Another View - The Blog

 Devil will be in detail of Mayo GAA 'review' terms

By Terry Reilly

SO Mayo GAA Board is finally to conduct a review into the state of football in the county.

The Board, following the early exit of the senior team from the championship this year, is to hold a series of meetings over the coming weeks and months. Clubs and their delegates, and members of the senior football panel will have the opportunity to express and articulate their views.

The Board, in its recent statement, said it was important that all those involved in the game in the county get the chance to contribute to the review.

Rather intriguingly, the Board statement added: “We do not think that it is constructive for the floor to be opened to everyone as has happened on local radio …. While many of those who have contributed have the best interests of Mayo football at heart, we do not feel that all who have voiced their opinion do. Therefore we believe it would be more prudent and productive if those involved at all levels of our game in the county be given the chance to voice their thoughts through the medium of this review process.

”With the review subject to take place in the coming weeks, it has been decided to defer the appointment of the next senior football manager until after this process has been finalised. We feel that to do otherwise would take some focus and direction away from the matter at hand - namely the overall welfare of the game in our county,” the County Board statement added.

 All genuine followers of the Green and the Red look forward to what the Board terms the ‘more precise details on this review’ which will follow at a later date. The ‘precise details’ will be scrutinised as the real meat in the sandwich, hopefully the filling that will provide real sustenance.

 Questions on followers’ minds will no doubt include: How wide-ranging will the review be? What is its scope? Will there be a thorough audit of all the clubs in the county? An audit into club membership and structures? Demographics? Marketing and market penetration? Skills? Coaching? Budgets? Playing numbers? Public Relations? A holistic examination to embrace the whole gamut of the organisation in the county?

 Will the last three county team managers at under 16, Minor, U-21 and senior levels be interviewed, asked for their views, and for the insights/statistics they must have garnered during their terms?

 And, probably most of all, everyone connected with Mayo football will want to know what independent-minded set of people will carry out the review

 To put it simply, the review (I prefer if it were called an ‘audit’) must be based on business principles. To be specific: if you were a member of Board of Directors of a corporate body that had spent the equivalent of maybe 50 million euro over the last sixty years in attempting to get your product into a dominant position in the marketplace but had failed to regain your premier position on the shelf, you would surely be asking serious questions - assuming, of course, that you had retained your position. How many heads would have rolled in the interim in business? And, no, I am not talking about the salesmen!

 For many years now I have thought it ludicrous that after Mayo lose out in the championship there is a big mad  rush to question the competence of the team manager, or the full-back, or the midfielder or advance the notion that we don’t have any ‘forwards’.  I have been writing about this nonsensical approach for years, and calling for an audit - yes, it’s on the record of this paper. I have asked some county managers over the years to leave their audit with the County Board when they stepped down from their responsibilities with their teams. Don’t know if that ever happened (I suspect it didn’t) or even if the managers were ever asked to do so. I have tried to persuade friends who inevitably ask who the next Mayo manager is going to be to think again before they pursue that lazy questioning, pleading that they stop putting the cart before the horse.

 Four years ago, when John P Kean and I were interviewed on Mid West Radio by Tommy Marren, I voiced the fairly radical view that who was appointed team manager was largely irrelevant in the context of a Mayo football scenario badly damaged by repeated Croke Park batterings. John P. was of a similar mind, but our views did not exactly curry favour with some County Board officials.  Fix other things, provide the basis for going forward and give the players and the manager a platform from which to launch their charge, we argued then. Don’t just continue to sit back and hope that the manager will have a magic wand that can cure all Mayo’s ills, we pleaded. Sixty years of hoping shows that things don’t work out like that. There is no fairy godmother, and desperate prayers to the Man on high haven’t exactly worked either.

 And no, it’s NOT a blame game. Clubs, their members, county board members and officials all share in the blame if there is to be blame.  Let’s move on… avoid personal abuse, and handy cockshots. Let’s all take an objective view of things, come up with the leadership, the ambition, the motivation, the vision, the plan. Let’s just try to put Team Mayo back in business.

 It is, of course, not easy to get people to really engage in deeper analysis of what might be wrong with Mayo football.  It has amused me that while it is very easy to get business people to talk about how their company is performing, their marketing spend, their staffing levels, their projections, the bottom line,  the whole nine yards in fact.  Yet, by and large, these same people, once they put their club or county colours on, let emotion take over from their business brain: they cannot tell you the key stats from their club game, cannot tell you how many Under 16 county titles at various levels they have pencilled in as a target in their 5 year plan, cannot tell you the demographics of the parish, haven’t head-hunted people with key skills to help out in the club drive to be more relevant in and for the community.

 Crazy, isn’t it!  ‘So what?’ I can hear people ask. ‘We are just every bit as good as the next county in how we run our affairs.’  Maybe so, but if Mayo wants to scale the football heights again and start nailing All-Ireland titles. The combined effort has be much better than what the county next door is doing. Either that, orlet’s us just  relax and be content with winning the Connacht title on a fairly regular basis. Just leave the big stuff to the counties that are well organised, and/or have a winning tradition like the Kerrys and the Kilkennys of  GAA-land.

 They are at the business end of affairs. A mix of  tradition, expectation, planning, leadership and vision keeps them there.

 The ‘Mayo audit’, if carried out with due diligence, objectivity and an open-mindedness so as to come up with the solutions to what we yearn to achieve, can be the stepping stone to better times. If not, it can only retard the situation.

 Hence the heightened expectation as we look forward to the devil in the ‘precise details’. Stay tuned and keep the faith!

Email: terryreilly@eircom.net

Another View-The Blog  By Terry Reilly

Get your certificate of Irishness!

ARE you one of the 70 million people around the world of Irish descent who do not qualify for Irish citizenship but would love some tangible piece of paper to prove your links with the old sod?
 Well, listen up as they say in my neck of the woods, for I have news for you. Our Government has just announced plans to introduce a certificate of Irish heritage for people dotted around the gobe who have a hint of Irish blood in them. 

 I kid you not. Our Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has decided to proceed with the initiative, which was first proposed at the Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin last year when people from all over the world with Irish blood in their veins came together to propose ways and means of getting us through this recession which has left approximately 14% of our population out of work.
 The certificates will be issued by a third party agency acting under licence from the Department of Foreign Affairs, which is considering charging a fee for each document issued. It is intended that the initiative will be self-financing, and is not designed to raising significant amounts of revenue.
 The scale of the market for a heritage certificate is not known. But the feeling is that many descendants of Irish emigrants would wish to buy one to display in their homes or as gifts for their children.

Read more

Another View The Blog

June 26, 2010.  A little after 9 pm on a bright Saturday evening and the dust is swirling over another setback for Mayo football. The team is out the back door, out of the race for Sam. Dumped out by one of the minnows of the game.

 After defeat at the hands of Sligo in the Connacht championship a few short weeks ago, this time the unlikely assassins are Longford. The scene of the murder: Pearse Park, Longford. The scoreboard reads: Longford 1-12, Mayo, 0-14.

 Many are shocked, for Longford had thus far this year beaten only two teams in League and championship, lowly Kilkenny and London.

 Mike Finnerty and Billy Fitzpatrick have brought the game into Mayo households through Mid West Radio. ‘What’s the feeling? Embarrassment? Anger?’ Mike asks Billy in the post mortem; Billy has seen some really dark days in Mayo football, but probably nothing to equal this.

 Analyst Billy, whose passion for the Green and the Red knows few equals, is diplomatic in a trying moment. ‘Respect,’ he replied. ‘Where once we (Mayo) might have laughed at some teams that situation no longer applies. Now we must respect every team, they have all advanced.’

 Finnerty probed further: ‘Would team manager John O’Mahony be examining his position after four years in the role?’ he queried.

 Fitzpatrick, who played in Croke Park for Mayo at 42 years of age, was again the essence of diplomacy. ‘That’s a matter for John,’ he ventured.

 By the time the radio team handed back to Angela Nugent in the Ballyhaunis studio John O’Mahony was announcing to his players and the county board that he was stepping down forthwith. He had done all he could have done with Mayo over the past four years of his second coming.  Taking Leitrim to a Connaught title, and winning two All-Ireland senior crowns with Galway had proved easy compared to turning the Mayo ship around.

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Another View -  Western People

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

How about a few possibility thinkers?

THANKS to all of you from all around the world who have been sharing with me through the internet their thoughts and ideas on Gaelic football in general and on Mayo football in particular.
People living away from home have a deep and abiding interest in their county team, and I have always been struck by the passion Mayo ‘exiles’ have for the Green and Red, so I wasn’t surprised by the readyand engaging response.
Debate, as we know, is healthy as long as it is constructive and not personal. Largely speaking, people do their best, be they players, managers, coaches, county board members, club members. They work often in very difficult circumstances, and there is an understandable tendency to be defensive or be ultra conservative, or reply in a manner what does not help further the debate, and therefore the possibility of solution. The messenger often gets shot down and I can understand that too. And after yonks in the messenger business I can handle the pretty predictable reaction without getting excited.
Any debate about Mayo football should have nothing got to do with personalities. The issues are where the focus lies, and if the issues are addressed then other things also get sorted.

Walk down a country lane

 Mayo heroine’s inspirational work in Haiti

By Terry Reilly

 We had the great pleasure last week of attending a very pleasant and fulfilling reception in Castlebar when one of the county’s - and the country’s -  really great heroines, Gena Heraty, received a magnificent cheque for over 230,000 euros for her Haiti fund.

 The occasion was the opening of Mid West Radio’s new studio in Mayo’s county town, and Gena Heraty, from Westport, was home from Haiti to thank the people of the region for their incredible generosity. The plight of the people of Haiti had been highlighted by Mid West Radio (www.midwestradio.ie), and a fund was immediately established by the radio staff and listeners. Gena has been working with the less privileged in Haiti for many years and was there when the earthquake ravaged the county and its people. Read more

Fr James Horan of Knock features in new musical for hospice

 When I was researching On A Wing and a Prayer, my book about Fr James Horan and his truly amazing achievement in building Knock Airport back in the recession-hit, emigration-ridden 1980s, the words of one of his favourite songs, If I Can Help Somebody, had a habit of entering and whirring around at the back of my mind.

 The more I delved into his audacious efforts to build an international airport the more I heard about his great penchant for singing a song or two to make a few bob for his last and perhaps greatest project. I had, of course, heard him sing on occasions, most notably in Rome in 1985 when he led a pilgrimage to the Holy City, direct from his not-yet-opened airport on top of Barnacuige.

 Three Aer Lingus planes had taken us to Rome, and one evening after a group visit to the magnificent Tivoli Gardens, we adjourned for a meal in a nearby hostelry. A local musician was there to entertain us, and before long the Monsignor, now aged 74, was on his feet, singing two more of his favourites, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling and Danny Boy. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he had finished.

 So when I was researching the book, between 2004 and 2005, it was so easy to visualise him singing a song, and the rapport there was between him and his audience. So much so that I knew that one day he had to have his very own musical, with him up there on the stage again, singing not always very well but with true feeling as he remembered the songs of his youth, songs his parents would have loved, songs John McCormack for instance would have sung.

 The first rough draft of the ‘musical’ was in place before the book was finished, and ever since it has been returned to time and time again as flesh was put on bones, cameo moments dressed up (not that they needed much dressing for in the case of Fr Horan truth was sometimes stranger than fiction!). The musical I called ‘On A Wing and a Prayer-The Musical’. I showed it around, got positive feedback and continued to write and revise. Old songs loved by Horan form the backbone of the work, with some new tunes added.

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Walk Down an Irish Lane  By Terry Reilly

(for monthly column Irish American News, Ohio)

  A good friend, Joe Byrne from East Mayo, who has a very healthy following for his popular programme on local radio here, has done great work over the years to preserve our music, song, lore and poems.  His latest undertaking, a mammoth one, is the magnificent compilation ‘Mayo Music and Musings Collection’, a set of 6 CDs to mark twenty years on Mid West Radio. 

This project is the 12th production in the Dreoilín Community Arts Series and was once again compiled by Joe Byrne who is a musician and singer and presents and produces the weekly arts programme ''Ceol agus Ealaíon'' on Tuesday nights from 10.00pm until 1.00am on Mid West Radio.  It is also intended of course as part of the Mid West Radio Twentieth Celebrations and many of the tracks represent a cross-section of some of the material recorded and broadcast by Joe since the station started in 1989. The sound bytes are taken from the four programmes that Joe has been involved in over the past 20 years. (see www.midwestradio.ie for details of Joe’s programme which comes to you via the internet overseas). 

I think it is safe to say that it will be a long time before the dust settles on the human wreckage wrought by the culture of abuse inflicted so savagly by some of the religious on the many unfortunate, poor defenceless children of this country over many years.

The drip feed of revelations has been on-going for years, and continues day after day to shock us. The Murphy and other reports point to an Irish Church more concerned with preserving its own image than in coming to the aid of young and vulnerable victims of men and women of the cloth. Cover up is perhaps the most accurate description.

Priests and brothers have been sent to prison. Bishops have resigned. Cardinal Brady is considering his position. The demand for a full and complete  investigation into abuse in all of the dioceses seems unstoppable. Brave people like Michael O’Brien (a victim himself of sexual abuse) of Tipperary, and our own Fr Kevin Hegarty* in the Diocese of Killala- an honest, courageous man villified by the Church for airing his concerns many years ago- are amongst those who have stood up and been counted when it comes to demanding  accountability.

Compare and contrast

AS someone into sport, one of my great recent reads has been ‘Cody, the Autobiography’, by Brian Cody who is the Kilkenny hurling manager. He is more than that, of course, for he just happens to be the most successful Gaelic games manager of the last decade. He had broken all records since taking over as team manager in late 1998. In eleven seasons he has presided over seven All-Ireland championship wins, ten Leinster titles and five National League titles. This year he is going for his fifth All-Ireland title in a row!

 Many readers may know little about hurling: it is an ancient Irish field game, played with a ball about the size of a tennis ball, but this one, called a sliothar, is a parcel of hard, rounded leather with a seam and it is sent hurtling through the air by skilful use of a hurley stick, made of ash, at speeds of well over 100 miles per hour and capable of travelling over 100 years with a single hit. It is reckoned to be the fastest field game in the world, played by 15 players on each side, and when played well is sheer class. In his book, physicality, artistry, speed and accuracy are cornerstones of the game. And how!

Walk down an Irish Lane

By Terry Reilly

With Christmas just behind us, and hopefully also the end of the cold snap that had the country in its icy grip over the New Year period when temperatures fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius, our thoughts turn to Spring, lengthening sun-lit days and a good old rummage in the garden as we prepare for another season of good intentions.

 But just not yet! Older people have been getting great mileage from recounting their experiences in the Great Snow of 1947: the country, or large swathes of it, were buried feet deep under white powdery stuff for weeks on end, and volunteer groups had to go out and clear roads so that supplies could be delivered to isolated villages. In some areas, only the tops of the telegraph poles were visible.