Here we go again. Last week's report of the Patten Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland has once more dragged a reluctant GAA in from the railway sidings of political life here and the largest sporting and cultural organisation on this island has given every indication that it did not enjoy the experience. The further distance it is now being asked to travel by the Patten Report is certain to be just as uncomfortable a journey.
In the quid pro quo world of Northern politics the GAA, and more specifically Rule 21, was always going to be one of the focal points of both the Patten Report itself and of public reaction to it. At times, it has all threatened to descend into an unseemly process of horse-trading where a name change or alteration to the police force's oath as concessions to Nationalists would be matched by the offering up of Rule 21 to placate Unionists. This was always a situation in which the GAA was likely to be uneasy because implicit in it was a working assumption that the Association would no longer retain autonomy over its own rulebook and administration.
When the Report finally reached the welcoming arms of the media the recommendation with regard to the GAA and Rule 21 was number 114 of 175 such proposals. It was brief and to the point. "The Gaelic Athletic Association should repeal its rule 21," recommendation 114 read, "which prohibits members of the police in Northern Ireland from being members of the Association."
So far so good, but this anodyne proposal was hardly likely to push out the boundaries of the debate. After all, the GAA had already committed itself to removal of the rule at its Annual Congress of April 1998 when the Association President, Joe McDonagh, said that: "Cumman Luthcleas Gael pledges its intent to delete Rule 21 from its official guide". The bankruptcy of the exclusionary rule in a more stable political situation had already been conceded by the GAA and the Patten recommendation was doing little more than mirroring that policy position. Hardly the stuff of the invogue seismic shift.
The full report goes into more detail with regards to the GAA and Rule 21 in its section on recruitment and should provide the GAA with much more food for thought than the simplistic call for the lifting of the prohibition on members of the police force joining the Association.
At 15.2 of the full text of the Patten Report there is a recommendation that "all community leaders including. . .sports authorities should take steps to remove all discouragements to members of their communities applying to join the police and make it a priority to encourage them to apply." The suggestion that Rule 21 be repealed is then followed by this supplementary observation. "The continued existence of this rule in the light of our recommendations can only be a deterrent to the recruitment of Catholics, or a factor in separating those Catholics who do join the police from an important part of their culture."
Remarkably, this suggestion that the GAA should operate as a proactive force and should "encourage" its members to apply to join the proposed new policing service has been ignored amid the now-familiar clamour surrounding the removal of Rule 21. In all the media urgings to force the GAA into a knee-jerk response to the Rule 21 recommendation, the dramatic and revolutionary new role envisaged for the GAA by Chris Patten's Commission has been completely overlooked.
If the Association were to implement Patten fully, it would be going to places that were hardly envisaged when it emerged as a sporting and cultural force over a century ago. There are tough, thorny questions inextricably bound up in Patten and the knots in which the GAA could entangle itself trying to confront them may make the removal of Rule 21 seem like an everyday piece of administrative good housekeeping. How far is it envisaged that the GAA will have to go in encouraging applications? Would putting up recruitment posters in clubrooms be sufficient? Will the club provide application forms for budding young recruits? What about inviting senior officers to come and speak to young players about their career prospects?
As the dust settles on Patten, all these questions and many more besides will circle around the GAA. There are difficult times ahead because there are individuals and groupings ready and eager to move in for the kill should the Association prove itself to be anything less than sure-footed and confident. Already the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, has extended the consultation period on the Patten recommendations until November. This at least affords the GAA some breathing space but the position in which it finds itself is likely to become more difficult the longer the political situation here remains paralysed.
But just as McDonagh's proposals were stalled in the face of Northern scepticism and uncertainty, so the entire process itself has slowed dramatically over the past 18 months. The caveat to the commitment to remove a rule that was regarded as long having served its purpose was that such a move could only take place when all the proposed reforms of the Belfast Agreement had been implemented. With so many of those still stranded in the starting gates, it is hardly surprising that Rule 21 has remained similarly stalled.
In a climate of uncertainty you can take it that there won't be a rush to support any changes to Rule 21 in the rural clubs of south Derry and east Tyrone or in the urban strongholds of north and west Belfast.
A year ago the GAA President made Rule 21 part of the wider political framework in this island and as a direct result his Association is now deeply entrenched in that same political process. In the absence of any real progress in the surrounding society, the renewed calls for the swift removal of the most contentious rule in the GAA's Official Guide are as misguided and as consigned to failure in the current climate as they were a year ago.
