Paul McArdle, public relations officer at Dundalk’s Young Irelands GAA Club, is proud to serve with a club that stakes a serious claim to be older than the GAA itself. Robert Carry reports
“The GAA was founded on 1 November 1884 and we were founded in March of the same year,” says Paul McArdle, former player and current public relations officer with Dundalk Young Irelands. “So we were formed before the GAA.”
There has been some debate about which club deserves the title of the country’s oldest, but McArdle believes his has as good a claim as any: “I heard a guy from another club on the radio claiming his was the oldest because they were founded between May and June 1884, but it’s a bit like the debate about the highest pub in Ireland. There’s probably about 10 of them claiming to be the highest but there’s really no definitive answer. But we’re there or thereabouts.”
McArdle’s first experiences with Dundalk Young Irelands came at an extremely young age. The 37-year-old recalls: “I got involved with the club when I was four years old. My brothers played, and I kind of tagged along to training sessions and kicked the balls about. I got more fully involved when I was around ten and I’ve been there ever since.”
McArdle still occasionally lines out for the club’s Junior B football team, but his playing days are now all but over. “I played with the senior team for a long time, but that stopped around four years ago. Now I’m more or less retired,” he says.
But on-the-pitch retirement did not mean the end of his involvement with ‘the Irelands’ and he now works in a public relations role for the club.
“I get the fixtures to the players, write up reports after matches for the press and maintain the website,” he explains. “I’m technically minded so I enjoy the IT side of it, but I think it’s important that former players stay involved and try to repay the club for the work that was done for them. I think it’s important that people try to give something back.”
The games may be popular in Louth, but Dundalk Young Irelands still finds itself in the middle of a comparatively tough recruiting ground. McArdle elaborates: “There’s six different GAA clubs in Dundalk. There would be a keen rivalry between the teams and it means that no stone is left unturned in the search for players. It’s good in one way because any child who wants to play football will be picked up, but there’s a negative to it because all of the clubs can sometimes struggle to field quality teams.”
The club has found it particularly difficult to attract as many women players as it would like. McArdle notes: “We’ve had ladies’ teams in the past, but they have fallen through. We tried again to get one up and running about three years ago but we just weren’t getting the numbers. We do have ladies involved in the club and on the committee, but no teams at the moment. Some of the other clubs in the area have well-established women’s set ups so it is really tough to build a squad.”
But despite the difficulties, McArdle believes the GAA, and his club in particular, has proven to be an immense asset to the communities it serves. “It’s a big part of our area of Dundalk and we’ve actually been there since the area was formed,” he says. “It’s a massive part of the community. There were times when we struggled but at the moment we’re doing well.”
The GAA has recently started to benefit from Government funds, and McArdle feels this intervention is perfectly justified. “It’s only right and proper when you consider what the GAA does for the country,” he says. “There are GAA facilities in every parish in the country and in many parishes there would be nothing but for the GAA facilities. Without the GAA there would be a lot more social problems.”
The Dundalk area has seen a sharp increase in the number of non-Irish nationals living in town, and the local government has turned to the GAA for assistance in helping them to integrate.
“In our area there is a lot of work being done on this,” says McArdle. “The Louth County Board recently launched an initiative aimed specifically at getting people from ethnic minority backgrounds involved with the GAA.”
And the former player has already begun to notice the benefits: “We’re starting to get minorities involved and it’s not just at our club, it’s all the clubs in Dundalk. At this stage a lot of those getting involved are at underage level but in years to come there’s no doubt there will be a lot more drawn in.”
