Sir, – Eugene Tannam (Letters, 4 October 4th) suggests that there should be three Gaelic football teams in Dublin on the grounds that "the greater Dublin area has a population of almost two million". The greater Dublin area is already home to four GAA county teams – Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. If Dublin itself was split in three, there would be more teams in that area than in the entire province of Connaught. The inevitable complaint then would be that the competition is too Dublin-centric.
If a decision were taken to redefine GAA county boundaries on the basis of population, there is no reason why that should be restricted to Dublin. For example, Cork also has a very large population (550,000) relative to most other counties, while Leitrim has a population of just 30,000.
The natural extension of Mr Tannam’s logic is that counties all over the island should be amalgamated or split to create 32 new teams, each representing approximately 200,000 residents. This would destroy almost 130 years of history and tradition, and in my opinion it would be a spectacular mistake. – Yours, etc,
PAT DIGNAM,
Marcus Beach,
Queensland, Australia.