Speeches
Daniel Carey
MAYO could – and should – become a super-power of the GAA world, the chairman of the Mayo GAA Strategic Action Plan Committee told an audience in McHale Park, Castlebar last Saturday night.
Ballinrobe native Liam Horan was speaking at the launch of the document his 19-strong steering committee drew up following the deliberations of ten sub-committees on different aspects of Mayo GAA. The root-and-branch review was commissioned by Mayo GAA Board following the senior football team’s defeats by Sligo and Longford in last year’s championship.
The potential of Mayo GAA is “so vast it is almost frightening,” said Horan. “Based on the passion and goodwill that exists for Mayo … we are absolutely confident that Mayo could – and should – become a super-power of the GAA world.”
The chairman described the report not as “the last word”, but rather “the first word of a new chapter” in Mayo GAA. He called on Mayo to become the first county to have a supporters’ club with branches in all the major ‘Irish’ cities of the world, and envisaged a future where “the sons and daughters of our expats” have “something they can cling onto: the annual official Mayo GAA scarf, the membership card, the invitation to contribute something as small as 20 euros, dollars or pounds.”
He warned that every club would in Mayo would something in the Action Plan that will “threaten, annoy, or discommode them”, explaining that “for this document to be universally accepted would require it to be singularly harmless”. Urging the Mayo GAA public to debate the document in full, he said that everything in it “was run through one very simple filter – did we feel it would help to improve Mayo GAA? If the answer was yes, it got in”.
Master of Ceremonies Charlie Gilmartin (Kiltimagh), a member of the Action Plan steering committee, said the report was the result of “five months’ work” and expressed the hope that it would “generate a debate and a discussion”.
Robert Grealis (Kilmeena), also a member of the steering committee, explained the methodology that had gone into preparing the document, which involved 67 meetings. He said the “next stage” in the process would involve “meetings at divisional level” being organised to discuss to discuss the Action Plan. Noting that certain aspects of Mayo GAA weren’t reviewed due to time constraints, he said areas such as primary schools, handball and refereeing could be examined in future.
In a brief speech, Mayo GAA Board Chairman Paddy McNicholas paid “special tribute” to all involved in the compiling of the document, and said: “I’ve no doubt it will generate a lot of debate outside and inside the GAA”. Urging clubs to hold meetings to discuss it, he said a County Board meeting may be held “inside a fortnight” to vote on whether to accept or reject it.
