Donegal GAA Chairperson, Mary Coughlan.
By John Harrington
Mary Coughlan’s first GAA Annual Congress as Donegal GAA Chairperson this weekend is unlikely to faze her.
The former Tánaiste is no stranger to debate and voting on policy after 24 years as a TD in Dáil Éireann and six different ministerial briefs.
Politics has always been in her blood – her father Cathal was a TD for Donegal South West before her – but so too has the GAA.
Cathal was an accomplished handballer, her uncles Clement and Austin played for St. Naul’s, while Austin also coached many teams including the Donegal side that won the 1983 Ulster title with Brian McEniff as manager.
An uncle on her mother’s side, Dom Breslin, played for both Four Masters and St. Naul’s, and her husband David, a staunch Mayo man, was also a fine footballer.
Mary never had the opportunity to play herself because Ladies football didn’t have the nationwide presence then it does now, but, from a young age, it was a rare Sunday that she didn’t go to some sort of match.
Politics consumed her life for more than two decades, but, given her family connections to the club, it was perhaps inevitable that St. Naul’s would eventually come knocking on her door.
“I lost my (Dáil) seat and then I cared for my husband who passed away,” says Coughlan.
“After that people made the assumption that I had nothing to do so why not rope her in to being secretary of the club!
“I was approached by some of the people in the club to see would I help them out because they had no secretary at the time. They had a long-term secretary, a wonderful person, who wanted to retire and nobody really wanted to take on the mantle so I said I'd give it a shot.
“My young fella and daughter both played for the club so I thought I'd like to give something back when I had the time and I was at home. That's how I became Secretary with Joe Brennan who was my Chairperson at the time. We soldiered together for a good few years.
“I loved it. It took my a while to get into the idiosyncrasies of the rules of the GAA and timescales and all of that, but I loved it. It was a great way of meeting people.
“As I was saying to people, secretary is secretary, you do your notes, you do your meetings, you set up things, and there's a lot involved. But I did more than that because I just enjoyed it.
“I washed the jersies and I sorted out the lads with physio and helped out in the kitchen and did the fundraising and whatever else needed to be done. It was just part of being a club-member.”
After 11 years as a Club Secretary, Coughlan was elected Donegal GAA Chairperson last December.
Mary Coughlan pictured presenting the 2023 Senior Player of the Year to Gavin Mulreany of St. Naul's.
Putting her name forward for the role wasn’t something she did on a whim.
“No, it wasn’t,” she says. “I was asked previously to consider it and I just didn't feel like I could do it. Then I was encouraged by so many people this time and there were two other candidates, Cieran Kelly and Sean Dunnion, who decided they would support me and they're both on the management committee now as well which is fantastic.
“I think there was a great impetus for change at county level. That's not taking from the people who were there previously, some of them have moved on and had their terms done. Our Chairperson only stayed one year, Fergus McGee, who was a very fine fellow.
“But there were quite a lot of difficulties and some of it emanated from the fact that the county wasn't doing particularly well on the field and that moved into off the field. There was a huge wave within the county and the clubs that they wanted change and things done differently.
“That's why you see on our executive that we have quite a number of new people who never previously served at executive level before.
“And, as I said to the county committee, because of that you have to give us time to learn the ropes, tick what we need to do in the first three months in terms of getting our games organised and other structures sorted. And then we'll look at the strategic development of the county.”
Coughlan hopes some of the skills that made her a successful politican will be transferrable to this new role, chiefly the ability to manage people and bring them with you.
She’s been enthused by the good will that’s out there in the county, and has identified a number of priorities that Donegal GAA will work on in the coming years.
“There's quite a lot of things that have to be done,” she says. "My concern of course is the clubs and the talent in all the clubs and how we support that talent. I don't mean at the elite level, I mean all of our players.
“We would like to work towards developing those standards, supporting more coaches, and also supporting more referees. And if we can do that and copper fasten what we're supposed to be doing, you'd hope that would future-proof the clubs.
“Now, that won't come without its challenges because we have a lot of small rural clubs where the population isn't there and there's not as many primary school children so that's going to be a challenge. But there's nothing to say that we can't work it out and come to some mutual agreement.
“There's a huge surge of interest in camogie and hurling and our hurlers are doing very well so it's how you balance that support as well.
“I think the development of our schools, primary and post-primary, we really need to up our game there. It's brilliant that we have the Abbey Vocational School in an All-Ireland semi-final this weekend because that's the level you have to be at in order to transfer it into the club and county.
“It takes a lot of time and energy but it's worth it.
“The other thing I would like to see...we speak a lot about integration and that won't be without its challenges. But at least in Donegal we believe in the One Club principle.
“Integration in terms of a wider context is important too with the new populations that have come here to Donegal, and also there's a role for people outside of playing, such as those people with disabilities or other challenges.
“Participation is what it's about. There's nothing to say they can't do the stats, they can't do the flags, making sure no-one runs away with the footballs, all the little things that are important to a team.
“Sometimes the GAA has been seen to be closed but in fact that's not the case. I come from a mixed religious parish and our Protestant school is participative.
“We're unique in one way because of the parish that I come from and I believe the GAA should be for everybody.”
Pictured left to right are Declan Martin (Donegal GAA County secretary), Michelle McKenna (Donegal LGFA County secretary), Mary Coughlan (Donegal GAA Chairperson), Joanne McKinney (Donegal LGFA Chairperson), Grace Boyle (Donegal GAA Treasurer) and Declan McDermott (Donegal LGFA Treasurer).
Coughlan is just the sixth woman to become a County Coard Chairperson.
At club committee level we’ve seen great positives come from a quickly growing trend towards a gender balance, and she hopes the same will eventually happen at county and national level.
Certainly Donegal are one of the counties showing the way in this regard with Coughlan heading a strong female representation at the top-table with Mary Kelly (assistant secretary), Grace Boyle (treasurer), Caitriona Ui Shuibhne (language and culture, and Sinead Breen (PRO) also members of the executive.
“This isn't about sexism,” says Coughlan. “I just see some similarities between political life and the GAA. It takes up a lot of time. And if you're working and you have a couple of kids to rear, et cetera, it can be a bit more difficult.
“Women bring a balance to conversation and decision-making and that's why I think it's important that it should be seen everywhere. I chaired the first dialogue on women in agriculture and we launched our action plan and one of the things similar to the GAA is there should be more women represented in organisations like the IFA and such bodies.
“The same thing needs to happen in all organisations. I'm not saying that women are better than others, I'm just saying they have a role to play. I listened very acutely to a speaker at the County Officer Conference in Croke Park recently and she was there because she could do the job, not because she was a woman. I'm very much a believer in the that.
“But there's a reality out there that there has to be a support for that. If you look at the mix that's within our county committee, there's still very few women attending on behalf of their clubs even though I know that probably 50 per cent of the people in those clubs are women.
“You have to encourage them. In politics I was encouraged probably by more men than women because that's the way it was at the time, but you just need to support and encourage them. It can be done.
“The great thing about the GAA is that you can bundle the kids in the car and give them a football while there's something going on! That's how they learn too, that creates their experience.”
Left to right, St. Naul's and Donegal footballers Brendan McCole, Peadar Mogan, and Gavin Mulreaney pictured with St. Naul's Club Chairperson Cieran Kelly, and Donegal Chairperson and former St. Naul's Club Secretary, Mary Coughlan.
Her to-do list as Donegal GAA Chairperson is a lengthy one and there are some days when it seems like the phone never stops ringing, but Coughlan isn’t complaining.
She’s determined to roll her sleeves up and do some good for the county in the role.
“I don't mind hard work! I can manage hard work, I've done that all my life,” says Coughlan.
“But this isn't about me. This is about the entirety of the group working together and there are great people there and they all have talents to bring to the table. If we can work towards that I think we'll do quite well.
“Really what you have to make sure is that when your tenure is finished then you've done something to make things better for Donegal. It's about Donegal.
“And that's not just in the sense of football, hurling, and camogie. It's about knowing who you are as a county and all that entails."