*Delegates at County Convention. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE GAA have no plans to stop members of the media from covering and attending County Board meetings.
Cork GAA have come under fire for the recent decision to exclude the press from County Board meetings and instead issue a bulletin following their sittings to local and certain sections of the national media. Journalists have labelled the bulletin as “a whitewashed version” of what is occuring within meetings Leeside.
Both Donegal and Wexford have already set a precedent in banning the media from attending their monthly sittings.
However, Chairman of Clare GAA Kieran Keating told The Clare Echo that there is no such plans on the horizon in the Banner County to shun the press. He confirmed the door “will be staying open” at their meetings for media to attend.
Keating noted the importance of the relationship between Clare GAA and all sections of the media including The Clare Echo, The Clare Champion, Clare FM, Scariff Bay Community Radio and Raidió Corca Baiscinn. “We’ve a good relationship with our local media in particular, we need our local media promoting our games, we’ve a lot of live commentaries whenever there’s games here, the lads in Clare FM were in Tullamore on Sunday and Mullingar two weeks previous, we need our media promoting and supporting our games and keeping the public informed as to what is going on”.
“We’ve no plans to change what we do, our doors are open, County Board meetings are fairly public anyway and there’s no great secrets in them even if we kept the media out you’re going to find out,” the Cross native concluded.
Writing in his column for The Irish Examiner this week, John Fogarty detailed that the GAA’s national financial management committees plans to raise the price of stand tickets for All-Ireland finals to €100 was not included in the update from the last in-camera meeting of the Central Council.
On Sunday there was a clash between Kildare football manager Glenn Ryan and Tommy Callaghan, sports editor with The Leinster Leader where the Lilywhites boss said comments from Kildare chairman Mick Gorman “had not been properly reported” at the last County Board meeting when he criticised their recent losses in the National Football League.
Referencing this episode, Fogarty wrote, “There has to be a better solution to the growing amount of artificial intelligence that is now being disseminated to clubs and the media. Sunday’s episode in Carlow on Sunday, while unseemly, underlined the importance of a press free to carry out its duties. In the GAA, that is increasingly becoming a thing of the past”.
