these sports pages, Malachy Clerkin wrote about the significant work the GAA has done to try to help reduce the rates of suicide in Ireland in the last decade, and more precisely how it reacted to clubs coming directly to Croke Park in search of help. They responded to a need expressed by its members. The piece was a beautiful way to mark World Suicide Day, which fell on September 10th. Continuing along the theme set by McWilliams, there was an article in a Sunday newspaper by Colm O’Rourke wondering if the GAA needs more help to “stem the tide of rural depopulation”. There’s no doubt that a Danish model of co-operative housing is a very fine idea worth investigating, by people far smarter than me. And the issue of rural depopulation has fewer more visceral indicators than small GAA clubs suffering from a lack of playing numbers. READ MOREInside Gaelic Games: The weekly GAA newsletter from The Irish TimesGaelic Players Association to call for increase to player grants of almost 80%Cuala agree deal to buy six-acre site from Bective Rangers for €2mInternational Rules Series revival unlikely for 2026, but support remains strongIt is a sporting organisation with an incredible reach. In times of great distress, as Malachy pointed out so heartbreakingly on Saturday, clubs can be a vital comfort to suffering families. That is something they’ve always done and hopefully always will. It is only natural to see that work and ask what else they can do. But there are limits to what is achievable. My issue with the idea of co-operative housing, as driven by the GAA, is the presumption that every club member in the country is a 100 per cent proof, dyed-in-the-wool, altruistic pillar of the community. It need hardly be stated that the GAA has as many rapacious capitalists as the rest of the country. The idea that land would be sold at a much cheaper rate to a GAA co-operative if the owner of that land is a GAA member is noble. However, it’s not an idea too many clubs would be confident going to the bank with. 'GAA membership alone doesn’t confer on oneself a cloak of inherent decency and altruism'. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho If you’re a GAA club buying land, you’ll be paying market price or very close to it. People can be GAA members, farmers, developers and land speculators . . . and . . . they can give those different parts of their character different weightings depending on what side of the negotiating table they’re sitting on. GAA membership alone doesn’t confer on oneself a cloak of inherent decency and altruism. Being a person of character is about what you do, not what organisation you belong to. That’s just human nature. Similarly, the GAA can do very little to stem the tide of rural depopulation. It can plan for changing demographics, it can certainly attempt to relax rules that would ease the burden on smaller country clubs, but all it can do is react to demographic realities; it can’t change them. To be fair to Colm O’Rourke, he makes those points cogently in his piece. And as he writes, there are plenty of options available to try and strengthen rural clubs. We should be working towards a relaxation of the idea that you can only be a member of one club, for instance. If your life is in Dublin, but your summers are free and you’re capable of playing for your home club on the western seaboard for a few weeks, why should there be any barrier to that? If the presence or absence of a couple of Dublin-based players is the difference between a club’s championship survival and demise, then the best approach is clear. But any solutions in relation to the problem of rural depopulation exist within the GAA context, not in the wider global context of rural-to-urban migration, which has been continuing apace for 200 years or more. A successful series of co-operative housing developments run by the GAA would undoubtedly be a bulwark against the inevitability of young people moving out of the countryside and into urban areas. People living in rural Ireland have real difficulty building houses, sometimes even on their own family’s land. If someone as smart as David McWilliams thinks it could work for this country, I’d be excited to see the possibilities. As an organisation that has a presence in every corner of the country, the GAA can be a vital sounding board for decision-makers. The GAA’s work in the area of suicide prevention is laudable, vital community service. But more often than not the GAA is a place where the symptoms manifest itself, not a potential cure. – Ciarán Murphy’s second book “Old Parish – Notes on Hurling” (Penguin Sandycove) is released today, September 18th and is available in bookshops everywhere.
