In the GAA, change has moved on. It has moxie now, and velocity. Change might still be the result of a pitched battle or it might arrive late, or by default, or after the event, or after much agonising, or by dubious compromise, or by a process of mutual back-scratching, or by committee – capital C. Or at annual congress, with a flashy display of hands-in-the-air transparency after weeks of back-channel manoeuvring.
But change comes more often now. It is has grown a brass neck. Change has made itself electable. For generations the GAA had an institutional contract with the status quo. It was safe. They had history. There was comfort in known quantities. In knowing where the ceiling was. Being able to touch it.
That’s gone. Blown to hell.
This weekend Gaelic football shacked up with a new set of rules. It was a whirlwind romance, and the rules are fast and risky, and maybe the relationship won’t last, but the GAA is not necessarily looking for lifetime commitments now.
Malachy Clerkin: Shane Walsh finds quirk in new rules to show FRC’s work is nowhere near done
Five things we learned from the GAA weekend: Dublin set out into the unknown while Tipp sound battle cry
GAA catfish saga: The way Irish people know and trust each other is coming apart
Unshackled from tradition, the GAA has made change the new normal
The GAA has embraced the notion of not being married forever to the past; or not being married forever to a mistake. If some of the rules don’t work they will try something else. They won’t stay together for the sake of appearances. There will be another change that will exclude what used to be the status quo.
For narrative convenience the turn of the century is a handy jumping off point. The GAA has changed more in the last 25 years than it did in the previous 100. Before this weekend the last time that a score in Gaelic football had a value other than three and one was in 1896. On a GAA pitch now there are more white lines than at an Oscars after-party. Change has become so widespread and endemic that in many ways we stopped taking notice. Change became the new normal.
The first season of the football qualifiers was in 2001, where every beaten team was given a second chance – three years after hurling had granted a reprieve to provincial final losers. Once the GAA filed for separation from sudden death championships a skyscape of options materialised. The critical intellectual leap had been taken.
The current format for the football championship is a dodo, but it is the third different system this century – not including the pandemic-induced return to sudden death. There will be another new format next year, and it will be better. The hurling championship is in its third different championship format in this century too, but the current iteration is a diamond. Finding a sustainable solution for football is overdue. Choosing championship formats can’t be like swiping left or right on a dating app.
But they won’t be wedded to a mistake. The championship systems that took us through the 20th century were no longer fit for purpose, and that had probably been true for decades; in that time, though, change was not even considered. It was unthinkable.
What protected the old system? Tradition. For generations tradition was a religion in the GAA. Any suggestion of change that ran contrary to tradition was regarded as blasphemous. What we have seen in the last 25 years is the secularisation of GAA society. You are still free to worship tradition but you’re not at liberty to ram it down anyone’s throat.
So Croke Park was opened up to rugby and soccer, and then Páirc Uí Chaoimh and other county grounds. McHale Park in Castlebar will host a URC game between Connacht and Munster in April.
Up and down the country traditional rivalries have been turned on their heads or have died a horrible death. Dublin and Meath in football, one the great legacy rivalries, is a crock now; so is Cork and Kerry. Tipperary are in the grip of their worst ever run without a win against Limerick in hurling; Clare have equalled their best ever run against Cork – four wins in a row, having beaten the Rebels just once in their previous 16 championship meetings.
For generations Clare took pride in being a traditional hurling county when in fact tradition was a yoke around their necks. They weren’t alone. Tradition was an instrument of oppression all over the GAA landscape. When the outcomes of big matches were being debated, tradition was an active ingredient in the conversation. Now, in the GAA’s secular world, tradition is more like a superstition. Believe it if you like.
The traditional calendar was ripped up. All-Ireland finals are no longer played in September, and it is unlikely that they ever will be again. St Patrick’s Day was abandoned for the club finals. The championship starts in April. Extra-time and penalty shoot-outs have trumped replays – which had been one of the great traditions of the championship.
You might not like some of those changes, or all of them. But good arguments were made, and change was embraced because enough people thought it was necessary – even if it was uncomfortable or was bound to generate blowback. For generations the GAA avoided that kind of conflict. Not changing was easier. Tradition gave them cover.
Big intercounty games are no longer tethered to 3.30pm on a Sunday. In 2000 the All-Ireland football final replay was staged on a Saturday for the first time, and there has been a blast of Saturday replays since. All of them have been at teatime.
Traditional Irish music is still played at GAA matches, but not exclusively. For the big championship games there is a DJ in the house who will play something in tune with the euphoria at the final whistle. An upbeat number that was recorded since the turn of the century.
On the pitch the old orthodoxies have been thrashed. Goalkeepers run the show. You can pass the ball across your own goal if you like. Or backwards. In the 2017 All-Ireland hurling final only one pickup was executed with two hands on the hurley; for 100 years “two hands on the hurley” was a key article of the faith, and the fallback remedy for every cock-up on a hurling field.
Hurling and football were designed as a series of man-to-man contests; now there are loose players everywhere. With permission.
The bottom line is that nothing is sacred any more. Did you see that coming? Me neither.
