From March 2000 ...

When the tumbrels finally trundle into the grounds of the Donnybrook headquarters of RTÉ in Dublin, and the aristocratic broadcasting heads begin to roll onto the manicured lawns, there will be few to mourn their passing, not least among the followers of Gaelic games, predicts An Fear Rua...

At least one senior RTÉ executive who will well understand our reference to the French Revolution is M. Joe Mulholland, Managing Director, TV. Monsieur Moolalong holds a Doctorate in something or other from the Sorbonne University of Paris, if you don't mind, and he is the latest RTÉ senior manager to fall - or be pushed, more likely - onto his sword, as audiences continue to plummet and as one scheduling catastrophe follows hard on another. Over the years, RTÉ has often behaved in an arrogant and high- handed fashion towards its audience, especially the poor misfortunates dwelling in what was once termed'single channel land'.

The station's unimaginative approach to coverage of Gaelic games has been shown up by brilliant initiatives on TG4, like'All Ireland Gold' and the live broadcasting of key county championships and the AIB championship games - proving An Fear Rua's adaptation of'Tip' O'Neill's famous adage -'all broadcasting is local'. So, it's no great surprise really that M. Moolalong's replacement is none other than the redoubtable Ceannasaí of TG4, an tUasal Cathal Goan, from Belfast. (It's no wonder the late former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, used to complain bitterly about all the Northerners who were running RTÉ. AFR supposes this meant the Corkmen had to settle for running almost everything else at the time!)

Thus, when the station does something right - particularly in the sphere of Gaelic sports - it is only proper to recognise and encourage this. Admittedly, the programme we're talking about was on radio and radio is simpler and cheaper and therefore much easier than television to do a good job on. Indeed, as a former colleague of An Fear Rua in journalism, Brian Byrne, used to say very wisely:'The little girl preferred radio, because the pictures were better...'

The programme in question was a recent edition of'The Open Mind', produced and presented by that decent man from Ballivor, in the County of Meath, the Jacobs Award winner, John Quinn. The programme consisted of a recording of a late night conversation, moderated by Quinn, between two of the greatest ever GAA managers - the Dunboyne alchemist, Seán Boylan and the Clare maestro, the Great Ger Loughnane Himself (all present turn towards Bodyke and bow three times from the waist).

According to Loughnane, defeat is what teaches you most. It makes you question and improve. Victory makes you complacent. It's not about being knocked down, it's about getting up again. He talked about the fine line between winning and losing:'victory has a hundred fathers, while defeat is an orphan...'. Loughnane believes you need to bring out the leadership potential within people and he stressed that every winning team needs about four or five players with developed leadership qualities. Boylan said it is necessary to confront what causes defeat. There is what he termed'the fear factor' and players have to be led to take responsibility on the field.

Loughnane told a great yarn about the 1997 All Ireland final against Tipperary. In a memorable phrase, he said it was no use thumping the wall of the dressing room with the leg of a table. Going into a frenzy helps no one. At half time, Clare were down by four points and the teams headed into the dressingrooms. As the Clare team returned to the pitch, Loughnane was the last Clare man in the tunnel when the Tipp team rushed from the dressingroom, swinging hurleys, pushing, shoving and shouting. When they saw the Great Ger in front of them, they showered him with all manner of invective, calling him all the names under the sun, and went out to be overhauled and defeated by a single point.'They were in too much of a frenzy', recalled Loughnane,'Sending players out with tears in their eyes only means they can't see the ball...'.

Loughnane said confidence in a team is contagious. You don't fool players. They know who has prepared well. And confidence equals security. Inྛ, that security helped Clare. No one could outlast their intensity. Hard work breeds confidence and it spreads like wildfire through a team.

Not to let down the Royal County in the matter of All Ireland reminiscences, Boylan told a great story from their 1996 defeat of Mayo. As he said himself, it was 31 counties versus Meath. The President at the time was, of course, the great Mayo woman herself, Mary Robinson. Boylan was acutely aware that with as many as twenty minutes of a buildup of pageantry before hand, and as little as four minutes with the ball, something had to be done to hold the Meath team together mentally. Up stepped the captain, Dunderry's pride, Tommy Dowd. Dowd determined that he would strengthen each player's pride and resolve by reminding them of who they were and where they came from, in his introduction of them to her Excellency. Thus, he told her of Mark O'Reilly's Kerry ancestry, Darren Fay - son of a great footballer and nephew of another - Martin O'Connell, nephew of the great Mick Higgins, until they came to Colm Coyle. Now, Coyle, was described by Boylan as independent- minded, a'free spirit'. In other words, someone who not going to be easily fazed, not least by Mary Robinson. So, as he has being introduced by Tommy Dowd, he grasped her Excellency's hand firmly, looked her squarely in the eyes, and without blinking, enquired:'How's things at home?' Unfortunately, as Tommy moved to the next in line, the President's response is not recorded.

Speaking of success, Boylan expressed sentiments than An Fear Rua would heartily endorse. He said it is not about medals or trophies, it's about seeing what it does for people. Winning an All Ireland lifts everyone in a county on a wave of goodwill, friendship and solidarity. In another memorable phrase, he said we need not to be afraid of the touch of each other. In sorrow, we often put our arms around someone to console them, and it is the same in victory (Looking back on it, maybe that's all Ollie Murphy was doing to Seán Martin Lockhart beyond in Derry recently!). Success, Boylan said, is a tremendous unifying thing - the look in someone else's eye, the touch of their hand. It creates an unbroken bond.

Loughnane said that he wouldn't survive without balance in his life - music, reading, people, the soil, the earth... The soil is gold he said. There's no fear of people who have a love of the land, sentiments endorsed by Boylan, who makes a fair oul livin' himself out of cultivating the land.

An Fear Rua learned a great deal from listening to these two great GAA men. Taken at their face value, he certainly saw a new and deeper side to Loughnane, which is difficult to reconcile with the almost explosive Ger we have seen pacing the sideline at Semple Stadium. To AFR, Boylan remains - as Churchill said of the old Soviet Union -'an enigma wrapped within an enigma'. From time to time, to cope with a few old hurling wounds, AFR has had occasion to visit Boylan's herbal remedies centre in Dunboyne. It is an oasis of almost monastic quietude and calm, with a holy water font beside the entrance and some religious pictures on the walls. Boylan himself, when you meet him, brings to mind the great American writer, Dorothy Parker's comment on the Hollywood actress, Katharine Hepburn:'She looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - or any other orifice, for that matter...'. Yet this is the same Seán Boylan who regularly sends out tough- as- teak Meath teams, with thirty one counties stacked against them, and who get involved in the type of unacceptable scenes we saw against Derry.

This week's Chronicle is somewhat longer than usual. AFR has written it as a service to the many GAA