Saturday's National Forum for Women in Gaelic Games may be seen as of great significance long into the future.

Organised by the Workgroup on Increased Participation, set up by Joe McDonagh at the beginning of his presidency of the GAA in 1997, the forum was both interesting and impressive. President-elect Sean McCague probably summed it up best in open forum when he stated: "For too long, we have rejected half the population. Thankfully, it's turning around and women are demanding their rightful say."

Unlike the GAA's annual congress, increasingly a rumber-stamping exercise (and that, on a good day), the debates were informed and conducted by committed and enthusiastic delegates whose average age must have been about 60 years younger than that prevalent at congress.

Key to the day's deliberations was the issue of "alliance", the buzz word which describes the inclusion of camogie and women's football under the Croke Park umbrella. Women's football is by many accounts the country's fastest-growing sport. Its quality frequently surpasses that of the male version and with television coverage increasing, it is also attracting steadily-growing crowds to its big matches.

Benefits accruing to camogie and women's football from the proposed alliance are obvious. Increased funding, greater access to facilities and streamlined administration are among the most prominent of these benefits. For instance, some women are paying subscriptions to all three organisations: the GAA, the Women's Gaelic Football Association and the Camogie Association.

Yet the process is seen as two-way and not exclusively a helping hand for the women - the GAA has been crying out for fresh input at administrative level and gaining so many committed activists would create a great personnel resource for the GAA.

The accession of newer faces at county board level could facilitate the advancement of women into that level of administration - where participation rates were described by the workgroup chairperson Liz Howard as "abysmal".

Nowhere is the enthusiasm for this progression more marked than within the GAA's hierarchy. Liam Mulvihill, the association's Director General, said on Saturday that he believed other traditionally male sports organisations hadn't yet spotted the vast potential for growth amongst women.

Joe McDonagh was described on Saturday as "instrumental" to the progress made but all involved can be more than happy with the positive engagement demonstrated by Sean McCague, who takes office in two months.

Not that there aren't obstacles to alliance. Male attitudes aren't all as progressive as those at the top of the GAA and there have been frissons of tension between the two women's organisations, although the feeling on Saturday seemed to be that these were no longer a problem at central level.

While camogie has developed by seeming to emphasise its difference from hurling, women's football has taken the opposite view and developed a game with much the same rules as the men's version. But Debbie Massey, the GAA's Planning and Policy officer and one of the driving forces behind Saturday's forum, made the point that there may be a third way: new units of the GAA as established in Europe and the Far East were different to the traditional models of say, New York or London.

They had been set up by voluntary emigrants who wanted to retain something of their culture. Accordingly, these units were more recreational, social and family-oriented. Consequently, women's involvement is far higher at the upper reaches of administration.

For example the Toronto Board comprises eight women and four men, the Euro Board seven men and five women.

The benefits of importing a family involvement into the GAA aren't hard to find. It facilitates a broad, community involvement. The presence of the opposite sex is seen as a major influence on young men in those years, 16-18, when dropping-out of the GAA is most common.

Added recreational emphasis would also help defuse the sometimes explosive testosterone levels which are reached even at under-age male competition. It would also address one of the GAA's big weaknesses in relation to other field sports: the lack of purely recreational matches for those uninterested in exploring the dizzier heights of competition.

Helen O'Rourke, secretary of Cumann Peil Gael na mBan and a referee, said that one of the reasons why women were reluctant to take up refereeing was the level of abuse they would have to tolerate. On the other hand, were women to involve themselves in refereeing, this might civilise the environment of disrespect and savagery to the benefit of everyone.

The next step will be for the women's organisations to submit proposals on how they envisage an alliance taking place and on what terms.

These terms would have to be sufficiently centralised to optimise administration and yet not so much as to stifle the dynamism of the constituent organisations.