I
THE CENTRAL FRUSTRATION of the country’s female footballers and hurlers is both dispiriting and typical.
“While the National Governing Bodies claim to be listening,” a statement issued through the Gaelic Players Association on Monday morning read, “it is evident that they are not truly hearing us.”
Repeated attempts to initiate meaningful change through the appropriate channels have been unsuccessful. These players placed their trust in the system and found it to be non-responsive.
As such, a fresh approach will be undertaken.
Although the statement did not clarify what kind of protest will take place between now and the end of the championship season, we have been warned “not [to] expect business as usual in the upcoming weeks and months.”
Wherever this uncertain beginning to a new era of defiance leads, the source of its emergence will remain unmistakeable; the female footballers and hurlers of Ireland spoke, and nobody truly heard them.
II
Had it not been recently brought to my attention that I occasionally exhibit similar behaviour, I may not have dwelt so consciously on the statement’s distinction between listening and hearing.
I am a tremendous listener, but still have some way to go with my hearing.
When presented with a loved one’s issue or dilemma, a quickfire solution remains my greatest temptation. It is not necessarily a case of wanting the conversation to be over, rather, I often hope to be helpful and believe that an expedient answer to the problem is near at hand.
This is listening and it is very difficult to argue against its legitimacy.
Following the players’ statement on Monday morning, both the LGFA and the Camogie Association released statements of their own later that day.
The LGFA claimed to have been ‘surprised’ by the day’s events, before seeking to clarify what they believe is an unfair portrayal of their interest in the players’ well-being. The Camogie Association similarly demonstrated what they feel they are doing right, while by no means suggesting that there are not problems which need to be addressed.
Indeed, both statements insisted that they remain committed to the integration process that would see the LGFA, Camogie Association and GAA transition from three individual entities to a one association model.
A proposal favoured by the majority of players across all three associations, it’s as quickfire a solution as the LGFA and Camogie Association could reach for. Unsurprisingly, it mostly served to strengthen the female players’ argument that they were being listened to, but not heard.
“Their primary rationale is that they prefer to complete the integration process before initiating a charter for female players,” their statement read hours earlier, a charter establishing minimum standards for their collective welfare the players’ primary concern. “Despite the evidence presented, they expect us to patiently endure the treatment of second-class citizens.”
For the governing bodies to duly reaffirm their commitment to integration in the face of such a claim by players suggests many things, but an understanding of their players’ concerns is not among them.
III
Yes, people of both genders pop up at events to hold forth on irrelevant things and conspiracy theories, but the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered. Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they’re talking about. Some men.
Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.
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Rebecca Solnit, “Men Explain Things To Me”
IV
It is not for me to adjudicate how accepted women feel within the broad church of Gaelic games.
On the one hand, it is easy to point toward a greater national recognition of female players (from the elite teams, anyway) and record-breaking attendances in Ladies football particularly as evidence of growth.
That these same players ultimately believe they are being treated like “second-class citizens” undermines the inherent simplicity of such evidence, however.
The off-field coverage of men’s Gaelic football and hurling presents another avenue for exploring the acceptance of women in the most widely watched matches of the Gaelic games season.
We have Joanne Cantwell and Jacqui Hurley presenting the bulk of RTÉ’s coverage, with Gráinne McElwain fulfilling a similar role with GAAGO while Aisling O’Reilly provides sideline reporting. Throw in the occasional appearance of Ursula Jacob or Cora Staunton on The Sunday Game and it does appear as if women have some input in the national discourse surrounding these games. (Of course, presenters aside the coverage remains overwhelmingly occupied by former male players).
Without question, Cantwell has become the most high-profile female media figure for her work on the live matchday programme.
In this same column I have previously explored the manner in which RTÉ’s GAA coverage seems to be struggling with an identity crisis; keen to abandon a format that provided Pat Spillane, Joe Brolly and Colm O’Rourke with free rein to say what they wished, an overcorrection has taken place and the show now often lacks the vitality that live sport deserves.
I am certain this has nothing to do with Cantwell’s presence. Far from tempering any potential excitement which viewers once associated with the programme, she pursues her role with an honest integrity which betrays no adherence to some stifling agenda.
And yet, as the consistent face of this current offering she is repeatedly undermined.
In what was largely a balanced personal assessment of the programme’s shortcomings, the Sunday Independent columnist Eamonn Sweeney highlighted Cantwell’s infamous exchange with Dónal Óg Cusack as a kind of nadir in all that has been going wrong.
“It was like watching a tetchy solicitor tangle with a cranky defendant in the district court,” he wrote, obviously unhappy with both Cantwell’s questions and Cusack’s answers. Without wishing to relitigate what quickly became a viral social media clip, was what Cantwell put to Cusack (and how) all that unreasonable?
Dónal Óg Cusack: “You’re asking me a question about what I actually said. I’m explaining to you what I said…”
Joanne Cantwell: “Well, you said it is a ‘Grand National for also-rans’, you said are they happy to be…”
DC: “That’s not exactly what I said.”
JC: “It is, you said it’s a ‘Grand National…’, well tell us what you said then.”
DC: “No, no, you were listening to it, you tell me.”
JC: “Well you said it is ‘a Grand National for also-rans.’”
DC: “Joanne, we’re here to talk about hurling, and the next time you come asking me the questions make sure you quote me correctly.”
JC: “Well then, tell us the quote. Was it not ‘a Grand National for also-rans’?”
DC: “You started it. You didn’t quote me correctly.”
For the sake of clarity, Cusack’s exact comment on his weekly radio slot was this: “The GAA schedule has two provincial football finals and the start of the Tailteann Cup, which if you haven’t heard of, is a sort of Gaelic football Grand National for disappointed also-rans.”
Make of that what you will.
Back to Sweeney’s column and as it progressed he seemed to find himself leaning ever more slightly toward the former Cork goalkeeper’s point of view.
“The former Cork star was responding to a question that seemed to be sprung on him without warning,” wrote Sweeney. “If that was the case, it seems strange behaviour on Cantwell’s part. Briefing panelists on likely questions is standard practice on TV.”
So, between Cusack’s insistence that Cantwell had misquoted him, and Sweeney’s implication that the show’s presenter, despite all her years working on television before taking up this post, had opted to forego what he rightly understands is the usual protocol in such situations is quite the double-whammy.
V
Although the female footballers and hurlers of Ireland intend to protest in the hope that their needs will be met, they are still talking, nevertheless.
“Regrettably, we feel, that our National Governing Bodies do not want to hear our real concerns,” the statement read, “so we’re speaking directly to you.”
Male or female, inter-county Gaelic football and hurling/camogie is not and will never likely be an example of equality. What is made available to the men who hurl for Limerick or Kilkenny remains beyond the wildest dreams of their counterparts in Sligo or Mayo.
Tiered competitions across Gaelic games are both an acceptable means for engineering meaningful matches, and a frequent indication of the insurmountable disparities which exist between counties across this relatively small island.
In some instances more than others, counties are more content with ensuring their own stately place remains untouched; equality for all bedamned.
And yet, as representatives from the senior counties in Ladies football and camogie took to the stage in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Dublin Airport on Monday morning, they were speaking for the totality.
“Representatives of the senior inter-county camogie and football panels are here before you, representing our respective teams,” they explained, “as well as our fellow players from the intermediate & junior grades, with their full support.
“We find ourselves in a situation we never wished to be in, echoing the experiences of our soccer and rugby counterparts in recent years.”
A players’ issue, a women’s issue, we are not being asked to listen and offer solutions. We are being spoken to in the hope that we might truly hear what is being said.