GAA priests weigh in after pay-per-view row

Mixed feelings reign among GAA devotee priests after the hullabaloo following Taoiseach Simon Harris’s criticism that the Munster Senior Hurling Championship fixture between Cork and Limerick was shown on the GAA’s pay-per-view service.

Fr Harry Bohan AP, former manager of the Clare senior hurling team – a team he played on for eight years – said the fact the match was only available on the pay-per-view GAAGO was “awful”.

He said that many older people would not know how to watch the match on GAAGO, saying: “It was obvious that match on Saturday night was going to be a cracker. If they seriously want to promote the game of hurling, that match would have been a real shockwave, showing the game at its best.”

He added that RTÉ and the GAA “are letting down a lot of people”.

Fr Tom Fogarty, a former Tipperary inter-county player who managed the Tipperary seniors in the mid-1990s and the Offaly senior side from 2001-2002, acknowledged the sheer number of fixtures in a short space of time making it “very difficult to air them all”.

However, Fr Fogarty said: “Having said that, it is very difficult to explain how so many big games have been excluded on national television – there is something wrong there.”

“Too many games are being played in a short space of time. I think the All Ireland should take place around the third week of August, and that would give an extra three weeks to a month, widening the window and RTÉ will be able to cover more games,” he suggested,” adding, “I know the GAAGO is not everybody’s cup of tea but the reality is at least it’s better than nothing. If the games are not on RTÉ live, people have some option to look at them.”

Msgr Lorcan O’Brien, who is based in the Pro Cathedral in Dublin, defended the GAAGO service, saying he used it to watch the match on Saturday. He said: There’s always an outcry when a very significant game isn’t available on free to air…The fundamental issue is that it is not possible to show all games on platforms like RTÉ, because the platforms do not make them available.”

He added: “I have friends abroad who are Irish and GAAGO is a lifesaver for them.”