Tom Ryan hails 'remarkable' 140 year history of GAA

By John Harrington

At 3pm on Saturday, 1 November 1884, in the billiards room of Hayes’ Hotel in Thurles, Michael Cusack with a small group of founding members established the Gaelic Athletic Association.

140 years on from that day, we talk to GAA Director General, Tom Ryan, about the journey that the Association has travelled since.

GAA.ie: Tom, it's 140 years since the GAA was founded in the billiards room of Hayes Hotel in Thurles. When you think of that and all that has happened since then, what sort of emotions does it evoke for you?

Tom Ryan: It's remarkable the organisation is of that standing and that durable. The founders had great foresight to come together and codify the games in a world that was so different to what we now know.

I take great pride in the fact that the GAA is still growing and flourishing. We say things like ‘it's never been stronger’, and they're all true. It has never been as popular. It has never been as deeply embedded as it is now.

I think too of everything that had to happen between 1884 and today to make that the case. All the people, both heralded and unheralded, who made that happen. It's humbling when you think about it.

Today everybody around the whole country is talking about All Stars and awaiting to see who is going to be awarded those gongs.

I think those people that assembled in Hayes Hotel in November 1884 would have been amazed to imagine something like the All-Stars captivating the attention of the entire country and beyond.

Then you consider everything the Association has come through over the decades. Revolution, the founding of the state, 'The Emergency' as we called it, right the way up to Covid a few years ago. All the vagaries that the 19th, 20th and the 21st century have thrown at the country, and the GAA is still here, still flourishing. It's remarkable.

We haven't a notion of what the next 140 years is going to bring and what the world will be like but it's not unreasonable to believe that the GAA will be part of it. I fervently hope it will.

GAA.ie: What do you see as the GAA's greatest strengths?

TR: The greatest strength is that it has such a presence throughout the country. If you drive any route around Ireland you will pass a succession of very impressive playing facilities that are the footprint of the Association and bear testimony to the fact that it's everywhere. The smallest community in Ireland has a GAA club and that GAA Club is a central part of that community and a hub for everything that is good in that community. That is the real strength of the organisation.

The thing that sets the GAA apart is the fact that it absorbs attention and commitment and loyalty and passion at all levels. The reach that we have and the influence that we can have on peoples’ lives for the better is a really powerful thing.

GAA.ie: Do you think the advent of the Healthy Club programme has enabled the GAA to become even more of a community organisation as well as a sporting one?

TR: Absolutely. Competitive sport isn't for everybody, and winning or losing championships isn't for everybody. That isn't really what defines a healthy club. One measure of the health of a club is winning championships. But there are so many other ways in which a club can contribute and can have a positive influence on the life of its community and its members.

The Healthy Club initiative is growing like wildfire. The biggest challenge that Colin (Regan) and the team have is keeping pace with demand, and that tells you something about responding to a need around the country.

GAA.ie: Is complacency something the Association needs to be wary of? You've spoken previously about the ethos of volunteerism and how we perhaps need to we need to mind it a bit better.

TR: I don't get the sense of an Association that is complacent at any level. Even maintaining its current preeminent standing requires a lot of hard work. The world is getting more difficult in a lot of spheres for club officers and for voluntary people. The sheer breadth of stuff that you have to involve yourself in and know about is far, far wider than those founders in 1884 might ever have contemplated.

I certainly don't think complacency is anything that could reasonably be levelled at any club officer or committee member anywhere around the country, and I'd like to think the same applies at national level in the Association.

We know what the challenges are. We don't have answers to all of them, but the work that goes into keeping the Association growing and flourishing is substantial, and I wouldn't characterize it as taking anything for granted.

GAA.ie: What do see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for the GAA moving forward?

TR: Time is the biggest challenge. People in 2024 have all manner of pressures, be it a family, career, the daily grind. What we value most of all and what we need most to sustain ourselves is people's time, energy, and commitment.

That's at a premium everywhere today so we must make the job a little bit easier and more straightforward for people getting involved in the GAA and take some of that burden off them.

I think the biggest opportunity that we have, and it's not without its challenges, is how we can knit together the three organizations that currently govern the differing strands of Gaelic Games.

We can build a stronger Gaelic Games Association that can harness the really positive aspects of all three associations and meld those into one that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

GAA.ie: When you consider how the GAA has changed with the times is it fair to say that it's a nimble organisation?

TR: Absolutely. It's funny, we do get unfairly branded as archly conservative and maybe that's just because we have stood the test of time and we are still here. From the inside looking out, I think we are a nimble organisation. We have shown we're able to respond to all manner of adverse circumstances. We're also able to change ourselves.

A considerable responsibility that other sports in Ireland don't have is managing your own playing rules and we do that well. In the last 20 years the number of changes that the Association has gone through in terms of competition structures, playing standards, and its organisational architecture is remarkable.

We're going to have a Special Congress in a month's time. They used to be the preserve of emergency situations that needed to be rectified post-haste. Of late we've used them to bring in fairly significant change for the following playing season.

I think this is the fifth or sixth year in a row that we've had one of those so we've been in a period of a lot of change. It’s to our credit that's not immediately perceived. That tells me that we're able to do it in a seamless and orderly way where it's well managed, well thought out, and well implemented.

We are always evolving with an eye to how we can do things better. That has been a characteristic of the GAA for the last 140 years and it will be for the future as well. That's how we're wired.

GAA.ie: You're only the sixth Director General of the GAA since 1901. Does the responsibility of the role rest heavily or otherwise on your shoulders?

TR: It doesn't weigh that heavily because it's not a sole responsibility. The staff in Croke Park share that burden as well and the county officers and members of the Management Committee do likewise.

It's a privilege to work with all the people in here and the people in the counties. That has always been the ethos in the GAA. They are, for the most part, team sports, and the effort of advancing and bettering the GAA is a team undertaking.

GAA.ie: What are your hopes for the GAA over the next ten years up running up to the Association's 150th birthday.

TR: We are the preeminent sporting and cultural organisation in the country today and all the time spreading our influence further afield internationally. My hope would be that we maintain and grow that status. That more people are playing Gaelic Games, watching Gaelic games, and talking about Gaelic games in 10 years’ time than is the case today. If that happens then we’re doing the right things. It's not revolutionary, it's evolutionary.