I actually bought off him in the end.
Iâd say you got no luck penny 
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Clare remain a club in crisis, dsepite approval for a new committee
Last week was a watershed for Clare GAA but tensions remain â starting with the hurlers
LASZLO GECZO
Michael Foley, Denis Walsh
Sunday February 28 2021, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
On the first Sunday in November, a week after Clare lost by ten points to Limerick in the Munster championship, the hurling panel gathered in Ennis for a full-on training game. The mood in the county was sour. The gates in Cusack Park were locked. Permission to use the field had been sought and given, but nobody from the county board was on hand to let them in. So, eventually, they broke in: a lock on one of the gates was forced with a sledgehammer.
It captured a year of recurring awkwardness between the Clare county board and its flagship team. Within weeks of Brian Lohanâs appointment as manager in October 2019, problems surfaced. In December he chased the board for money owed to the teamâs strength and conditioning coach and ended up paying the money from his own pocket, four days before Christmas; in mid-January, Lohan was reimbursed.
In the early months of last year, Lohan reportedly sent 29 emails to county secretary Pat Fitzgerald about team affairs, each of which went unanswered. A meeting was arranged to thrash out this breakdown in communication; in this arena there was no shortage of back-and-forth. At the heart of Fitzgeraldâs response was his insistence that the work was being done, regardless of the emails.
Gaps continued to appear. The away League match against Wexford was targeted as a key game by the Clare management and they stayed in a hotel in Waterford the night before. The bill, though, was not settled on their departure, and Lohan took it upon himself to chase the payment with a series of calls and emails.
The post-match meal was not covered either. The hotel manager discreetly pursued Lohan to the team bus and politely explained the situation. Lohan settled the bill on his credit card. A few days later, he was reimbursed. The county secretary had not been present at the team meal.
Attempts by the Clare management to trim expenses were also met with curious resistance. For the past few years the team had been renting a 10-year-old GPS tracking system, comprising 18 pods that could not produce real-time data during matches or training sessions. It had reportedly cost about âŹ18,000 a year.
Lohan and his management team, however, sourced a state-of-the-art system from Statsports, similar to the one used by Liverpool football club and the German national football team. The package included 40 pods, a laptop, an iPad, heart monitors and the critical capacity to deliver real-time data. The deal would cost âŹ15,000 a year for three years, after which the equipment would be owned by Clare. When the proposal was brought to the board, however, they were slow to break ties with their previous supplier. The deal was done, but the Clare management could not understand the delay.
Returning after a long lockdown changed nothing about the mood. When Clare resumed training on September 15, they started at Caherlohan, Clareâs âŹ5m centre of excellence. According to those present, the pitch was âlike a meadow,â and completely unsuitable for hurling.
After that the hurlers ditched Caherlohan, and approached five clubs who gave them use of their facilities for the rest of the season. Clare struggled to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, carried there by Tony Kellyâs genius, and were eliminated by Waterford. Along the way Clare beat Wexford in the qualifiers, a game that crystallised again the long-standing acrimony between Lohan and Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald, son of Pat Fitzgerald. After the game Davy Fitzgerald criticised the verbal abuse aimed at him throughout the game by a member of the Clare backroom team âwho was sent there to do it.â Lohan denied any such strategy.
Sourcing training gear was not a problem and post-training meals were provided without trouble. Pat Fitzgerald was also generous in his appraisal of Clareâs season in his 2020 report to annual convention.
âI would say Iâm getting on reasonably okay with Brian Lohan,â he told the Clare Echo before Christmas. âI have treated him with the courtesy he deserves and I think, to be fair to him, he has done the same to me. There is a view out there that I wouldnât be supporting team managements, and that is the opposite.
âIt is no state secret that people would think I would not support Brian Lohan, [but] as far as we can, as a county committee, without putting ourselves into difficulty, we will support Brian, and the same with Colm Collins (the football manager).â
But the mood remained uneasy. The abuse aimed at the Fitzgeralds on social media intensified. Rumours and half-truths were dressed up as facts. Seven years after their last All-Ireland hurling title, and five years without a championship victory at under-20 level, with Limerick surging ahead and other competitors modernising their business, frustration came to the boil.
At Clare GAAâs annual convention, Ăire Ăg of Ennis proposed a motion inspired by a letter distributed to clubs in October by club member Niall OâConnor â son of former Clare joint-manager Gerry OâConnor â outlining the declining state of Clare GAA on all fronts and seeking a new, independent committee to perform a root-and-branch strategic review. Although the letter avoided directly criticising Pat Fitzgerald, the implications were clear: Clare needed to think again.
The boardâs response was four committees focused on finances, managing the Caherlohan facility and one each for underage hurling and football. A list of names linked to the committees subsequently appeared in the local media, prompting some of those mentioned to distance themselves from the committees or walk away entirely. Most significantly, Davy Fitzgerald was included on a list of potential candidates to join the hurling committee, privately prompting an angry reaction from Brian Lohan. It reignited talk of Fitzgerald being gradually reintroduced to Clare, and forced Clare chairman Joe Chaplin to deny suggestions that Lohan had resigned as manager.
Last Friday week, Ăire Ăg pitched a seven-man-committee filled with Clare-born business leaders to undertake the review. The motion was slated for debate last Tuesday night and billed within Clare as a seismic moment. A motion described by Ăire Ăg âas a once in a lifetime opportunity,â was seen by many others as Fitzgerald, the long-standing figurehead of Clare GAA, facing off against the reformers. Everyone knew something would have to give.
ON THE LAST lap into Tuesday nightâs meeting, Ăire Ăg felt they had enough support to get their committee over the line. Opponents of the proposal had argued hurling would become the committeeâs sole focus, not a comprehensive examination of every aspect of Clareâs business. Others framed it as a power-grab and a push against Pat Fitzgerald. None of those arguments gained traction.
âThis is a brilliant motion,â Christy Murray, the delegate for Sixmilebridge â Fitzgeraldâs club â said at Tuesdayâs meeting. âWe decided if there had been some input from the county board weâd back it 100 per cent . . . thereâs a lot of work gone into this and we need to move forward. But thereâll have to be some input from the county board or otherwise weâre wasting our time.â
On the night, county chairman Jack Chaplin had already confirmed the committee would require a board representative with backing from Ăire Ăg delegate Rory Hickey. As the debate unfolded into an unchallenged show of support for the Ăire Ăg plan, Niall Romer, Kilmaley delegate, aired a rumour circulating all day in Clare, asking whether any member of the Clare executive had reached out to Ăire Ăg before the debate.
Jack Chaplin: âI know nothing about it, a call being made to any Ăire Ăg club . . .â
NR: âSo there was no call made? I want that placed in the minutes please.â
JC: âNot by me anyway.â
NR: âBy someone on the executive.â
JC: âI know of nobody.â
The suggestion of a meeting made some clubs uneasy as the week unfolded. Had the committeeâs independence been compromised before they even began?
âWe were made aware before Tuesday night that the board accepted the motion and would be recommending the motion,â Ăire Ăg chairman Jimmy Cooney says in response to whether a meeting took place. âThatâs all Iâll say on it. We were asked would it be okay if the chairman makes a statement to that effect. Our position and only concern was that the motion be put to the floor and passed. If the executive supported the motion, that would be a help in that regard.â
Some officials insisted the committee couldnât proceed under GAA rules without a county board presence. In practice, most clubs sided with the need for a board presence if the committee was to make any tangible progress.
âThe hang-up seems to be on the word âindependentâ,â Cooney says. âIf there is representation from the county board or contact [with the county board], that doesnât dim the committeeâs independence. The independence we had in mind was independence of thought and ideas, that the thrust of whatever plan is put in place at the end of this period is from independent minds. But that canât happen without some input from the county board. An independent committee cannot submit a report without some support from the executive in terms of fact-checking and data.
âYou canât have a situation where a totally independent group works on its own without any contact with the body to whom it will present its report. Thatâs not to say the county board will have a majority voice or anything like it. We want to avoid at all costs a report produced by a group so connected and dyed in the wool in the GAA that itâs incapable of independent thinking.â
In his Irish Daily Star column on Wednesday morning, former Clare manager Ger Loughnane captured some of the concerns still lingering after the night before. âThe county board are not brave going with this,â he said. âThey just sensed the tide had turned against them â the game was up. This was a fight the county board couldnât afford to lose and itâs the first time theyâve backed down. This will give courage to everybody but watch as the board tries to delay this new body at every turn and ensure change comes at a pedestrian pace.â
He also described Clare GAA as âfirmly in the grip of the Fitzgeraldsâ. Pat Fitzgerald, he wrote, had âlost touch with what was requiredâ to keep Clare competitive and âsupervised the collapse in standards on and off the field in Clare.â
To many GAA people in Clare, Fitzgeraldâs 31 years as secretary bear comparison to Frank Murphy in Cork before him. Both men held the office for decades and continued well into their 70s. The terms of Fitzgeraldâs employment have also been subject of speculation within Clare for years. In response to the latest question about his contract, from Ăire Ăg delegate Rory Hickey at Decemberâs convention, Fitzgeraldâs answer was pithy.
âMy first contract was in 2009 and the second one was in 2016,â he said. âThat will answer your question, you are an intelligent guy.â
In response to further questions from The Sunday Times about Fitzgeraldâs employment status last week, a Clare GAA spokesperson confirmed Fitzgeraldâs wage is paid entirely by Clare GAA and his current contract expires in 2023. Croke Park have made no contribution to Fitzgeraldâs salary since 2016. An extension to that deal also hasnât been ruled out.
âIt may well be that the county board would canvas Pat Fitzgerald to stay on,â replied Clare PRO Michael OâConnor. âIâm not saying that they will but they might. Whoever are the officers of the Clare County Board at that stage might well decide to do that. I cannot comment. Should they do so, it would be a matter for Pat Fitzgerald as to whether he was interested or not.â
The Ăire Ăg committee has committed to delivering recommendations within six months of being appointed with the county board also setting up committees governing finance and Caherlohan, as required by GAA rules. Although the board have yet to fill the underage hurling and football committees, Brian Lohan is reportedly receptive to joining the hurling committee.
Winter despair gave way last week to a hopeful spring, but the mood is tempered with caution. Approval for the new strategic committee is viewed by many in Clare as a potential watershed. Others wonder if the clubs were given their moment last Tuesday night, with the board ready to dictate the terms of engagement from here on. Tonight, members of the new committee will join a Zoom call with representatives of Ăire Ăg to begin their work. Everyone seems on board, within the committee and beyond. For now
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Wexford hurling manager Davy Fitzgeraldâs rates bill clash may prove his toughest yet
Title-winning hurling manager and reality TV star in dispute with Clare council over debts dating back a number of years
Clare county council is taking legal action against Davy Fitzgerald, the Wexford hurling manager, to recover unpaid commercial rates and legal costs that amounted to âŹ53,520 in 2015.
Details of the debts owed by Fitzgerald, who has won three All-Ireland titles with Clare as player and manager, were released following a Freedom of Information Act request to the council.
Fitzgerald, who is the co-creator and co-star of two RTE shows, Irelandâs Fittest Family and Davyâs Toughest Team , owes the money from commercial rates on the Bellsfort Inn, a pub near Newmarket-on-Fergus. Records show the council originally got a judgment against him in February 2014 for âŹ35,261, with âŹ650 in legal costs. The local authority began a second set of proceedings in June 2015 over âŹ17,609 in unpaid rates for 2013 and 2014 on the same pub, following a chief executiveâs order.
The council has refused to release 24 other internal records dealing with the debts as they relate to legal proceedings. A schedule shows there have been numerous letters from the council to its own solicitor, and others sent either directly to Fitzgerald or to his solicitor over the debts.
A payment plan dated July 2016 was not released. The most recent record in the councilâs file is from last May.
A close friend of Fitzgeraldâs said last week that he disputes the amount that has been sought in rates by the council, which is why the case has dragged on for years. Fitzgeraldâs friend said the Wexford manager would not be commenting directly on the legal actions due to an ongoing garda investigation into alleged online abuse he and his father Pat, 75, the secretary of Clare GAA, say they have suffered.
Fitzgeraldâs friend said gardai are expected to submit a file to the director of public prosecutions on the abuse in the next fortnight, and added Davy and Pat Fitzgerald believe negative stories about them are part of a wider campaign.
On The Late Late Show last month, Fitzgerald said he and his father had been subjected to âonline bullyingâ for four to five years. He said they had âpages and pagesâ of evidence.
Pat Fitzgerald has been secretary of Clare GAA since 1990, a paid position that keeps him at the heart of GAA action in the county, where his son was the hurling manager between 2011 and 2016.
Gardai obtained a District Court search warrant in Dun Laoghaire last July against Google over a message sent to a Clare GAA email address in September 2019. The garda application said it was investigating âan unknown personâ who had âengaged in criminal conductâ.
The Sunday Times has established the sender of the email is a Clare GAA supporter based overseas, who is the administrator of The Clare Times, a Facebook page that has more than 13,000 followers.
The man behind the page, who asked not to be identified while the garda investigation continues, insists he has done nothing wrong. He said the Clare Times page did at one point have several other administrators, but he had since taken control and stopped any posts that were âclose to the lineâ. The Clare supporter said he believed Pat Fitzgerald had remained in power for too long in Clare GAA, and the Facebook page had raised concerns about this.
Also discussed on the page is an alleged lack of transparency around a Clare supportersâ fundraising committee involving Davy Fitzgerald while he was the county hurling manager.
In his autobiography At All Costs , Davy Fitzgerald wrote that âevery single centâ raised by the supportersâ club went to the senior and underage teams and that âI never took a single cent for myselfâ. He said every detail was presented to the audit committee and it made his âblood boilâ when âsmart arsesâ ask: âWhere did all that money go?â Those who had questions should âask the audit committee [and] the county boardâ.
Last week Clare GAA said independent supportersâ clubs âwould have nothing to do with the county boardâ. It said the fundraising committee involving Fitzgerald and the subsequent support committees all operate outside the remit of the county boardâs audit committee.
âFrom the Clare county board perspective â and for other counties as well â they are of great help in keeping the costs of the board down and supporting the relevant activity, whether hurling or football,â it added. Clare GAA also said it exclusively paid for Pat Fitzgeraldâs contract, which expires in 2023, adding âit may well beâ that the board would ask him to stay on after that.
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So yer man behind the printer is overseas and in a move reminiscent of the Barney curleys claims there were several admins of the page at one point.
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The whole Pat Fitzgerald thing has a feel of John Delaney about it. A dog with a mallet up his arse can tell you Pat going is is the best thing for Clare long term.
Heâs the new Frank Murphy, the failings of a county blamed on one man.
Can someone throw up the full article behind the paywall
Uneasy peace in Clareâs calm before next storm
County board rows in behind Ăire Ăg motion to set up independent review committee
DERMOT CROWE
At Tuesday nightâs meeting of Clare county board, the Sixmilebridge club delegate leaped to the defence of the embattled county secretary, Pat Fitzgerald, of the same parish â a reminder that all politics is local. He lambasted media treatment of the long-serving officer, and said it was time to rally behind the board executive.
"You wouldnât get on Judge Judy with the shit thatâs going on in the papers (another delegate erupted in laughter at this point, forgetting to mute). In all fairness, Iâm getting sick of it. You are gone into the chair now Jack (addressing new county chairman Jack Chaplin) and you are as honest a man as I ever met. You could be getting stick in the next few months. I know Pat Fitz (county secretary) for the last 20 years is getting it. Itâs not fair. We need to get together and back our top table and stop the gowling thatâs going on. In all fairness now. Iâm mad about what Iâm reading in the papers.â
Gowl is Limerick slang for a fool. Clare has been doing an amount of gowling, too, of its own accord, which is why this meeting had excited such interest.
The main motion before the Clare clubs on Tuesday night last, from Ăire Ăg, was striving to start the process which would change that and allow Clare teams, in all codes, a better fighting chance. Ăire Ăgâs Niall OâConnor, lobbying for the motion in an open letter to clubs last year, had invoked Limerick as an example of good practice. There was a time not that long ago when Limerick was riddled with dysfunction and strife. It faced up to it, parked the politics and took sensible action to the point where the only objection one can think of now is that the county is almost too mechanically and boringly efficient.
By the time the Sixmilebridge delegate spoke on Tuesday night he did not know that there was more unpleasant reading awaiting him in the morning. Ger Loughnane used his platform as a columnist in The Star newspaper to let loose. If you retreat far enough you will find Loughnane hailing Pat Fitzgerald for his tireless publicity-shy labours on behalf of Clare GAA. That was in the 1990s, at a presentation in Ennis, when Clare hurlers received a shoal of medals after decades of nothing.
In his column, Loughnane acknowledged Fitzgeraldâs earlier contributions but the rest was unsympathetic.
Essentially his point was that Fitzgerald, as many feel, has been there for too long. He also referenced Fitzgeraldâs son, Davy, who has found his way, wittingly or unwittingly, into the current narrative after being proposed for a new hurling committee, although a decision on this and a football equivalent was held over. Instead the board proceeded by formally accepting committees to deal with finance and Caherlohan, the much-maligned centre of excellence.
Tuesdayâs meeting did not turn into the bloodbath many expected. The county board, led for the last 30 years by Pat Fitzgerald, is far too wily to allow that happen. When the motion was summoned, seeking an independent committee to review the workings of Clare GAA from top to bottom, made up of seven gentlemen with no All-Ireland medals or ties to any of Clareâs GAA tribes, the new chairman immediately declared his support and that of the top table.
But the level of distrust and suspicion of the executive was palpable. In an earlier exchange over a motion relating to junior hurling, a lengthy debate broke out over voting procedure. With an eye on the more substantive motion coming up later, delegates fought to have an open vote. The new chairman explained that it would be conducted through email, each secretary sending its vote to two agreed officers and the results released the next day. Clearly, this did not have unanimous support.
The Wolfe Tones delegate Dermot OâDonnell was one of many to raise concerns about email voting and transparency, addressing Pat Fitzgerald: "I think Pat, with respect, there has been a lot in the media about everything thatâs going on within the meeting tonight and I think a lot of clubs have made a decision on what way they will make a decision in terms of whatâs to be voted on.â
Pat Fitzgerald: "Well, Dermot, with all due respect to you also, we have got to protect the system and the system is very clear: that we had notified the clubs of this voting system. Thatâs my view on it.â
It didnât matter â no vote was needed, then or later. When the Ăire Ăg motion emerged, the new chairman gave it his backing and several clubs rowed in behind him. Nobody shouted stop. But there was still evident concern about how much the executive might try to influence the committee, with objections raised to an amendment allowing one member of the top table a place on the proposed body. A delegate claimed this was deviating from the essence of the original motion. The chairman explained that they were bound by rule.
The chairman of Ăire Ăg is Jimmy Cooney. Speaking on Friday he declared himself satisfied with Tuesdayâs outcome and denied that any deal had been struck with the county board in advance.
"Any reasonable person would see that if this committee is to be brought to fruition the county board must have an involvement in it,â he said. "Because they will be the people who will be charged with implementing it. To think you can have a committee totally divorced from the county board doesnât make any sense really.
"There was no deal struck in advance. I think people are getting hung up on the question of independence here. Our interpretation of independence is that the people on the project committee would bring an independence of thought and experience and an independence of approach and a fresh view of things. If this committee was top-heavy with county board executives there would be the danger of group-think. We needed to get away from that.â
There was a meeting, or at least contact, between the executive and the Ăire Ăg club earlier on Tuesday when the board indicated it would be supporting the motion. Cooney denied the board had sought to deal with the matter outside of the county board meeting or that it wanted more representation on the review group. Later that evening Kilmaleyâs Niall Romer, who is part of Brian Lohanâs backroom team, asked the county chairman if a meeting had taken place between Ăire Ăg and the county executive. The response was slightly ambiguous.
Romer: "Did the board contact Ăire Ăg about doing a deal on this?â
Jack Chaplin: "I know nothing about a call being made to the Ăire Ăg club.â
Romer: "So there was no call made? I want that in the minutes of the meeting please.â
Chairman: "Not by me anyway.â
Romer: "By someone on the executive?â
Chairman: "I know of nobody.â
Ăire Ăg now plans to meet with the seven men, mainly company CEOs, who it has hand-picked to serve on the independent review group, before talking to the county board and getting the process underway.
The identity of the county board member joining the new group will also soon be revealed. County vice-chairman Kieran Keating appears a popular choice with many backers of the Ăire Ăg motion.
"We can quibble about aspects but I think in general the club has said they are satisfied,â stated Simon Moroney, the experienced administrator and Central Council delegate, and a member of the Ăire Ăg club, on Tuesday night.
The other committees set up by the county board raised questions among sceptics. The chairman stated that they needed to be put in place to help run the affairs of Clare GAA while the new independent review group got to work. The Ăire Ăg motion has a September conclusion date in mind to produce recommendations.
Questions were raised about the proposed hurling review committee which has had a list of names linked to it, including Davy Fitzgeraldâs. Although nothing has been confirmed or finalised, the fact that Brian Lohan (pictured) was contacted only shortly before the names were published has caused dismay. Relations between Lohan and Fitzgerald are not cordial and Fitzgeraldâs current position as Wexford manager makes his suitability questionable.
Near the close of Tuesday nightâs meeting, the matter was raised by Niall Romer.
Romer: "Can you clarify, is the Wexford manager is included in the hurling review?â
Chair: "I canât either clarify or deny anything at the moment because I have a lot of people who have been asked and a lot of people have come to me and a lot of people havenât come back to me but I will have answers for you at the next board meeting.â
That will be in March, although some sources feel the hurling review committee may fall away, being more trouble than its worth.
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Put gowl in a sentence.
Two tinker wans were fighting outside the halting site and wan of them kicked the other wan straight up into the gowl.
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Gowl is a funny one. In Waterford we donât call a person a gowl as they would do in Limerick but we do use the term âgowlingâ and âgowlerâ
The âGowler Dalyâ
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@Big_Dan_Campbell Whatâs Croke parks role in all this ? When do they decide to step in to these local skirmishes or would they be making calls in the background to Clare county board looking for a debrief? Here seems to be more and more trouble with county boards âŚ
Croke Park try not to intervene unless things reach a critical mass or there is misappropriation. There are people in Croke Park who jokingly refer to the Clare Executive as Afghanistan, so they are well used to their backwards ways.
I get the feeling that the second part of the article about Davy is the one which we will hear more about in the coming weeks - as I said previously, Davy raked in serious money fundraising from 2012 to 2016 yet no accounts were every produced and when the new management took over, a paltry sum was handed over to them and they were told that was all that was left. They they put in a fully transparent fundraising committee.
They have quoted Davyâs claims from his book about accounts and never taking a penny and I assume that this will now be the thread which is pulled over the coming weeks - be interesting to see if they drip feed bits and bits each week for a few weeks which would leave the Fitzs scurrying each week to throw someone else under the bus.
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Thereâs a netflix series in this. About the only type of TV appearance Dave wouldnt be scrambling to get his mush on.
Can we really afford to be getting into bed with these gangsters?
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Who would play Davy? Peter Drinklage, with Brendan Gleeson as the father.
The kid from Gentle Ben
Nice article in the sindo from Dermot Crowe today
Iâve just read it and am none the wiser. Is Crowe a Sixmilebridge man too?
This Romer fella just seems mad to make a name for himself.
Also the fact Davy has won the last two championships with Sixmilebridge and is such a successful TV star has driven the natives demented.