Hoping for a united Ireland? Learn a lesson from the GAA’s integration mess

When it was announced that the GAA, LGFA, and the Camogie Association would opt to kick the can of integration down the road, missing their own 2027 deadline in the process, well, I can’t say it was much of a surprise.

Former President Dr Mary McAleese wasn’t happy when the news broke. She resigned after four years as head of the steering group set up to, well, steer the integration process.

Leaving the sports associations to pick up the pieces of integration, which is looking more disintegrated than ever and will happen …. Who knows, really.

Missed deadlines are unremarkable notes in the din of Irish life, but it is probably worth thinking about what lessons can be gleaned from this breakdown in integration. Yanno, just in case, we have to get an amalgamation of major organisational structures made up of thousands of passionate people with distinct histories, needs, and ambitions over the line at some point.

And for those of you screaming into your copy of the Leitrim Observer right now (thanks for reading), and yes, I know building a united Ireland and integrating Gaelic games are vastly different, and not just in scale.

The former would be a far more complicated process. The weight of history behind it would be immense. And for very understandable reasons, far more people would oppose it.

But there are useful similarities, and learning from how one has gone so far might give us a useful insight into the other.

It is a point of debate for another day, but on paper, they both make a lot of sense, from a logistical point of view if nothing else.

Messy and chaotic as it will likely be, it is a necessary step to end the constant clashing fixtures, stop the inequality of young girls not having the same access to facilities as boys, and create an organisation where Gaelic games can holistically grow.

Similarly, having one singular country on this Island would be far easier to organise from an infrastructure point of view.

I know, I know, there is much more to it than that, but there is only so much paper in this week’s Leitrim Observer.

In any case, agreeing that something should happen is only one thing. Getting there - and accepting what has to be given up along the way - is another thing entirely.

Planning and accountability

In 2022, the organisations voted unanimously in favour of integration and set out an ambitious timeline of five years to make it happen. Obviously, that was missed.

Many have remarked that there were no regular progress reports, no yearly reviews, basically no step-by-step accountability that the essential building blocks were being put in place.

Something like this can’t be crammed into the last year; if the requisite steps weren't solved along the way, there was never going to be a workable model that could be presented and survive a vote at special congresses this October.

Again, a United Ireland is more complicated. Some things can't be done until referendums are held on both sides of the border, the starting gun of which rests in the hand of the Northern Ireland secretary under the Good Friday Agreement. However, the principle of fail to prepare, prepare to fail could already be observed. Whether that be investing in shared Island initiatives, like cross-border infrastructure projects or continued reconciliation programmes.

Though a timeline to stick to and good planning are key, if you expect that everything will be perfect when the time comes to jump, then you are deluded. Projects like these will be a work in progress, tweaked and tinkered with over time.

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Change is pain

So, what wasn’t perfect about where the integration process is? Well, plenty, apparently.

How a new organisation would manage memberships, Governance Structures, Facilities and Finances were the charge of integration committees over the last five years.

Sounds like the issues that come up when you think about how to make a united Ireland work.

Who is paying what tax? Who will govern who, where, and how? What laws apply where? How do we fund services when there are more mouths to feed?

The various heads of the sporting organisations came out with different reasons for what brought the project off the rails.

Structures were a big one. Naturally, there will always be people with influence who don’t want things to change, least they don’t have the same influence, or who have to share the reins.

Same way if a united Ireland were to happen, some political parties would be disadvantaged by not having a history of electoral politics north of the border - but that is the nature of creating a larger pond; some fish just won’t be as big anymore.

But to GAA president Jarlath Burns, in the end, finances were the ultimate stumbling block.

The Men’s intercounty budget is set at 45 million next year, and the idea that they would be able to provide the same to the women's game, in terms of inequality supposedly underpinning the integration plan, was just unthinkable.

The actual price of bringing equality is disputed and is quoted as low as 10 million, but there was a fear that the GAA would not be able to sell the idea that money would be diverted from men's inter-county teams to close the disparity for their members.

Well, change is pain, and for something like this to work, there is going to be a lot of change.

To make these things work, there will need to be compromises; people will need to share what they have, and men may have less for a while as the women's game grows.

Similarly, building a full Island state will require similar sacrifices. Healthcare, taxation, welfare, and representation will all need to be hashed out, and not everyone will be happy with the changes.

Accepting that those sacrifices are key to making things work is a fundamental step to gaining the fortitude to make either project happen.

Otherwise, it is a non-starter. Maybe the GAA didn’t think that fully through; anyone thinking about a united Ireland should.

Death of all, birth of one

The final major similarity is an existential - though it plays out differently in each case.

Minister for Sport Patrick O'Donovan told the press following conversations with the GAA, the LGFA, the Camogie Association that, for the latter two, it is an “existential” question as they would effectively be voting to fold their organisation into the larger GAA.

It’s hard to imagine getting anywhere with equality intact when two of the three organisations are being asked to effectively die in pursuit of something better, while the larger entity gets to remain intact.

Similarly, those who hold their identity as Northern Irish, or British identities dear, will hardly go happily into a new state if they feel who they are is being left behind.

Of course, there will be people who will never be happy with the notion of joining a united Ireland, no matter what it looks like, but there will be far fewer who are happy with it at all if the idea is that their country is going to be absorbed into another state.

The point - which is straining, I know - is that if anything is to work, then it needs to be a space where people feel that they have an equal claim to and future in - even if, for some, no amount of design will fix the ultimate problem. It just costs too much.