THERE’S A MOMENT in the middle of ‘Nowhere Is Home’, that gorgeously-shot film of Dexy’s residency of London’s Duke of York theatre in the spring of 2013, when band leader Kevin Rowland is trying to get to the very heart of what made them the band they were.
Uncompromising and unyielding, he ran the band with a grinding and overbearing attention to detail. He picked the outfits, he wrote the music. He even insisted they did physical training with him, taking them on long runs.
There’s a level of perfectionism, though, that is always unattainable and that universal truth can never sit well with individuals like Rowland. He might have been able to weave in a line like, ‘How the English upper classes are thick and ignorant’ and make it swoonsome.
But compromise? No way. That’s why he spent decades falling out with the music press, went through bandmates like a piranha and went as far as beating up people to grab the mastertapes to ‘Searching For The Young Soul Rebels’ from the property of the EMI record label.
‘It meant everything to me,’ Rowland says.‘It probably meant too much. But there it is.’
There’s something of that energy to Michael Duignan.
Offaly GAA means everything to him. Probably means too much. But there it is.
As a former intercounty hurler, All-Star and All-Ireland winner, Duignan is much in demand for punditry services. He can speak from the supreme authority and position of having gone and done it on the field of play.
Many, many former players have relished this role. Their chance to have a platform in the national debate. The profile that brings. Not to mention the kind of fees that RTÉ pay for their service.
Some are very content with their role of GAA watchdog, rather than contributing to causes close to their heart.
That’s not Duignan. Instead, he canvassed for and got the job as county board chairman; surely one of the most thankless tasks in the GAA.
He’s been there now since December 2019 and he’s had his share of small victories, some significant, but mainly it’s a case of swimming against a riptide.
When the county footballers lost against Clare at the weekend, it was one of those defeats that teaches a squad and management harsh lessons. Up by eight points with 14 minutes left on the clock, they lost.
Whoever is in charge of the county’s Twitter handle included a ‘hard luck’ message on the result, which provoked a few to weigh in with comments that ranged from ‘lack of bottle’, ‘shocking’, ‘useless’ and ‘hard luck me hole’.
Thanks lads for your comments. No one on here has ever been inside an inter county dressing room. You have no idea what these players do for their County. All of you should be very ashamed. https://t.co/P5ahS3uPYd
— Michael Duignan (@DuignanMichael) February 18, 2024
For his part, Duignan responded in a quote Tweet, stating: ‘Thanks lads for your comments. No one on here has ever been inside an inter county dressing room. You have no idea what these players do for their County. All of you should be very ashamed.’
It meant too much to him that he could resist that urge. There are some that would see this behaviour as reactionary, not befitting the office.
Our own personal thoughts are that it is marvellous. A passionate man expressing himself. Authenticity in the GAA is disappearing. More of this, please!
But it does raise a philosophical question, that Duignan has placed himself right in the centre of and has little control over.
Right now, intercounty Gaelic football and hurling are sold as products.
It costs the punter €20 to go to a league game.
If you want to sit at home and watch it, then you might be forced to take out a GAA GO subscription. For 38 games, it will set you back €79.
A fair price? Yes.
Is that the point? No.
If you want to buy a Premium level ticket for Croke Park in a central area, you can go for a three-year deal at €5,500. Five years will set you back €8,300 and a decade in the posh seats rattling your jewellery will put a dent in your wallet to the tune of €13,800.
And what do you get for that?
Occasions, say, as this Saturday in Croke Park where Dublin hurlers will face Limerick as a curtain raiser to the footballers playing Kerry.
Dublin, the most marketable team, against the two reigning All-Ireland winners might initially sound tempting. To others, it might feel like padding out the corporate package. Four hours inside a windy Croke Park when, for many, the novelty of the stadium has long withered.
By arming themselves with such an aggressive marketing and sales approach, the philosophy of the GAA as an amateur organisation has long been shredded. Some managers now command six-figure salaries and fewer and fewer have actual jobs and careers.
Squeezed in the middle of this uneasy situation are the players. Eternally taken for granted, at least they now have fitting back-up and professional services behind them and have agreed appropriate expenses.
But make no mistake, they are ruthlessly exploited by the direction of the GAA in selling their ‘product.’
Which is why it must feel confusing for many within this eco-system that administrators, including some within paid roles, complain about the expense it takes to prepare a county team.
In February 2020, just before Covid struck, Director-General Tom Ryan said that the level of spending on senior county teams was, “Not sustainable.”
Almost €30 million was spent in 2019, and it represented an increase of 11.6% from the previous year.
When his annual report is read in Newry this weekend at GAA Congress, he will report that almost €40 million is the latest spend.
For the last two decades, the GAA has been like a frog, slowly boiling in water increasing in heat.
The costs go up. The pressure on players and teams increase. The frustrations mount. It leads to honourable men like Duignan having a shouting match into the void that is Twitter. The hardening of public discourse leads many to puff their chests up to sneer at others online.
Stuck in the middle, getting it from officialdom angry at the expense for these games that they then sell, and from Joe Public who wants value for their investment of money and emotion, are the players.
Being an inter-county player can bring widespread adulation. It would be naive to think there isn’t a downside when things aren’t going well.
Yet players are damned for preparing like professionals, then ridiculed when their efforts fall short. What can we reasonably expect?