Óráid an Uachtaráin Jarlath Burns 2025

A chairde uilig is cúis mhór bród dom an deis seo labhairt libh arís agus muid bailithe le chéile mar eagraíocht náisiúnta agus idir náisiúnta - Cumann Domhanda - anseo i gCúige Uladh don dara bhliain as a chéile.

Bhí a fhios agam anuraidh nuair a ghlac mé an ról seo cé chomh mór is a bhí an ónóir agus an pribhléid freastal oraibh mar Uachtarán CLG agus tar éis bliain gnóthach, taithneamhach agus tairbheach, tá níos mó fianaise agam go pearsanta ar gníomhíochtaí an Chumainn agus an tionchar atá againn, ní amháin in Éirinn, ach timpeall na cruinne.

I’ve sat often enough in the seats that you occupy today and while I have no intention of going over every topic that the Ard Stiúrthóir expertly covered in his excellent report, I do believe it pertinent to reflect on certain areas of our operation since we gathered in Newry 12 months ago.

Congress is an incredibly important occasion in our calendar.

In essence, it epitomises the democracy that underpins how the GAA operates and is the most obvious manifestation of how our organisation functions.

Don’t ever underestimate the significance of the fact that any one of us can table a motion proposing changes to our Official Guide at any of our Club AGMs and with sufficient support, that same motion can navigate its way through the relevant county convention and onto the clár here today – as many have.

Similarly, the opportunity to meet with delegates from other counties provides us with the opportunity to rekindle existing friendships and forge new ones – all the while sharing the lived experience of being a GAA volunteer and exchanging examples of best practice.

In mentioning the Ard Stiúrthóir’s report, I again congratulate Tom, and I would urge all of us in the GAA, that if we do nothing else, to reflect particularly on what he has written on page 74 where he looks ahead to what sort of GAA we might be when we celebrate our 150^th anniversary in 2034. Call it a wish list or big picture or blue sky thinking – it is a thought-provoking strategic roadmap and worthy of our support.

Needless to say, it is great to be back in Ulster and in a county I will always connect with my grá for ár dteanga duchasach.

NA CLUICHÍ - 2024

The honour of being Uachtarán CLG provides me with a front row seat at the biggest and best days in the Irish sporting calendar.

From presenting All-Irelands, Allianz Leagues, Tailteann, McDonagh, Ring, Rackard and Meagher Cups I never cease to be struck by a sense of gratitude to the players who, year after year, elevate our games into an artform.

Occasions such as the scorching summer’s night for the Offaly-Tipperary U20 hurling final at Nowlan Park or watching Rob Downey and Tony Kelly score their stunning goals at Croke Park will live long in the memory.

And of course, to sit in Ard Chomhairle on All-Ireland final day when your county has reached the pinnacle of our sport is a special moment I will never forget. It is something that can only be matched by the fact that when the final whistle came the ball was in front of the Hogan Stand and in the hands of one of my children.

I must beg forgiveness in revealing that that same football made its way back to Silverbridge that night rather than to the Croke Park storeroom and I hope the CCCC won’t mind us keeping it safe for them.

A VISION FOR OUR GAMES

It is a long time since there has been this much excitement and positive commentary about Gaelic football. If they have done nothing else, our Football Review Committee has restored people’s faith in the game, made people fall in love with the game again and see the enormous potential that exists.

This renewed interest and energy should not be seen as a slight on those people who have excelled at coaching or playing Gaelic football before now. But we had reached a point where the game was at a crossroads, where great players were redundant, and spectators were losing interest.

What Jim Gavin and the FRC have achieved in the space of a year is remarkable and something they deserve great credit for. The consultative way they have carried out this work and travelled all over the country is a lesson for the wider Association in how we communicate a plan and look to educate and bring people with us.

The mission is not over, and there will be twists and turns between now and a gathering for Special Congress next October to agree on the final amendments for a finished article in 2026.

There is an opportunity for the wider membership to engage and make their feelings known to the FRC on the rule enhancements and I urge all of us to do that. The game belongs to all of us, and I urge our members to seize the opportunity to have their voice heard.

The future will tell a lot – however, there is one area where we do not need to wait for a review to be able to hail it as a success and that is the level of respect which is being given to our referees and match officials. As one county official said to me recently: “it is amazing we put up with so much abuse and disrespect for match officials for so long.”

We have needed to collectively turn this corner for too long and I hope that at club level coaches and players take their lead from what they see on our inter-county fields. If approached in the right way, this enhanced respect for referees can be the greatest recruitment drive for match officials we ever had. The Ard Stiúrthóir has said how this respect for referees is an obvious area where hurling could learn from football, and I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Hurling has no shortage of its own concerns, and I believe that the formation of a Hurling Development Committee under someone as passionate as Terry Reilly and the recent appointment of William Maher as the Head of Hurling will put us on the road to addressing them.

I am really excited about the group of people who we have assembled to steward hurling and would ask that we give William Maher especially, all of our support when he takes up his post as he looks to promote hurling and indeed camogie in all our clubs.

If we pause for a moment and reflect on our collective achievements as an Association since 2020 the scale of that work is quite breathtaking.

Consider the Association we are now, compared to where we were pre-Pandemic, and how in five short years necessity was the mother of invention and has seen us have the courage to tackle issues like the playing calendar and the rules of football.

And it is now hurling’s time.

Yes, the Munster championship and the battle for the Liam Mac Carthy Cup are the most awe-inspiring competitions you will find anywhere in world sport. But the duty we have to sustain them and the responsibility we shoulder for hurling beyond those competitions requires the sort of vision and bravery that have characterised our approach to grabbing the nettles that were the split season and football.

The actions we need to take need to be long term and sustainable, and we need to show leadership and resolve to do the right thing when it comes to growing the game, playing the game, and establishing new teams.

I’ll make no apologies for living up to the mantle passed onto us by Michael Cusack that we preserve this great game, protect it and promote it so that every young boy and girl in Ireland has the chance to know the thrill of following in Setanta’s footsteps.

GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE AND AMATEUR STATUS

There are many narratives weaved through our activities and around our games.

We are proud of how we organise ourselves and the role that we have in Irish society.

We have reach and influence and with that comes responsibility.

However, if we are serious about the amateur status that underpins our success and prominence, we quite simply have to do more to nurture and protect it.

It is a precious commodity in this era and one that needs minding. It may well be the last of its kind at this level of sport anywhere globally.

And with that comes challenges.

Year in, year out, the issue of team expenses arises. We tut, shake heads and by and large park our disquiet in such a way that the same cycle unfolds the following year – only worse.

No one disputes the need to prepare our footballers and hurlers to a high standard. It is a given.

But the current levels of expenditure are unsustainable and cannot be allowed to go unchecked.

To be clear, this is a collective responsibility, and the conversation and subsequent response requires buy-in and contributions from right across the Association.

We need to be conscious that every additional paid role to an inter-county backroom team feeds into this problem.

Since the earliest days of the organisation, the idea of matching and preferably bettering what your rivals do has driven us.

But when inter-county team expenditure reaches €44m in a given year, we quite simply have to press pause and reflect.

It’s not simply that gargantuan outlay on its own that is a cause for concern, but it is the pressure it places on volunteer officials to raise it before it is spent.

It also soaks up fundraising credits across wider society that if harnessed differently, could be utilised in other longer-lasting beneficial ways.

Addressing the playing rules of football and creating a plan for the growth and development of hurling were key objectives in my first year as Uachtarán.

For year two I have made no secret of the fact that I would like us to focus our minds on our Amateur Status in 2025.

I eagerly await the findings from the Amateur Status Committee and their report as a whole and I am confident having taken soundings – both official and unofficial – that the appetite exists to tackle this and approach things in a better way.

We are duty bound to.

As we discovered late last year how we conduct the business end of our operation matters.

The spotlight is on and even if it wasn’t we are obliged to play our role as good citizens and conform in the area of tax and finance. And we do.

We have independent proof that the GAA is good for society and good for the exchequer and armed with this information we can approach our dealings with the Government with confidence.

We need to shine a light on the best practices of our County and Club units and replicate it in an effort to ensure they become the norm.

Another of the lessons I have taken from the past year is how hard our officials work – both paid and volunteer.

The ask we make of them is considerable.

Our team at central level work hard to offer every assistance possible but I believe we can put more structure around those supports.

We need to devise templates to assist the onerous workstreams and highlight and promote best practice.

We may compete against each other fiercely on the field but there is no reason why we can’t share expertise and shared experiences off it.

GAA+ / MEDIA

No recent changing of a calendar year in the GAA would be complete without reference to GAAGO, our own digital streaming service which came into existence in 2014.

Sometimes in the maelstrom we tend to forget its importance and just how much the media landscape has changed in the period since its inception.

To say it has served us well would be an understatement and the flexibility it affords us around the scheduling and broadcasting of games would be sorely missed if it wasn’t available to us.

I shudder to think how much ground we would have to make up if we were only starting out on our journey in this space now.

Late last year we made the decision to retain the rights for media packages 5 and 6, previously shown domestically by GAAGO, before exploring what we would do with them.

Today, I am pleased to confirm the next phase in our ‘over the top’ / ‘direct to fan’ streaming offering with the announcement of our fully GAA-owned and operated service called GAA+.

GAA+ will mean more content across live matches and additional programming, including midweek programming, and continued value for members and supporters alike. It will stream its first live games from the opening weekend of this year's Championship.

Why are we doing this?

• To be strategic

• To be a leader in Irish sport

• To leverage global trends

• To future proof the value of our broadcast rights in a quickly evolving media world

• To further embrace the digital age and meet our members’ demands

Our growing in-house expertise allows us to pursue this project entirely on our own in the domestic and international markets, but I would like to acknowledge and thank RTÉ for their collaboration and partnership over the course of the last decade.

Their know-how and experience were vital in establishing proof of concept for what was a new venture and a first in Irish sport.

We look forward to working with them as traditional media partners for many years to come - as part of a mutually beneficial relationship that stretches back to the first European Sports broadcast on 2RN in 1926.

This latest development represents a major step forward for us in managing and utilising our own rights and when you consider the seismic changes in the media landscape over the last decade, this has to be welcomed.

More details about the schedule will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

Not unrelated, I also intend to work with our counties in the coming weeks to tackle the challenges we continue to experience in working with our managers and players to promote our games via media engagement.

To provide one drastic example, in the two-week period before last year’s two All-Ireland hurling semi-finals, not one interview was conducted with a national media outlet.

Notwithstanding the demands on all of those involved with county teams, we cannot complain about airtime and print space afforded to our codes if we do not facilitate it.

To those counties who do, I acknowledge and thank you for that.

We don’t always like the media attention that we get. It comes with the territory of being an organisation of our size and social importance that we are held to account, have a mirror held up to us and our performance is critiqued.

But I can say that we are lucky to have the people who are the main correspondents covering our games, the vast majority of whom are active in their local clubs.

We should not expect to be served by cheerleaders, and we have an authentic group who deserve our thanks and also an acknowledgement that we do not always help you the media.

Under a proposed new arrangement, access to post-finals team holiday funding will be linked to measured media access around the national launches of our All-Ireland championships and games in the knockout phases of our All-Ireland series.

Failure to assist will impact on the funding available for team holidays for winning teams.

I believe and hope that this will be the start of a different conversation around media engagement, our games, and our fantastic role models and ambassadors in particular, many of whom I know are more than willing to assist us in this endeavor.

We have a duty to promote our games, and nothing does that better than showcasing and celebrating the fantastic people who play them.

INTEGRATION

We have also been busy in 2024 and in the early part of 2025 working with our colleagues in An Cumann Camógaíochta and LGFA on the all-important integration project as part of our ongoing efforts to closer align the activities of the three organisations.

It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most important projects we are engaged in and it will surprise few when I say at the same time, one of the most challenging.

We have invested a considerable amount of time and energy as a group working together and the scoping out project, as alluded to by an Ard Stiúrthóir in his annual report, has been insightful and useful at the same time shining a light on complex issues, some of which we may not have thought of previously and definitely didn’t prioritise.

We set ourselves an ambitious target when we announced this project and we remain committed to it.

The engagement process that proceeded this work told us in no uncertain terms across the board, that integration is both wanted and needed, and our members and wider society expect it to be delivered.

There have been learnings along the way.

It strikes me that some elements of the three operations as they are currently configured are not ‘integrate-able’ if I can use that term.

And if this is the case, we have to ask the question honestly, should we interfere with processes which currently do what the three organisations need them to do?

Other areas are more straight forward.

What is indisputable is the fact that we will need assistance externally in terms of finance if we are to attempt to merge three bodies where a stark imbalance exists in areas as important as facilities and general operations before an agreed level of outputs can be reached.

This is not about differing standards between the three organisations, rather a high-water mark that all three aspire to reach and it will take time, patience and tweaking in the months and indeed years ahead before we get there.

An Cumann Camógaíochta and the LGFA will provide their respective Congresses with updates in the near future, and I again acknowledge and welcome their representatives here today – mar is gnáth, tá fíor, fíor fáilte romhaibh.

Our Place and Our Social Value

In 2023 there was a report of eight separate clubs coming together to field two teams in the U21 football championship in Clare. A shocking statistic but by no means unusual. Primarily along our western seaboard - but by no means confined to it - there are reports of amalgamations being the order of the day so that we fulfil our most basic of duties – giving people a chance to play.

The issue of rural depopulation and its impact on clubs is something that has been flagged as a threat to the GAA for the last 50 years. It has accelerated to become a full-blown crisis for our Association as rural Ireland struggles and at the same time cities and towns are bursting and new urban hotspots are being created.

Rural Ireland has always been in our DNA. When the Association was formed it was the sports and the games that were played in rural Ireland that inspired Cusack and Davin, and they championed them. Together with tapping into our love of place they were the cornerstones in how the GAA was built.

The workshop at congress on demographics needs to provoke a response from us.

It is unconscionable that we would be the generation who preside over the permanent demise of rural Ireland. The role that we play in Irish life and especially in rural life gives us a power and influence that we should use to ensure that rural Ireland is not allowed to die.

The Government needs a national spatial strategy. We need practical solutions to allow clubs to exist and to field teams. Some of our clubs in rural areas have facilities that other sports can only dream about, but they lack players. At the same time, we have clubs in urban areas who have facilities that are hopelessly inadequate for the number of teams and players they are trying to cater for due to the sharp rise in urban population shifts.

The Association cannot face these challenges alone. There is significant need for government engagement, to advocate for rural and urban planning policies that support GAA clubs, promote social enterprise development to sustain communities, and secure funding for urban facilities and rural club regeneration. This must be done on a proactive basis. These initiatives will be key to enabling as many as possible to participate in Gaelic games and culture for as long as possible.

The recent report on the Economic Impact and Social Value of Gaelic Games provides detailed, independent analysis from international experts on the importance of the role that the GAA plays in Irish life and the positive impact we have on our communities.

The headline of the report is that Gaelic games are good for the economy and good for society. The headline figure of a social value of €2.87 billion is staggering and yet conservative.

But it is a reminder that investment in the GAA works, that the work of our army of volunteers makes a difference and that Ireland is a better place for it. This is not a time for hiding our light. If anything, the pressing issues of rural depopulation and urban explosion demand that we make a stand and advocate for special treatment.

CASEMENT PARK AND FACILITIES

Any discussion on the Casement Park project benefits from an understanding of the basic facts of the matter.

From 1953 to 2013 we had a fully functioning county ground for Antrim called Casement Park with its own rich history.

We were first approached by government authorities as far back as 2005 regarding the lending of our support to the construction of a multi-sports stadium at the site of the former Maze Prison and it is a matter of great regret that this project did not occur.

Immediately after it was scrapped, in 2009, we were told to start preparing the ground for Casement Park to be designated the main regional stadium in Ulster.

Hindsight is a great thing but, at all times, the GAA, and in particular Ulster GAA, has acted in good faith, and it was not our fault that the planning authorities in the North faced judicial reviews regarding failures of their own assessment procedures that has caused such lengthy and deeply frustrating delays.

More recently we had a situation where the British Government was interested in using Casement Park as a venue in their bid to host the 2028 Euro soccer championships. Our own Ard Chomhairle and Ulster GAA grasped this opportunity to be included as a potential host stadium to help breathe fresh life into the project and assist our friends in the Irish Football Association in the North to participate in the tournament.

As you know, despite publicly stated promises made by a Conservative Party British Secretary of State the recently elected British Labour Government brought the curtain down on that last September. As a result, now in 2025 the only football that is being kicked around Casement Park is a political one and this is not where we want to be!

Whilst we are all getting impatient about Casement Park, we urge all of the parties to come together to ensure that we can have a stadium in Ulster that will be modern, fit for purpose, future-proofed and capable of serving the needs of our province.

As President, and on behalf of all the members of our Association, we will accept no more empty promises.

It is also important to acknowledge that we have major infrastructural projects to consider such as Louth, Navan, the finishing of Walsh Park and Semple Stadium, which is the genuine home of hurling.

I would like to reassure the delegates here today that we have a plan to finance this which is at an advanced stage and we are meeting the Government next week to present it to them and if this plan comes together, it will create financial support which will fund a proper 10-year infrastructure strategy which will not only prepare the GAA for integration - but will future proof us for the next 30 years and I am really confident that this will happen.

BUÍOCHAS

We’ve covered a lot, and we have spoken about big decisions that have been made and big decisions still in front of us.

But I want to conclude by reassuring Congress that we can look to the future with confidence.

In the last year I have been to every county in Ireland and the hospitality and energy of the clubs I have visited is a constant source of inspiration.

The facilities that our clubs have, our love of place and the pride they have in their club grounds and the determination to look to the next big goal in their development is truly awesome.

I‘ve opened pitches and ball walls, dressing rooms, walking tracks and floodlights. I’ve celebrated club anniversaries big and small and launched club histories that ensure our great story is told well into the future.

I’ve seen children take their first tentative steps with football and hurl and seen volunteers flock to their pitches to sustain the GAA into its 141^st year. I have seen the GAA thrive overseas where our clubs perform the role of being a place to go and a place for fun and a place to have peace of mind finding a home from home.

There have been too many great occasions to mention when the GAA and a local community are one and the same thing. And there have been plenty of occasions when that same sense of support and comfort has been on display when we have come together as a GAA family to remember one of our own who has passed away and to shelter their grieving loved ones in our embrace.

This past year has made me prouder than ever to be a member of the GAA.

It’s never been harder to be a volunteer.

Time has never been more scarce and more precious.

But the reason why we do it is the north star that it always has been. Because it is a part of who we are and a statement about where we are from.

Our family did it, our neighbours and friends do it and we want our children and their children to do it – to be a part of this remarkable organisation that exists because people say count me in and get involved for a greater good, a worthy cause and to play their part.

Ireland would be an unrecognisable place without the GAA and the energy and life that we bring to communities in every corner of our great country and indeed among our diaspora around the globe.

From Summerhill to Salthill and from Spa to Silverbridge and from San Francisco to Sydney and whether you take a team, sell lotto, make tea, line pitches, wash jerseys, fix hurls, park cars or are still lucky enough to be able to pull on boots and play I want to say GRMMA and promise you that I will continue to work to make you as proud of the GAA as I am of all of you.

Tá ag tnúth go mór leis an obair atá ós ár gcomhar as seo amach sa dhá bhliain atá romham – obair casta agus dushlánach agus geallaim oraibh go mbeidh mé ag déanamh mo seacht ndicheall ar bhur son agus ar son an Chumainn ar fad.