THE MAN BEHIND THE WIRE: Parentage rule motion could have significant ramifications for every club in Offaly

THE Offaly GAA County Board will debate one of the most important motions to come before them in years in December.

Assuming that Tullamore's motion is in order – and that is by no means a certainty -, delegates will decide on the introduction of a new parentage rule into Offaly GAA at annual Convention on December 13.

It is arguably the biggest change to be made to an Offaly bye-law in decades and no one should diminish that.

If passed, the motion will result in a fundamental change to the Offaly bye-laws and the way the county operates. It will result in a significant change to one of Offaly's oldest laws, the Parish Rule – it will require a 60% majority to pass at Convention.

The Tullamore motion asks that players now be allowed to play with a club outside the parish he resides in if it can be demonstrated that a strong family connection (via parents or guardians) exsists between the player and the club that he wishes to join.

The Tullamore motion seeks a change in the Offaly bye-law dealing with a player's attachment to his first club and players seeking to move to a club outside their catchment area must submit an application in writing to the Offaly GAA County Board by January 28 each year. The Offaly GAA Competitions Control Committee will then adjudicate on the application.

Tullamore have taken the unusual step of actively canvassing every club in Offaly. They have contacted every club via email seeking support and have followed up with direct contact by members to explain their rationale for the motion.

That approach shows three things. Firstly, it shows how important the motion is to Tullamore, the pressure from families and individuals that lies behind it.

Secondly, it also shows that Tullamore know they face an uphill battle to get the motion passed. They are swimming against the tide with it, though the indications are that they have a decent outside chance and their prospects of success appear to be greater than they did when news that they were submitting such a motion first surfaced a few weeks ago.

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Thirdly, their campaign is an implicit acknowledgement that they are probably the wrong club to be submitting the motion. Tullamore are the county's biggest club with the biggest population base. They don't need more numbers and the passing of a motion that will make them stronger is not in the best interest of other clubs. If the motion came from any other club, it would have a greater chance of success – and if it came from a smaller rural club rather than one of the bigger towns or large parish clubs, its propspects would be better again.

That, however, doesn't mean that the motion is not without merit. It certainly has merit, it should receive full consideration from every club and delegates should not be blind sided by the fact that it is coming from Tullamore. It deserves to be examined at face value and Tullamore are fully entitled to seek it.

The motion is a direct consequence of difficulties Tullamore have encountered this year. It is a response to agro that has been going on with their neighbours Cappincur but its genesis goes back much longer, its roots are infinitely deeper than this.

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The Cappincur situation has brought things to a head. It initially came up in 2021 Cappincur asked for an investigation into young players in their catchment area being illegally registered or playing with Tullamore. It resurfaced again this year.

A group of Offaly GAA officers met Tullamore GAA officials and a parent of one of the players earlier this year as they investigated the claims and they ruled against Tullamore. Cappincur had queried the status of seven players and the Offaly GAA Management Committee ruled that the parish rule is in force for all grades in Offaly and stressed that the GAA's ethos is based on the allegiance of its members to their local clubs. They also re-iterated the rule defining a members' permanent residence.

Tullamore GAA were told that a player may not be a member of a club he in ineligible to play for and that those players should not participate with the club.

That whole affair has got messy, quite ugly. There have been stories of Cappincur officials confronted over their stance at a game in Tullamore; and other stuff flying around the place.

It shows the depth of emotion that Tullamore GAA Club are dealing with and the reasons behind their motion. There are very angry, upset parents, relatives and children outside Tullamore parish boundaries who want to play with Tullamore and the humanity of this must be acknowledged and appreciated. That doesn't mean the motion should be passed and the broader picture, the greater good is paramount but it is what lies behind it and not a big club trying to enhance their pick and make themselves stronger.

It should also be noted that a lot of very loyal, long serving Tullamore players have moved to other parishes and fully integrated into their new community with their children playing with the local club – many of these would regard themselvs as “true blues” but have served as mentors, officers or on committee in the club in their new area.

As Tullamore GAA chairman Paul Dillane said last week, it is a two way street and he argued that they will lose more than they will gain. He stated that they have identified 27-28 players living in Tullamore but playing outside the parish. They won't be pursuing those no matter what happens but his point is solid: that the desire of parents to have their children play with their own club is not exclusive to Tullamore.

It happens all over the place. Every club in Offaly has played an illegal player at some stage and have had a player in their territory play illegally with someone else. It is not widespread but it is far more common than people might think. Several illegal players have played in Offaly championships this year and will do so again next year.

In the excellent recently published Dooley Family Memoir, Joe Dooley made the fairly sensational admission that their family home is in Kinnitty parish and not Clareen. Joe and his brothers Billy and Johnny were among Offaly's most famous, decorated hurlers and without them (and their siblings, Kieran and Seamus), Seir Kieran simply could not have won any of the four Senior Hurling Championship titles that they annexed between 1988 and 1998.

That was a clear breach of the parish rule and it was quite common knowledge during their playing heyday. It meant that they were technically illegal the whole time and a Seir Kieran win could have been challenged at any stage. Of course that never happened. Kinnitty did what many clubs do in this situation – absolutely nothing. Winks and nods along with blind eyes have been in plentiful supply in Offaly for well over a century.

In their recently published book, Joe Dooley very simply admitted:

“Our home place is located in the Kinnitty parish, but we were always determined to hurl with Seir Kieran. Our father lined out wth them, and we went to school in Clareen.”

And both those reasons have been at the hub of the vast majority of parish rule breaches over the years: parental connection with a club, where a parent initially decided his son's path and/or going to school in that area, where a desire to play with school mates manifested itself. In the case of the Dooley's, they are absolutely entrenched in the Seir Kieran story and no one considers them to be anything other than Clareen men.

Tullamore are snookered a bit by both their size and the extent of their pick.

There were also rumours this year that Shamrocks GAA Club had a list of forty players gone into the County Board for investigation. These were wrong, it was never discussed by their committee and no list was submitted – but had they done so, they would have had a sizeable list as well as losing some players.

It happens all over the place and it is very possible that no club in Offaly can sit on high ground when it comes to this issue – they are either knowingly playing players from outside their parish or they have opted not to deal with players playing illegally elsewhere. Both situations are equally complicit in the parish rule being broken.

The parish rule has never been fully enforced and we are all used to clubs talking about players playing illegally in their area and doing nothing about it. This motion provides for the status quo and all the inconsistencies this entails to be retained or for an avenue to legalise players living outside the parish they play in.

The families at the centre of it may not agree but Cappincur were right to try and safeguard their territory - they have a very small area with limit scope for house building and population retention/growth. Tullamore are doing exactly the right thing by submitting a motion and trying to get players regularised. It is up to clubs to decide on that and abide by the decision then.

It is very good to see this all being brought to the forefront, it is healthy and if the decision is to stick with the status quo, clubs should honour that and say no to players they know are not in the area – and every club knows exactly where every player lives and where the parish boundaries are.

The Parish Rule was introduced in 1909 and has really been the cornerstone of Offaly GAA since then. For decades, it proved controversial as Offaly GAA dealt with breaches, punished clubs and individuals and frequently debated proposals to delete the rule. Since the 1960s, however, it has been more or less accepted and while breaches of it became less frequent, there are still cases dealt with regularly.

The parish rule basically means that a player must play with a club in the parish he lives in – parish in the Offaly GAA cases refers to the Catholic boundaries, though there were audacious attempts by clubs to argue the case for accepting players in the Church of Ireland or civil parishes in several of its early years.

It means that a player can play with any club in the parish he lives in, unless there are specific borders between clubs – and there are a few designated borders between clubs in Offaly parishes.

There are other counties with parentage type rules in operation and the Tullamore motion is based on the Monaghan formula. In Monaghan, a player must play with a club in the catchment area of his personal residence or a club where he has an other relevant connection – this is defined as being either through a strong family connection of a parent or guardian or where a sibling is already registered and eligible to play with the club that the player wishes to join.

The Tullamore motion only provides for the connection via a parent or guardian.

Laois have a different and very interesting system. A player must also join a club in the catchment area he resides in but he can also apply to join a club in another where where he has a relevant connection. They also have two distrinct club designations, urban and rural and different criteria applies for movement of players between the two types. In Laois, Portlaoise is the only designated urban club and every other one is classed as rural.

They have a parentage rule where a player may transfer to a club in the catchment area of where his parent was a player in adult competition or, in exceptional cirumstances, where his parent was a club officer or member and made a proven contribution to the club over a “reasonable” period of time. Under the Laois parentage rule, a player can apply to play with Portlaoise or with any of the other clubs but Laois go way further than the Tullamore motion does. They also allow players living in Portlaoise to transfer to any rural club without meeting any of the criteria normally associated with transfers – providing the player has not participated in any club competition in the year which the transfer or attachment to first club is sought.

This basically means that any player living in Portlaoise can play with any club in the county but this is not as dramatic as it may seem – the floodgates haven't opened in Laois, Portlaoise isn't creaking at the knees from the loss of young children to clubs all over the county.

People still want to play in the area they live in with their family and friends. Laois do cater for children playing with the club in the area of the school they go to. A player may apply to transfer to a club where he is attending or has attended primary school. The player must have attended school there for one full year but there is one very strict addendum to this rule: a player can move from a rural club to another rural club under it but it does not apply for switches from a rural club to Portlaoise. Players moving from Portlaoise out are already catered for under their urban to rural transfer bye-laws.

Tullamore opted to go with the Monaghan rule and you can't blame them. If a similar rule to Laois applied in Offaly, they would also be the only designated urban club (Offaly's second biggest town, Edenderry would have to be considered for similar designation) and it would mean that anyone living in Tullamore would have the right to play elsewhere – there is a lot of merit in such a rule in Offaly.

There is a lot of sense in Tullamore's motion. Family dynamics are much different than when the parish rule was introduced back in 1909. Separations, split families and shared custody are much more common and this is not legislated for in Offaly or most counties. New realities have to be catered for and met by the GAA.

The Tullamore motion, however, is not designed to deal with split families alone and goes much further than that.

It is probably not right to pass it at the moment. It is a bit loosely worded and the “strong family connection” and what this entails is not sufficiently tied down or outlined. It is grand to say that the Competitions Control Committee have the power of adjudication but that would be a nightmare for its members. You can only imagine the pressure that would be applied by some parents and relations if the rule and exact criteria is not watertight. The members of the CCC should not be put in that position.

Tullamore are right that their motion won't open the floodgates and it is likely that only a handful of cases would be dealt with each year. However, any derogation from the parish rule as it exists is a very big change for Offaly GAA. The parish rule has served the county very well and the principle that a player must play in the area and community he lives in is a very fundamental one in Offaly. Other counties don't have a parish rule and the GAA is strong there. The parish rule, however, has been in Offaly for so long that it can't be changed at this stage and to do so could have fatal consequences for some clubs.

The rights and desires of individuals and families are important but this also applies to the personnel trying to keep clubs going in isolated rural areas where population is declining and development is very limited. There is no perfect system but the system in Offaly has worked well for this county.

There is a strong case to be made for the derogation that Tullamore are seeking but it needs a lot of thought and consideration. The Laois formula looks better than the Monaghan one. It would meet Tullamore's needs in that it caters for the specific issues they have but it also acknowledges the size of the town and the advantages it has over every other club – they also have challenges that other clubs don't have and that needs to be kept in sight.

It may take a couple of attempts before a change is made. At the moment, some clubs will look on the Tullamore motion as “turkeys voting for Christmas”. That is wrong and Tullamore's intentions are pure. They simply have a problem that they want dealt with. It doesn't mean they should succeed but it is very healthy that this whole issue is on the table for debate.