Locker Room:Few things befitted the manner of Liam Mulvihill's enlightened administration of the GAA as the wistful, low-key style of his departure. On Wednesday evening coming out of Parnell Park, happy and soaked with both rain and optimism, we learned of Liam's decision to step down and wondered how many of the Dubs deliriously dandering through Donnycarney at that precise moment appreciated that the evening had greater historical import than would ever be reflected in Dublin's wonderful Leinster Under-21 hurling victory.
There was curiously little ink expended outside the sports pages on examining the ramifications of Liam Mulvihill's departure or assessing the weight of his achievements. Indeed, a Lexis Nexis search reveals the odd statistic that in the past year this paper has run 48 stories mentioning Liam Mulvihill while the Irish Independent has carried 41 such stories. This period includes Liam Mulvihill's retirement from the stewardship of Ireland's most successful sporting or cultural body.
In the same timeframe John Delaney of the FAI was central to 71 stories in this paper and 84 stories in the Irish Independent, while the average domestic murder consumes us far more completely than any evaluation of the influence of either man.
Liam is unlikely to care. It is part of his triumph that he retires as almost precisely the same indistinct figure on the gaudy streetscape of Irish celebrity that he was when he arrived into Croke Park back in the late 1970. All his legacy is preserved in the organisation he worked for.
A genial man, he has never fattened his ego with stints out in the front of the shop. He doesn't get photographed hobnobbing and is so far removed from the in crowd of Irish movers and shakers that you would be unable to include him in the same snapshot using satellite photography.
Yet it is interesting to imagine what Ireland would be like today if Liam Mulvihill had not performed with such quiet efficiency over the last three decades.
This column has often contended that, with maximum respect to Mick O'Dwyer and the greatest team that ever lived, the GAA was saved in the 70s by the imagination of Kevin Heffernan. If Kerry had never responded to Dublin's audacious arrival in 1974 or if Kerry had won eight All-Irelands without every encountering rivals so charismatic and media magnetic as Heffernan's Dublin, the game would have died in the city.
And if the GAA died in Dublin its life as a curious rural pastime would have been measurable in years and not decades. Football and hurling would have no greater part in the daily lives of today's citizenry than set dancing does.
When Liam Mulvihill sat down to work in 1979 the Dublin-Kerry rivalry was just finished and the GAA was at a crossroads. The association had survived the not-inconsiderable threat the introduction of interesting phenomena such as English soccer and casual sex had posed, but it faced the future with a small budget, a dowdy stadium and more paranoia and trepidation than Tony Soprano felt in seven series.
Worse! Nobody knew it then but the volatility of the situation in the North, the upsurge in the fortunes of the Irish soccer team and the arrival of economic good times would also pose serious threats to the wellbeing of the GAA.
The association was also weakened by its own seismically unsafe structures.
It's hard to think of another large body so open to the sufferings caused by its own surfeit of democracy and the fondness for federalism which exists among the more megaphone-happy leaders in provinces, counties and clubs.
Yet somehow by discretion and the patient use of influence Liam Mulvihill has avoided presenting himself as a target and has never been a divisive figure in a body which could shatter into smithereens if handled carelessly.
If Dev had only to look into his heart to know what was best for the Irish people, Liam Mulvihill had the same ability when it came to the GAA, an organisation virtually synonymous with the Irish people.
During the week Liam mentioned the hunger strikes of 1981 as possibly the most stressful time he endured down through the years, but in such a period of intense transition for the GAA in particular and the country in general there were never going to be many days for reclining in the hammock.
A different time left the legacy of Rules 21 and 42. Better times raised the threat of professionalism.
And how many times since 1979 must Liam Mulvihill have heard a strident voice in a meeting, in a newspaper or on the other end of a phone line denounce the GAA for "selling its soul".
We talk with hindsight of intense transition but, year in and year out within the GAA, movement appears to be frustratingly glacial. If there is a lesson from Mulvihill's time it is that the lack of pace when it comes to change is an illusion and a necessary one. History will view these times as turbulent, and if we flick through the Mulvihill years we get a decent picture of how nimble a mind it took to change things so utterly while keeping the GAA together.
A facility for taking the steam out of situations and slowing the pace was a vital implement as was an ability to effect change without feeling the need to claim the credit.
And what change! The GAA no longer fears television. Sponsors have arrived. There are logos on jerseys. And a drinks company has become an integral part of the national hurling scene. Croke Park has been rebuilt. The English rugby team have played in Croke Park. County and provincial grounds have been upgraded. English soldiers can join GAA clubs. Players have their own association or guild. National competitions have been restructured.
Practically every one of these developments involved accusations about Faustian pacts and allegations about Croke Park's desire to kill off the grassroots. Practically every one of these development was radical and anathema to diehards.
The association moved forward as a mass, however, and somehow ended up feeling the change was all its own idea.
On Friday the GAA made the entirely correct decision to call off yesterday's programme in Croke Park. Coincidental to the postponements being a mark of respect to Vanessa McGarry was the sense in which they quietly said something about Liam Mulvihill's GAA.
For a huge portion of the population there was a large hole in the weekend without big GAA action on a summer Sunday - way more than there would have been 30 years ago, a time when there was no such thing as All-Ireland hurling quarter finals, routine live coverage of big games, Saturday games and floodlit games, a time when the old Croke Park was seldom full and the number of big games the GAA could provide failed to adequately fill the summer calendar.
Soon, when he has the time, Liam Mulvihill might take a drive around Dublin, a modern city made almost visually homogenous with any other modern city by the arrival of multinational franchises and high-density housing. He might note, as this column often does, the presence of so many clubs which are central to their communities' infrastructure and spirit. From my house I can drive in a short time from St Vincent's to Na Fianna to Naomh Fionbarra and on toward Oliver Plunkett's and St Brigid's. At the M50 I can choose whether to head toward Ballyboden St Enda's, Jude's and Thomas Davis or toward Lucan Sarsfields and so on.
The GAA has survived and for all the crassness of the detractors who still refer to it as the Grab All Association it has husbanded its resources well and built for the future. Liam Mulvihill leaves behind an extraordinary testimony to his genius, a thriving, community-based sports and cultural organisation which exists as an eloquent rebuke to globalisation.
Of all the things which make this island a different place to live, the GAA - and the flavour it gives our lives - is the most significant. Its wellbeing is vital and for Liam Mulvihill it has been virtually a life's work.
He might take that drive and smile.To be able to look back on a life's work with satisfaction is to live twice. He has changed not just the face of the GAA but the face of a nation. Living twice is the least reward Liam Mulvihill deserves.
