Sport

Brendan Crossan: Outgoing Gaelfast Chief Paul Donnelly leaves big shoes to fill

St Paul's man Paul Donnelly will leave his Gaelfast post at the end of this month. He will, however, he in charge of the Antrim minor hurlers this coming year
St Paul's man Paul Donnelly will leave his Gaelfast post at the end of this month. He will, however, he in charge of the Antrim minor hurlers this coming year St Paul's man Paul Donnelly will leave his Gaelfast post at the end of this month. He will, however, he in charge of the Antrim minor hurlers this coming year

A COUPLE of weeks ago I received a text from Paul Donnelly. I have two Paul Donnellys in my phone. Not the smartest move in the world.

One is the IT expert and ultimate problem-solver in The Irish News. If you have a problem with your laptop, no matter how big or small, Paul will fix it. He is Zen-like when it comes to problems.

Everybody likes Paul. He knows stuff about computers that mere mortals will never know.

The other Paul Donnelly in my phone is Paul Donnelly of Gaelfast.

The text read: ‘Just a brief text to let you know that I will be moving on from my current role to take up an academic position with Ulster University…”

Regardless of which Paul Donnelly was “moving on” I would have been equally disappointed.

It turned out it was Paul Donnelly of ‘Gaelfast’.

In July 2018, the St Paul’s, Belfast clubman was assigned the role of leading the ambitious Gaelic Games project designed to invigorate participation rates in Belfast, predominantly in the primary school sector.

It wasn’t like projects of the past that were full of lovely rhetoric but didn’t really amount to much more beyond a glossy brochure.

From the start, there was something different about the £1m GAA-backed ‘Gaelfast’.

The great and the good of the GAA congregated in Belfast’s City Hall with many school heads invited along to see what all the fuss was about.

Fresh to the GAA Presidency, John Horan posed for photographs with Antrim officialdom and school children in the grounds of the city hall and he sang the praises of the new project the Association was funding.

Gaelfast’s tentacles, it was proclaimed, would possess tremendous reach. Every nook and cranny of Ireland’s second city would be explored and the next generation would be taken by the hand.

A new team of energetic coaches would have the relatively new 4G facilities dotted around the city flooded with kids on week nights, the vast majority of whom never having kicked an O’Neill’s football or held a hurl in their hands before – and the primary schools would all be getting a knock on their door.

The clubs could also avail of Gaelfast's coaching expertise - 'coaching the coaches' was an elemental part of its mission statement.

The idea gained serious momentum under former Antrim GAA chairman Collie Donnelly and vice-chairman Terry Reilly, who were part of the Saffron Vision group that swept to power in 2015.

This was the real beginning of the professionalisation of Gaelic Games in Antrim.

Saffron Vision just had that little bit more business acumen and knew their way around the corporate terrain.

Gone were the days of Antrim GAA relying on local “chippies and Chinese takeaways” for sponsorship. Financially, the new board put the county’s house in order.

Saffron Business Forum - the fundraising arm of the county - started making serious waves.

Not only did they edge the county into the black, they put the wheels in motion to see the much-needed renovation of Corrigan Park and began to flesh out the Dunsilly site on the outskirts of Antrim town that will eventually become the county’s centre of excellence.

The baton was since been handed to Naomh Éanna clubman Ciaran McCavana, the current chairman, who hasn’t been found wanting in terms of energy, vision and putting his own stamp on things.

Days after his 'Gaelfast' regeneration manager appointment, I sat down with Paul Donnelly for a couple of hours in the Balmoral Hotel.

He'd left a top post in Sport NI. A former county senior hurler, he was tailor-made to lead ‘Gaelfast’.

His meticulous research and intimate knowledge of his home city told him he was starting at Ground Zero in many areas.

Every county in Ireland can be a politically volatile place. Because of its underachievement, Antrim probably more so.

It depends what sector you talked to; there were more fingers of blame being pointed than there were coaches on the ground.

The clubs blamed the county board; the county board blamed the clubs. And hard-working officials like poor Joe Edwards was left fighting the good fight amid everything.

The primary school sector limped along as soccer took hold of what could and should have been GAA heartlands.

In the secondary school sector there was the odd MacRory Cup claim to fame – but not nearly enough of them.

Aside from the occasionally good county minor team, Antrim’s teenagers were usually first-round cannon-fodder for Ulster’s bigger guns.

There were Antrim footballers and hurlers of the not too distant past who openly told me how they would have been chided for “wasting their time” playing for their county.

And yet, amid all this prevailing mediocrity the pursuit of excellence could be found in places such as Loughgiel and St Gall’s who won All-Irelands in 2010 and 2012.

With all these 'warring' factions in Antrim, Paul Donnelly’s diplomacy, research and people skills and overall knowledge enabled him to pull all the various strands together into something resembling cohesiveness.

Kofi Annan couldn’t have managed this feat.

The county board continued to aim high. Saffron Business Forum was pulling in the dollars, Club Aontroma was overhauled and transformed and is relevant again.

It is credit to all the stakeholders that the Casement Park rebuild remained firmly in Stormont’s in-tray, and despite Covid, Corrigan Park’s brand new covered stand was unveiled late last year.

Antrim is bursting with a can-do attitude.

The only notable blip over the last while has been Paul Donnelly’s departure after two-and-a-half years in the job.

Former vice-chairman and one of the founders of ‘Gaelfast’ Terry Reilly told BBC’s Sportsound’s Extra-Time programme earlier this week that people like Paul Donnelly “don’t grow on trees”.

Paul didn’t give reasons why he was leaving his £60,000 per year post – but in this crazily insecure financial climate and the GAA’s revenue streams virtually frozen, who can blame him.

Given the renowned ambition of the current county executive, they will want a replacement of the same calibre of the outgoing Donnelly.

But it won’t be easy. Experienced coach Jimmy Darragh has been seconded from the Ulster Council to take the 'Gaelfast' reins on a temporary basis as there is an embargo on recruitment due to Covid.

Just as hundreds of schoolchildren were being taught how to hold a hurl and strike a sloithar for the first time the pandemic hit ‘Gaelfast’ like a freight train.

It's a pity the vacancy can't be filled on a permanent basis right now as the new man or woman would be able to use these lockdown months to plan and strategize and pick up where Donnelly left off.

While more good news flows surrounding the Casement Park rebuild, it could be argued ‘Gaelfast’ is just as important in terms of the health of Gaelic

Games in Antrim because there is no point building a new stadium to admire the Kilkenny hurlers and the Tyrone footballers playing there over the next decade.

Antrim’s next generation, currently on the hard shoulder because of Covid, are in the primary schools, waiting for a coach to light their imagination for the game.

The sooner the next permanent 'Gaelfast' chief appointment can be made, the better. For Antrim's sake.