Former president of Ireland Mary McAleese has provided an update on the amalgamation of the Ladies Gaelic Football Association, the Camogie Association and the GAA, explaining to Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty that there will be a “plan in place by next February for the full integration.”
“We’re pretty much there” she said on Friday night, in the first episode of the new series of the programme.
Citing that “all that previous experience” of sovereign duties and as a major player in the Good Friday Agreement “definitely has helped” her in her role as the independent chairperson of this integration process, she outlined how things are progressing at a timely pace.
“Put it like this, we’re doing really well you know” she said.
“We’re pretty much there.”
Mary McAleese On How One Club Models Are The Future
Going on to say that full integration will mean that between “the men’s and the women’s, there’ll be no difference”, she also spoke of how the change was imperative to “modernise and update.”
“We’ve just finished this massive survey, the biggest survey I’m told ever undertaken in Ireland, not just the biggest sporting survey but the biggest survey ever of all the GAA members” she said.
“The support for integration is phenomenal and the insight and the wisdom and the advice we’ve been given is first class. We’ve talked to pretty much all the different levels in the GAA. We’ve talked to them all, listened to them all over the last year and we’ll have a plan in place by next February for the full integration.
“I have to say the people who are doing this are fantastic, they really are. There’s a lot of clubs that are already down the road of one club, probably some people in the audience would know.
“One clubs are the future and one structure is the future, it’s going to be great.”
McAleese then went on to pay tribute to the founder of the GAA, Michael Cusack, describing that “if he was here today he’d be founding an organisation for men and women.”
“He was very very ecumenical, he loved all sports, not just the gaelic sports” she said, “so I think he’d be proud of what we’re hoping to accomplish, please god he will.”
The @officialgaa Congress has begun @CrokePark . Former @President_IRL Mary McAleese has message for delegates on the integration of @LadiesFootball @OfficialCamogie & #GAA . #GAACongress pic.twitter.com/TfyWCJ6tOY
— Seán Kelly MEP (@SeanKellyMEP) February 17, 2023