TG4 presenter Micheál Ó Domhnaill, left, alongside analysts Mícheál Ó Cróinín and Aodán Mac Gearailt, as floor manager Odhrán Mac Murchadha looks on, as they broadcast before the 2018 AIB Munster GAA Football Senior Club Championship semi-final match between Dr Crokes and St Finbarr's at Dr Crokes GAA, in Killarney, Co. Kerry.
By John Harrington
25 years ago this very week, TG4, then known as TnaG, broadcast a GAA match for the very first time.
It was the first milestone in an impressive journey that has seen the Irish language television station become the most prolific broadcaster of Gaelic Games content of all hues.
TG4’s amiable Head of Sport, Rónán Ó Coisdealbha, has been along for the ride from the very start.
Back in 1996 he was a young buck producer with Nemeton who packaged that match, the 1996 Galway Senior Football Final between An Cheathrú Rua and Oranmore, for TnaG.
“It’s a match that’s very close to my heart for lots of reasons, not just because it was the first ever GAA match broadcast on TnaG,” says Ó Coisdealbha.
“I’m from An Ceathru Rua myself, it’s where I live here in Connemara, and it was our first time to reach a county final.
“What actually happened was TG4 came on air on the 31st of October, 1996, so it was Halloween night. Three weeks earlier An Cheathrú Rua got to their first county final in 1996.
“There was no sports department within TnaG so they asked Nemeton, where I worked, would we record the Galway county Final in Tuam Stadium between an Cheathrú Rua and Oranmore.
“The fact that a Gaeltacht team won a county final in Galway was huge news at the time and it was a perfect start for TnaG, I suppose.
“We recorded the game and edited it down and did post-match interviews, all of that. Then a couple of days after TnaG came on air, we showed an hour-long highlights and interview package of the game.
“We were very lucky. It’s hard to believe that’s 25 years ago now. Time has just flown by, it’s unreal.”
Pictured in 2005 at the annoucement of TG4's Live broadcasting rights were, left to right, Pól Ó Gallchóir, former Chief Executive TG4, Sean Kelly, former President of the GAA, and Rónán Ó Coisdealbha, TG4 Head of Sport.
Right from the start, TG4 took an imaginative approach to their Gaelic Games programming.
Without any live rights in the early years they had to be creative, and they immediately found a winning formula when they began broadcasting All-Ireland Finals from the past.
They also broadcast live coverage of Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta and highlights packages of everything from underage inter-county matches to National League games. This enthusiastic approach ultimately paved the way for bigger things to come.
“When we came on air in 1996 one of the biggest things that worked for us was ‘All-Ireland Gold’,” says Ó Coisdealbha.
“We realised how important the GAA was to our schedule because people wanted to see the old games.
“We were showing them every week and, in fairness to the GAA and Croke Park at the time they realised, Jesus, fair play to this channel who are providing coverage of these old games.
“There were a lot of meetings going on behind the scnees with Joe McDonagh the GAA President at the time, Liam Mulvhill the then GAA Director General, and Cathal Goan who was our CEO at the time.
“Thankfully they realised that TG4 were doing a lot of games and it was time to give us live rights to Club Finals and National League Finals.”
TG4's Head of Sport, Ronán Ó Coisdealbha, speaking at the launch fo the 2020 Laochra Gael series.
TG4’s fantastic coverage of the GAA Club Championships is now rightly lauded and a huge part of Gaelic Games culture, but it took the public a little while to cotton onto the fact that they could get their live GAA fix at a time of the year they were unaccustomed to.
“It’s funny, the ratings weren't brilliant straight away, but it wasn't about ratings for us,” says Ó Coisdealbha
“I suppose the club games was a bit of a slow burner because it took a while for people to realise this channel is actually showing live GAA. As much PR and marketing as you could do at the time, it took a while for people to realise that you could watch club games every Sunday in September, October, November on this Irish langauge channel.
“We had to work very hard on public relations and making sure that the newspapers knew every week what games we were showing. This is before the world of social media, I suppose.
“You sent out the press release every Monday and Tuesday to the local papers and local radio station just to say this is the live GAA matches this week and all of that.”
More of an overnight success was the Laochra Gael series of documentaries which profile some of the greatest GAA players looking back on their careers. 19 series have now been produced, and the concept continues to go from strength to strength.
“The feedback we now get on Laochra Gael is unbelievable, “ says Ó Coisdealbha. “It's huge. It's something that's hard to believe it has come such a long way.
“It started back 2001 when Ger Loughnane was programme number one, so we started strongly, I suppose.
“It has been running since then and it has gone really, really well for us. We've now produced 172 episodes of Laochra Gael. And we're working on a new series of Laochra Gael which will go out in January and February next year.
“I've seen the outline for one of them, Terence 'Sambo' McNaughton, who really has a great story. It's an amazing programme, he really tells his story brilliantly.
“I'd love to produce more Laochra Gaels, but documentaries are expensive to produce.”
Pictured at the launch of TG4's 2020 season of Laochra Gael were, left to right, Alan Brogan of Dublin and his son Jamie, David Brady of Mayo and Kieran Donaghy of Kerry.
Laochra Gael is just one strand of TG4’s prolific output of GAA documentaries that cover a variety of topics and eras.
“I'm not exaggerating when I saw we've done hundreds of GAA documentaries,” says Ó Coisdealbha.
“In 2009 the GAA celebrated 125 years. We did 10 one-hour programmes on the history of the GAA. Literally from 1884 right up to 2009. That was a huge undertaking. Those 10 one-hour documentary series cost over one million euros. It was absolutely huge.
“Then we sent Dara Ó Cinnéide over to America and he did a series called GAA USA. And, again, that was huge. Full of archives, full of stories from Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, all that kind of stuff.
“We did one on Tyrone and Mickey Harte, we did the history of Hill 16, another on Paidi Ó Sé to name just a few.
“We’re actually shooting one at the moment, Grainne McElwain is travelling around the country, and it's all about the history of GAA trophies. So, basically, how did all of these cups get their names?
“Our Gaelic Games documentaries have always done really well for us.”
Dara Ó Cinnéide pictured on the set of the TG4 documentary he presented, GAA USA.
TG4’s approach has always been to make the most of what they have, and Ó Coisdealbha believes a huge part of their success is down to the fact they're blessed with a hugely committed group of people who take pride in their work.
“I don't like harping on about this, but we have extremely tight budgets so we're lucky we have such hard-working crews,” he says.
“We have such a good coaching team and technical team and talent and people working for us, they're very, very hard working and we're very lucky because most of the people who have worked with us have been with us for a long time now.
“You look at Micheál Ó Domhnaill our GAA presenter, he's been with us from the very, very beginning. He spent the first four years presenting 'Olé, Olé', our Spanish soccer highlights on a Monday night and then we asked him to move over to our GAA coverage and he did that and has been a fantastic presenter who has been there so long.
“We're lucky that we have licensed Nemeton who produce our GAA programming and do a great job. Every year at the end of each year I look at the amount of sports programming that we've produced and we're only the one channel but we always try to put as much sport as we can into the schedule because we feel the Irish people are sports-mad people.
“We broadcast so much live GAA now with the Leagues, the Club Championships, the minor and U-20 Championships.
"There’s all sorts of other GAA programming we do such as The GAA President's Awards, highlights from Rounders, we do Scór na nÓg, Scór Sinsir, all of those are shown. It's not just about the live match, we try to provide a service to the entire GAA family.
“I hope that we've given a good commitment to the GAA in the same way that the GAA have been very good to us in giving us the permission to shows these games. It's a two-way street but it's worked really, really well for us.”
TG4 presenter Micheál Ó Domhnaill pictured at the 2021 Mayo Senior Club Football Championship Group 4 match between Breaffy and The Neale at Breaffy GAA Club in Mayo.
From that small acorn of the 1996 Galway SFC Final highlights package, TG4 has grown into a might oak of Gaelic Games broadcasting.
The station is now so indelibly associated with our National Games, it’s impossible to imagine a GAA season without their year-round coverage.
“For me, the biggest thing I'm proud of is the growth,” says Ó Coisdealbha. “I just think the growth in the last 20 years especially has been huge. We show as many games as we can and it's just providing a service.
“I love going out to games, I was at a county ladies football match on Sunday, and you have people coming up to you going, ‘I saw that club game in Limerick, one of the best hurling games I saw last weekend’. And the feedback you get from people about our GAA coverage is great to hear.
“At the end of the day, we're providing a service. That’s what we do. We're just providing a service. We've all had a very tough year and a half with Covid. There were people like my own father who is in his eighties, he couldn't go to any game last year or this year so he's relying on me to provide a service to him and to thousands and millions of people across Ireland and abroad.
“There's an element of responsibility there that you are providing a service to people who cannot attend games, and we're conscious of this all the time.
“The GAA is good for TG4 and TG4 I hope is good for the GAA because we give them a lot of coverage. I think it's a win-win situation for everyone. Long may it continue.”