SIDELINE CUT:This is one idea the GAA should keep to themselves. After all we've made a pig's ear of the other four, writes KEITH DUGGAN

IS ANYONE else alarmed about the prospect of Ireland’s Fifth Province? We have made a pig’s ear out of three and have the spent the bones of a century fretting and fighting about the fourth. Adding a fifth to the mix seems both foolhardy and complicated.

Only the GAA could come up with such an extravagant notion in these austere days. Just when the world demands that Ireland pares itself down to bare essentials, the GAA proposes inventing more of the damn place.

The idea, in case you were too busy hiding under the sofa from the laughably bleak daily news bulletins sounding from televisions and radios, is tied to the improvement of hurling, the national game.

Páidí Butler, the national director of hurling, has spent four heroic years roaming the byroads of Ireland and giving hurling clinics in those places (most of Ireland, basically) where hurling is not the first sport and is not flourishing. It always seemed to me the toughest job in Ireland because, even when he took the role on, Butler knew he was going to see little visible change.

He was planting trees for others – his great-great grandchildren, possibly – to enjoy. But his enthusiasm for the task swept people along and, having spent a lot of time and effort passing on skills to young players and coaches in the hinterland of the game, he is understandably anxious not to see it wasted.

So there has been a proposal to imagine into being a new province which would contain the hurling counties of Sligo, Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Cavan, Louth and Monaghan. An intriguing proviso also allows for the possible inclusion of Tyrone.

There is no doubt this would make for a salty mix of county cultures and traditions. And the logic behind it is undeniable. Here are counties who have reached a roughly similar level of ability at mastering the intricate arts of hurling. They are somewhat adrift in their native provinces. Sligo and Leitrim, for instance, have no real business being in Connacht as it will take a long time – anything from two to seven hundred years – before they can hope to square up to the might of Galway.

It could be argued, though, that shifting the Yeats County and poor Leitrim out of the West and into this new notional Fifth Green Field is unfair. Galway, by their stubborn excellence at hurling, are the freak of nature in Connacht and maybe it should be the county are asked to pack their bags. The problem is, of course, Galway have been on the move for decades.

In the 60s, they lodged in Munster but never took to the food or the way or life. In the 80s they did perfectly well on their own but the long winters in the West finally got to them. Galway, it should be remembered, are now in Leinster.

Donegal is another tricky case, given everyone in Donegal believes themselves to be living in a place apart anyhow, affiliating themselves (in no particular order) with Glasgow Celtic FC, surfing, renegade politicians, music festivals and the short hand-pass rather than identifying strongly with any of the other provinces.

The northern half of the Donegal population likes to claim that anyone living south of the Gap (Barnesmore rather than the international chain of preppy apparel) is from Leitrim, while the southern half dismisses all county men north of Kilcar as half-Scottish. It wasn’t just because of the barren land the British decided to let Donegal be when partition was being decided. They knew that corner would be more trouble than it was worth.

And it would take a fair bit of gumption to land up in Monaghan and tell them they were for shifting. In school, we all discovered just how attached those Monaghan folks are to their drumlins and stony grey soil and barn dances.

They are a passionate sort of breed, those Farney men, as anyone who has ever witnessed Banty McEnaney in post-match mode will attest. His description of precisely how he felt after watching Kerry narrowly beat his gallant side in the All-Ireland quarter-final of 2007 – “Like having my heart ripped out without an anaesthetic” – has not been beaten and possibly never will. Ain’t no wink and elbow language there. No, Monaghan should be approached with care.

Cavan is a potentially easier sell. There is a laissez faire attitude about Cavan folks that comes with having won 39 Ulster football titles and a good handful of All-Irelands. It does not matter what province you put them in; they will always have their regal bearing. The difficulty with relocating Cavan is more prosaic and practical: moving the county would play havoc with Bus Eireann.

Everyone who has ever travelled on those chariots of the Irish roads will know that Cavan town plays a crucial role in the Bus Eireann nexus. I don’t claim to know how many of their fleet goes through the famous Cavan depot but I do know that on a Friday night about eight o’clock, the place makes Port Authority in Manhattan look like a graveyard.

You can take a bus journey from Skibbereen to Wexford town and still find yourself enjoying a tea and Kit-Kat in the Cavan café, keeping a tight eye on your watch in case you lose track of the 10-minute respite the driver has promised. If Cavan is moved, Bus Éireann will collapse. And if Bus Éireann goes, the whole house of cards comes down.

It is crucial, too, that Fermanagh stays put. To begin with, most of Ireland now does its weekly shop in Enniskillen’s Asda store and there will be hell to pay if they arrive up for the Christmas shop to find it has been moved to accommodate the county hurling team. And bringing Tyrone into the equation is also hugely risky. Apart from anything else, they would probably start winning everything.

In fact, for all its hurling merits, the foundation of a fifth province would be nothing short of dangerous in this unstable time. It would be tantamount to a brand new place and therefore not bound to the rules and traditions of the dreary four provinces of the establishment.

It would be free of ghost estates, of 2FM talk shows, of political bickering, of scandals and disappointments. Think of it now: a brand new province founded on the noble idea of improving hurling. Because nobody outside the GAA knows about it, it would be exempt from the budget. It might well have better weather.

It couldn’t work and the GAA would be well advised to keep the idea to themselves. Because if word gets out about this, everyone is going to want to move there, hurling or not.