By John Harrington

Ireland’s transformation from a largely rural society to an urban one is arguably the greatest challenge the GAA has ever faced.

That might sound extreme, but it’s an easy conclusion to come to after reading a copy of the report that Leinster Council Treasurer, Syl Merrins, will present at their provincial convention tomorrow.

Merrins headed up the Rural Communities Workgroup, set up by outgoing Leinster Council Chairman, John Horan, and the report they have produced is an alarming one.

It shows that the movement of people from rural to urban areas is weakening the GAA in two profound ways.

Firstly, rural GAA clubs are struggling more and more to field teams and many have no option but to either disband completely or amalgamate with other clubs in order to survive.

You might have thought that more people moving to urban areas would strengthen the GAA presence there, but this is not proving to be the case.

Existing clubs in urban areas are simply incapable of serving everyone in their catchment area and so instead of being at the heart of their communities are drifting to the periphery of them.

From 1971 to 2016 the population of the eleven Leinster counties outside of Dublin has more than doubled from 619, 428 to 1,285,318. Yet, in that time, over 20 clubs have gone out of existence in those counties and an estimated 30 more will either disband or amalgamate in the next 15 years.

There were 144 less teams registered in Leinster in 2016 than there were in 2010, and up to 40% of teams in secondary competitions either failed to play in them or complete their fixtures programmes in 2016.

Society is changing and, according to Syl Merrins, the statistics prove that the GAA must learn how to adapt better to that change.

“You take Kildare for example,” Merrins told GAA.ie. “Kildare's population in the last 40 years has trebled. I think there's been 235% increase. It went from around 66,000 to over 220,000.

“But, in that time, we've actually lost clubs. There's only been one new club formed, and that was Confey back in about '89.”

In an ideal world you’d simply establish more GAA clubs to cater for growing populations of urban areas, but that’s a lot easier said than done.

Setting up a GAA club from scratch is a massive endeavour and there are a couple of obvious obstacles.

GAA people from that area with an affinity to an existing club are not going to be motivated to set up a rival one. And those who come into the area with a strong interest in the GAA will also gravitate towards the existing club.

But one club in a sprawling urban area can only reach so many people, and so the GAA’s market-share of the population shrinks and shrinks.

“Exactly,” says Merrins. “The problem that I see is, how do you form a new club?

"From our findings one club had nearly three and a half thousand primary school kids in their catchment area and there is an urgent need to form new clubs in areas like this, but how do you make this happen?.

“Unless there's division in the club or unless the GAA puts structures in place in terms of establishing a pitch or club facilities, then how are you going to establish a new club?"

Many urban-based clubs have more people than they can cope with, and the flip side of the coin is that a club like St. Columba’s, Mullinalaghta are possibly living on borrowed time because they’re running out of people.

The Longford side did brilliantly in 2016 to reach the Leinster club SFC semi-final when you consider that they draw their team from a half-parish of around 400 people.

The national school that feeds the club currently has only 39 pupils, and last year just four children were born in the area, three of them girls.

So the sad reality for a club like Mullinalaghta is that the success they had last year is unsustainable in the long-term if nothing is done to address the trend of rural depopulation in Ireland.

In the not too distant future they may have no option but to amalgamate with another club such as Abbeylara in order to continue playing senior club football.

There are many rural clubs like Mullinalaghta faced with that reality all over the country, particularly in the West of Ireland.

In 2011, a study by the Kerry County Board found that 23 of their 76 clubs had an average of eight boys or less per class in their local primary school. Six of those were in the South Kerry area alone where they predicted that all 23 clubs will have to amalgamate with other clubs to field underage teams into the future.

In Leinster, catering for expanded urban populations is their biggest problem, and there are going to be more and more clubs who, despite their best efforts, will only be able to reach a fraction of the people living in their catchment area.

“From a GAA point of view, Leinster is different,” says Merrins. “Okay there are a few pockets of depopulation, but by and large the population is rising across all of Leinster.

“So in regards to the health of the GAA nationally, the Leinster situation is crucial. You've 55% of the population of the country in Leinster and it's going to continue growing.

“And if the interest in the GAA drops in Leinster, then nationally we're in serious trouble. It's as simple as that.”

The strength of GAA clubs has always been pride of place and how the jersey represents the local community, a tradition that’s handed down from generation to generation.

But when there’s a huge influx of new people into an area in a relatively short period of time they obviously don’t have the same relationship with the club.The challenge for the club then is to bring those newcomers into the fold.

“One of the big things that came out of our study was the importance of a strong club-school link,” says Merrins.

“Even in terms of the rural clubs that are in the hinterland of the urban areas, to keep those clubs alive we need some way of taking kids out there. Many rural primary schools have high numbers, but the kids are coming in from nearby urban areas. 

“We need to have some sort of focus on the primary school so that those clubs can utilise the numbers attending.

“So that the primary school nearly becomes seen as the heart of the community and club, even if we have to amend rules or bye-laws that are hindering participation.

“The need for community development, that came strongly out of the study as well.

“We need to think outside the box in terms of not just being a GAA club, but how can we as a club develop a community spirit and think community and community development in order to keep the club the focal point of the community.”

The trend of rural decline and increasing urban populations is set to continue and even accelerate in the coming years unless something is done at Governmental level to address this issue.

GAA Árd Stiúrthóir Paraic Duffy acknowledged in his recently published Annual Report that many rural clubs are struggling for their very existence and stressed that need for the Government to invest in rural Ireland to help slow and even reverse the human flow to urban areas. 

"We are struggling to cope with both the growth of population in urban areas and the decline in rural Ireland," wrote Duffy. "We cannot be idle bystanders and neither can we take on the primary role of government to support the development of rural areas.

"What we must do is to lend our voice to those of other organisations that are advocating the implementation of a clear national policy on rural Ireland. It is now time for urgent and effective action."

The ethos of GAA clubs is to be self-reliant and do the best with what they have, but if that urgent and effective action that Duffy has called for from the Government is not forthcoming, then the future will be bleak for rural clubs who simply won't have enough bodies to fill jersies.

Urban clubs will have no shortage of players, but the numbers of people they do bring into the fold will be far less than those they don't from their bloated catchment areas.

“A population increase of almost 500,000 has been projected for Leinster in the next 15 years,” says Merrins.

“And even though that population has already doubled over the last how many number of years, the GAA has been declining at club level.

“It's a disaster for the GAA really, and it's definitely the biggest challenge the GAA needs to address.

“The more urbanised you get, the less community spirit that exists and the GAA is built on community and spirit. You're playing for more than just the club, you're playing for your community.

“And if that's diluted, then that's a problem.”