I HAVE been penning a weekly column for The Irish News since 2015. It has kept me involved in the county game to a large degree – a soft landing after my retirement from inter-county football in February the previous year.
In a large part I wanted to remain at the top level for longer and while the playing side could not be facilitated, remaining ‘relevant’ to a degree helped me to deal with not being in that environment.
Everyone wants to be liked – those that say they don’t are lying. Down the years however, you learn that when you are in the public eye, you are there to be knocked.
In this day and age the stakes are much greater, and a wrong word or statement could end you as a columnist, pundit or participant at any time.
Despite any of these concerns, I have loved the interactions and banter with the readers of The Irish News. Normally I would get the usual ‘hey Hughes, what s**** are you writing about this week?’ or ‘jeez boy, you talk some s****!’ You get the theme.
When Benny Tierney was doing his weekly skit, I normally got a great bit of verbal sparring from him and anyone who knows Tierney, his character is such that he was very difficult to get the better of. A fantastic GAA man.
Previous Irish News sports editor Thomas Hawkins, and current incumbent Paul McConville, were always a supportive ear and without their help, alongside that of editor Noel Doran and the sports reporters in The Irish News team, I could not have lasted as long.
I was always willing to be a critic of my own county, how we have played and appointed managers. I felt I was tough but fair, and I was not without criticism myself at times.
But Noel never once interfered or brought the issues to my attention. The staff’s integrity was matched only by their decency.
I have always written my own column, in my own words. The Irish News is one of the last daily papers prepared to facilitate this – as opposed to many others who ‘ghost write’ columns on behalf of players. I hope that I justified or at least made an argument for my view – an important element for me and the license that comes with writing a weekly column.
Why? You may ask. Well, should any person take umbrage (many did) with an analysis or opinion, at least I could not be misrepresented or misquoted and can honestly answer any criticism levelled at me.
I would like to believe I understand the man on the street’s opinion, or those in the pub, or those fans standing watching. I would also like to think I shared a similar outlook to those of our many club and county players, coaches and perhaps even managers.
Did I get things wrong? Absolutely! Have I changed my opinion on certain issues? Definitely!
Am I both a massive contradiction and a hypocrite? Yes! We are fools if we do not think that we are capable of both.
I also like to think I don’t take myself seriously enough to dwell too long on any of these character flaws. However, I am on the borderline of a personality disorder when it comes to Gaelic football.
If being too passionate is a design fault, then I probably fall into that bracket.
I was recently sent off in a club championship game. After giving the players what I thought was a rousing speech about controlling your emotions before we took to the field, I go and get my marching orders.
There you see the contradiction – do as I say, not as I do.
What I did realise early in my life was this idea of a ‘GAA community’. We should be, and I suspect are, the envy of many in society.
If you were to ask a member of another faith, especially in the north, their opinion on what we have in the GAA, I suspect jealousy would be an overwhelming emotion.
For the GAA person it encompasses more of a person’s identity than possibly any religion for the most part. We may argue and even fall out, however we should not forget that in any wider family, this is a natural consequence of having an opinion.
This selfless attitude is a comfort for the many in our parishes who rely on the GAA as their sole social outlet, and this has even expanded to selfless volunteers helping so many people throughout the global pandemic.
We should not lose this sense of Irishness amid the ever-increasing influence of commercialism within the sport. While we want to keep it unique, we need to embrace the changes we see in society, whether that relates to race, colour or religion.
In addition, gender equality remains behind where it should be – my hope for the future will encompass more emphasis on levelling this up. After all, we aren’t the Catholic church.
OVER the years, I have talked about Gaelic football, hurling, soccer, boxing, rugby, yoga, referees, anxiety, depression (and all mental health), politics, a united Ireland, cancer, grief, family, RTÉ, Sky, BBC, TG4, social media, the weather, travelling, alcohol, drugs, running, autobiographies, fake tan and kids, to name but a few.
And let’s not forget my favourite subject, something thrown at me quite often – me!
I am not sure what I will do now with my time. I intend to step down from my beloved club, Saval, in the next few weeks – we still have a relegation dogfight to navigate from the senior championship structure.
One of the highlights in all my years of writing was the intermediate championship victory last year with my club. While it was not senior, in my view success is always measured in relative terms.
The flip side to that coin are the lowlights and, in particular, the many people who have been lost to me and within our GAA family as a whole. This was never as relevant as when we saw the number of young people killed as a result of road accidents in the south during recent weeks.
Death through suicide has broken many families and communities and, in time, my hope is that we improve the help provided to those suffering from illness in whatever capacity. There is nothing that cannot be solved by reaching out for help – a sign of strength and not weakness.
Life is a gift and you only have to watch the young people gathering on a Sunday morning at your local GAA club to see the beauty in what we should cherish and work hard to maintain.
To those who have said hello, complimented me, criticised me, sent letters, e-mails and made phone calls, I want to sincerely thank you.
So until the next time we meet, I will continue to talk the same s**** I always talk and hopefully we will agree on the fact that neither of us really know what we are talking about.
