Sideline Cut: January is the touring season for the Gael. It is the only month of the year when the every waking thought of the virtuous Gael is not dedicated to the holy trinity of the jersey, the championship and the parish lottery. It is the one month of the year when you can ring up a county manager to be told: "Sure it's January. Paddy is away trekking in Vietnam with the county secretary." It is the one month of the year when you can see headlines like "Kilkenny ace strains groin on Great Wall of China".

It is a noble and Corinthian idea, that of the Gael on tour, one that has its roots in the earliest days of the GAA, when stars sailed for America to embark on exhibitions that could last for months on end. The annual All Star tour is the modern ode to those ambitious ventures, but over the past few decades it has become standard practice for individual counties to organise their own global jaunts, partly as a reward for the hard work of the season past and also as an exercise in bonding.

I have always found touching the notion of dozens of tightly knit county expeditions setting out boldly for various parts of the globe, determined to leave a small part of Bali, for instance, that will be forever Offaly. Although the Irish can be found in almost every part of the globe - chances are you could explore the most remote sections of the Amazon rainforest only to bump into some hoor from Tubbercurry who runs an eco-disco or something - we are not instinctively natural travellers.

The logistics of organising the travel arrangements for a county team, complete with wives, partners, sundry officials, referees and a few lads brought along on the basis that they are great craic, are little short of miraculous.

In centuries to come, anthropologists will study the Clare trip to Thailand circa 1995 with the same awe and fascination as today's academics reserve for Napoleon's march across the Alps.

The Gael is willing to travel in body but his heart and mind rarely stray too far from the home patch. It is a long time ago now since a county team, possibly from Mayo, undertook a winter tour of Greece, taking in all the historical splendours and an odd pint of ouzo for good measure. After a long and dusty day on the streets of Athens, the touring party decided to spend the evening dining in the foothills of the Acropolis.

The wine flowed as several speeches were made, invoking promises to bring home Sam. It all became too much for a long-serving county treasurer who, when asked by a courteous Greek waiter if he had climbed up to visit the Acropolis, stood up and pointed to the great wonder, lit up in the night sky.

"Visit the Acropolis?" he thundered, eyes brimming with tears of patriotism and pride. "Nikos, a chara, wasn't it Mayomen that built the fecking Acropolis?"

And in a way, it probably was. The Gael is a more cosmopolitan traveller now but at heart he remains a home bird. Gone is the day when the Gael's concession to beachwear was confined to discarding the Sunday shirt and rolling the trouser legs to a fetching mid-calf length, perfect for a tentative flirtation with the first few inches of the Atlantic or Pacific or whatever ocean he happened to be visiting.

No, January is the month that sees the editors of fashion institutions like Cosmopolitan and Vanity Affair debating whether to use the latest Kate Moss snap or the freshly-minted image of the GAA president emerging from the azure waters of Antigua or some such place, the CLG logo prominently positioned on his Speedos.

The Gael is a sandalled, pastel-wearing fellow nowadays. He can be seen at the departure lounges of many international airports, his Dan Brown in one hand, his copy of Micheál's autobiography in the other. The Gael wears the kind of sunglasses only Don Henley and the other Eagles had the chutzpah to sport. As is often noted at Congress, the confidence of the Gael has never been higher.

So why shouldn't he wear surf shorts and shirts adorned with palm trees when on tour? I imagine there are many nations, accustomed to the annual migratory habits of GAA counties, who brace themselves for these January excursions.

It is phenomenal, really, how forceful the impact of a lively GAA group can be on any one city or country. A few years ago, this column had the pleasure of visiting Argentina with the elite hurlers that formed the All Star teams of 2000 and 2001. Buenos Aires was a particularly enchanting city and, from a sporting sense, the tour was made memorable by a ridiculously good display of goalkeeping from Tipperary's Brendan Cummins.

But the sight that stays with me - haunts me, to be honest - is that of several if not the entire Tipperary hurling defence taking the dance floor at a chic Buenos Aires nightclub to express themselves to Ricky Martin's Living La Vida Loca.

I think it is fair to say that Argentina has never seen anything like it. It was, to say the least, an unforgettable exhibition of dancing: organised, intense, powerful, provocative, just that fatal half beat out of time and, in a strange way, beautiful. But the important thing was that sight of these famous Gaels taking to the floor with such panache and gusto had a devastating effect on the famously fragile Argentinian male ego.

The local men, suave and handsome as they might have been, were shattered and demoralised by what they witnessed that evening. I believe a generation of Argentinian men never tangoed again, in any sense. And they say Juan Veron witnessed the whole thing from the VIP section and has not kicked a football in a meaningful way since. It is only a matter of time before international economists begin to link the irreversible freefall of the Argentinian economy with the Tipperary men's bold and hypnotic appreciation of Martin's irrepressible Latino classic.

Of course, a week later, the hurling lads were back on their native fields, in the darkness and wet, allowing the trainer to perform the exorcism commonly known as "running the shite out of them". The classic GAA training response to any form of exoticism, be it a spicy meal or a foreign country, is to line the athletes up at the first available opportunity and make them run until they faint.

That is the fate that awaits this year's tourists also. Shortly, the GAA All Stars will depart for Singapore, although they - and the Far East in general - will be denied the pleasure of the Corkonian wit and banter as the Rebels, true to their nature, are embarking on a tour of their own. Bon Voyage to them all, I say.

These tours are just the Gaels' way of confirming that there is no place like home. The eight wonders of the world are all very well. But where in the name of God above would you be without Meath versus Westmeath on a filthy February Sunday?