Steering Committee Chairperson Mary McAleese in attendance during the media update on the integration process involving the Camogie Association, the GAA and LGFA, at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Chairperson of the Steering Group for Integration Committee, Mary McAleese, has predicted that the coming together of the GAA, the Ladies Gaelic Football Association, and the Camogie Assocation will drive Gaelic games to new heights.
Speaking today at the announcement of the timeline towards integration that will see the process completed in 2027, the former President of Ireland outlined the many positives she believes will come from bringing all Gaelic games under the one banner of a restructured Gaelic Athletic Association.
“We hope it's a very historic day for Gaelic games,” said McAleese. “I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the narrative of Ireland's Gaelic games is probably the most extraordinary successful story of amateur sport anywhere in the world.
“And for that we have to thank three extraordinary organisations. Three strong, successful, powerful organisations. The Ladies Gaelic Football Association, the Camogie Association, and the GAA.
“We think of the GAA with 140 years of experience. Cumann Camogaiochta with 120 years of experience. Ladies Gaelic Football with 50 years of experience. 600 Camogie clubs, 1600 GAA clubs, Ladies Gaelic Football with 1000 clubs. And between them a membership of over 800,000 people and growing exponentially.
“And now from the grassroots up over a number of years now we have heard the call for the integration of these three great organisations into one Association and so we meet this morning as the steering integration group which was tasked by the three organisations, with the job of finding a pathway to integration.
“Finding that pathway, offering it by way of today of our proposals and recommendations and we believe we have found that pathway through 18 months of hard listening to all the constituencies with views.
“Discerning, distilling, and pulling it together so that we would have a really good positive story to those almost one million members. We have listened to them, we have taken their wisdom on board, and we believe that between 2024 and 2027 we will be able to offer a pathway to integration that will lead us to one Association for Gaelic games. That's the plan.
“So it's recommendations we offer to the membership and we hope the membership will see in what we say, every word that we say they will recognise their own views, perception, insight, offered to us over the last 18 months. So we're hoping as of today they'll get behind us and get behind us in this pathway to integration.
“This is a very complex process it has taken us 18 months to devise a robust pathway that is capable of integrating these three organisations in a way that is respectful of all of them and gives comfort to all the codes that their future is going to be a very exciting future, a future to look forward to, one that's going to make us all very proud. It is no less than the modernising of Gaelic games.
“We will only begin to know our strength in Gaelic games, I believe, when we have this integrated organisation up and running. And then, watch out, it will be extraordinary.”