So the money arrived. The GAA always seemed confident the Government would cough up the withheld 38 million, particularly after news of the Lansdowne Road public subvention was announced earlier this year, but it was presumably a relief to hear the cheques were in the post.

Again though the grant has been paid in magic money - a theory, originally propounded by a reader's letter to this newspaper in the wake of the 1997 budget, which announced a subvention of £20 million towards the Croke Park redevelopment.

That letter writer, as a GAA member, thanked the Government for the grant but wished the minister had not used "magic money".

This he had deduced from the widespread outrage the announcement had provoked. Complaints had come from all sorts of interest groups claiming the grant had been taken from them.

The reader could only surmise that for the same money to have been earmarked for hospitals, schools and rehab services it would have to be magic and accordingly he asked the minister to take back the magic money and give the GAA a different £20 million.

Last week's extra million constituted a bit of interest on the promised sum although there was no compensation for the damage to the association that flowed from the Government's cute-hoor manoeuvring over the use of Croke Park.

Having had wads of cash thrown its way on the eve of a debate on Rule 42 - thus effectively undermining the commercial argument for opening the ground to other sports and advancing the cause of the Stadium Ireland project - the GAA then had its arm twisted in order to let UEFA inspect Croke Park as part of the pantomime of the Euro 2008 bid.

These are just the highlights of the tortuous campaign through which the GAA was used to further the cause of the ultimately doomed Abbotstown proposals.

Anyway the campaign didn't work and once the Government got over its fit of pique at Seán McCague's pungent remarks on the Euro 2008 carry-on, the money was eventually paid over. So that's that.

Except that the GAA has been put through the turmoil of a freshly embittered Rule 42 debate. The timing of the 2001 announcement undoubtedly influenced that year's Congress debate, lost by only one vote, and triggered the ensuing years of rancour, which has led to the usual offensive labelling of one side by another.

It is to be hoped that the payment of last week will remove the most vexatious item on the landscape of the Rule 42 issue, but it's unlikely to lead to a more harmonious atmosphere to a debate that has featured some depressing invective over the past 12 months.

One of the reasons for this is the debate has become almost entirely centred on finance and squabbling over whether letting Croke Park for rugby and soccer internationals is worth the money.

Whereas this isn't irrelevant to the overall argument it shouldn't be central. Opponents of deleting the rule tend to belittle the sums of money available and, correspondingly, proponents tend to exaggerate the likely benefits.

The GAA itself has contributed to this. In his annual report last April the association's director general, Liam Mulvihill, summarised the two sides of the Rule 42 debate in a less than impartial manner.

For a start, seven lines were allocated to the case for repeal but the case for keeping the rule ran to 30. Secondly, the seven lines encompassed one point: "There is the view that opening Croke Park to other sports would be a hugely significant financial bonanza, which would be of major benefit in eliminating the debt on Croke Park . . ."

Leaving aside the caricatured exaggeration of the above summary, I enquired whether confining the pro-change case to the financial argument was to undersell it. Hadn't the 2001 debate been about more than just rental? "Not significantly," was the response.

A review of the notes from that debate tells a different story. Of the 19 speakers, 10 were in favour of giving Central Council the right to determine the use of Croke Park and nine were against.

But six of those in favour, 60 per cent, based their argument on making an inclusive gesture and reciprocating the helpfulness of other sports organisations.

There were examples from around the country of other sports allowing GAA members use their facilities. Most memorably, the delegate from the European Board, Cathal Lynch, listed the different sports whose venues sustained the impressively busy schedules of the GAA on the continent.

"The world is changing, becoming multicultural. We should have the self-confidence to go ahead as the biggest sports organisation in the country," he added.

Since then the debate has become more polarised and rancorous and the reformers' arguments have fallen back more on the financial imperative. It's not that strong a line.

At best the income would run to a couple of million a year, by no means a bonanza. But equally, it would be better to have it than not. It would, for instance, service the now reduced debt.

Nor is there much of a downside. The "competing sports" argument has always tended to overlook the fact that international matches go ahead anyway.

Rugby and soccer will get its television exposure wherever the matches are played and even if the FAI and IRFU have to go to England or Wales, they'll still fill a big stadium and make their money. It's just that thousands of Irish people, many of them GAA members, would be put to additional trouble and expense.

The better question is to ask, "What harm would it do the GAA?" Even the argument implicit in the past presidents' decision to rule motions on Rule 42 out of order on the grounds of Rule 5 is spurious. The latter rule basically states that the GAA can't do anything in conflict with the association's basic aims, contained in rules 2, 3 and 4.

Rules 3 and 4 concern promoting Gaelic games and other aspects of Irish culture.

Rule 2 refers to "strengthening of the national identity in a 32-county Ireland through (my italics) the preservation and promotion of Gaelic games" - an aim and ideal well vindicated by the 32-county structure of the GAA and its championships.

For instance Croke Park is quite happy and within its rights to lease function rooms in the new stadium to Government departments, each one as blameless a creature of partition as the international soccer team.

The experience of the past four years suggests better reasons for approaching the Government with extreme caution.