It started four years ago today, March 13th. Looking back, you can see the initial coronavirus lockdowns were pitched at a few weeks, up until the end of the month. Nobody believed it, though. The impact was widely seen as likely to last far longer and it did.
For the GAA, annual congress had taken place — an election congress at which Larry McCarthy became president-elect. Ominously, on the Sunday of that weekend, the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in a male patient just returned from Italy.
The crisis shaped many aspects of life but it also left an indelible mark on the GAA, whose modern existence was altered forever
Recollection of those early pandemic days has been mitigated by the fact that eventually, the country emerged from the restrictions and lockdowns but at the time no chances were taken, as doorknobs and surfaces were wiped down with bleach and all the time, there was the accompaniment of gushing taps washing hands.
Neither had a vaccine been discovered so no end was in sight.
The crisis shaped many aspects of life but it also left an indelible mark on the GAA, whose modern existence was altered forever, even down to the wider association’s uncomplicated acceptance of expert advice such as from Dr Pat O’Neill and Prof Mary Horgan, who did so much to facilitate the return to play.
It is broadly accepted that the split season is one legacy. Included among the options floated by the Fixture Calendar Review Task Force, the option was then stated in the report, issued in late November 2019, to be “not the best solution for the fixture challenges faced by the GAA”.
Covid changed all that when the split season surfed through the 2021 congress, but with the highly successful club-county order reversed so that intercounty competitions would go first.
It took the worst global public health crisis in a century to shine a light on a problem the GAA had been chronically unable to address
The influential summer of 2020 with its excellent weather when everyone was delighted to have the games back, even with all the restrictions on spectators, suddenly catapulted the split season to the forefront of considerations. Having those weeks exclusively to themselves before intercounty swung back in September and October gave club players a glimpse of the promised land.
County players loved being back at their clubs with no distraction. It took the worst global public health crisis in a century to shine a light on a problem the GAA had been chronically unable to address but by the following February, the new system had been accepted.
Reservations are still out there. Is the intercounty season too squeezed and does the GAA lose promotional opportunity by cutting six weeks off its All-Ireland season?
Of course, but now all club players start their year with a fixtures schedule that won’t be redrawn at the drop of a hat because the county team are doing better than expected, or for any number of tenuous reasons. It’s not perfect but it’s better.
Communications underwent a revolution. At the top, president John Horan gave regular public interviews, creating clarity around what the GAA were expecting as lockdown ground on and what wouldn’t be possible.
As the head of a voluntary, sporting organisation, his statements had the dual virtue of leading the membership and at the same time projecting an image of the GAA. Conscious its activities were recreational and therefore subordinate to the health needs of the community, it also understood that those same activities were an important part of people’s lives.
There may have been occasional signs of wanting it both ways — claiming credit for all the work done by clubs in the community while disowning the bad behaviour of the same units when reckless celebration caused clusters of infection. Croke Park did ultimately deal with it and pulled the plug on all remaining county championship matches in October 2020.
Even the simple staging of games entailed a huge logistical effort to ensure guidelines were followed. It was estimated that 25 million questionnaires were circulated between summer 2020 and October 2021.
Streaming also became a widespread phenomenon, as access to matches was often only possible remotely. Clubs organised coverage. In Cork, the Examiner newspaper acquired rights to stream county championship matches for free. It was both a service and an opportunity for clubs to raise funds.
Governance was facilitated by the widespread deployment of remote meetings. There was no need for people to convene from all over the country when they could be linked up on Zoom or Teams
GAAGO got involved in the home market for the first time on the resumption of the national league, streaming all matches not being broadcast on television. It is unlikely that the service, a joint venture between RTÉ and the GAA, would have been considered a viable candidate to acquire rights as it did — albeit controversially — in 2022 without first proving its capacity during the pandemic.
Governance was facilitated by the widespread deployment of remote meetings. There was no need for people to convene from all over the country when they could be linked up on Zoom or Teams.
This reached its apogee with an entire remote annual congress in February 2021, which although insufficiently glitch-free to make regular online congresses a realistic prospect, just about got the job done.
There was also the necessarily reduced command structure with the president, director general Tom Ryan and Feargal McGill, effectively the GAA lead on Covid, forming a troika.
This made for more nimble decision-making and a remote meeting of the management committee was always available to endorse or further deliberate on big decisions.
Micheál Martin accepts that the association played an important role in mediating Government restrictions and passing them down to the membership. ‘They shielded Government well, put it that way.’
The trend towards more streamlined administration has continued. February’s annual congress expressed the hope that future gatherings would discuss “big picture” concerns, leaving nuts and bolts issues to central council, a further move in that direction.
The role of the GAA in the circumstances was probably best expressed by then taoiseach Micheál Martin’s commendation of the association in Damian Lawlor’s definitive account of Gaelic games in the time of Covid, After the Storm.
Martin accepts that the association played an important role in mediating Government restrictions and passing them down to the membership. “They shielded Government well, put it that way.”
Looking back at the pandemic, it is difficult to believe that there will be as influential a two-year period in GAA history during our lifetimes.
