Here's a random selection of incidents reported by fans from the environs of Croke Park, before and after the Meath v Westmeath quarterfinal, as noted by An Fear Rua …

* The mini-bus from North Meath A minibus containing about twelve or fourteen fans, ranging from late teens to early sixties pulls up on Botanic Avenue, not far from the old Lemon’s Sweets factory, near the Tolka River. The first passengers, wearing Meath jerseys, and aged about nineteen or twenty, alight from the minibus. A motorcycle Garda, who was stopped behind the mini-bus - without any comment or as much as a ‘by-your-leave-‘ grabs some beer cans from the lads, empties them into the gutter and finally crushes the cans under heel into the same gutter. According to our informant, the only offence he could observe was one against the Litter Laws by the Garda and without being a Legal Eagle – God bless the mark! – he wasn’t sure if the Garda was within his rights in seizing the cans.

For his next trick, after the passengers were well departed, our intrepid cop moves the minibus on, thus ensuring the passengers would have no idea where to find it when they returned. But sure what harm, they were only a bunch of culchies anyway!

* The kids’ bus from East Meath Taking under-age kids by bus to see games in Croker, seated in the Nally or in the extreme corners of the other stands, is one of the best ways to encourage continuing interest in ‘our native games’. It’s a difficult, sometimes thankless task that many parents in clubs shy away from. Just keeping a bunch of boisterous kids together in a milling throng is one of your many difficulties. Shortly after the game, the parents in this case had successfully marshalled their charges at the junction opposite the Roman Catholic Archbishop’s Palace in Drumcondra. As the bus pulled in to let the kids get on board – a job of no more than a minute - out steps a burly Garda to block the door and tell the driver to move on, without giving him time to arrange a new pick-up point… leaving parents and kids in some disarray.

When one of the parents, a respectable man, certainly not given to outbursts, spoke to the Garda about this, he was threatened with arrest!

* This time, Botanic Road…Having sorted the North Meath revellers’ mini-bus on Botanic Avenue, our intrepid policeman – looking for all the world like someone Central Casting might have sent to audition for a Gestapo out-rider in ‘Schindler’s List’ – moves his attention further up to Botanic Road. Here, he takes out his little pencil and pad and proceeds to ticket a line of fans’ cars that are partly parked on the footpath, for towing away. And, for good measure, he moves on another couple of mini-buses, making sure that even more people find it harder to locate their transport home.

* More dangerous beer cans… On the footpath outside Quinn’s pub on Drumcondra – a traditional after-match ‘meet-and-greet’ spot - a Westmeath fan happily munches on a burger and washes it down with a can of ‘Hudson’s Blue’ (Well, everyone to their own taste, as Mary Anne said when she kissed the dog!). Happily, that is, until a woman Garda snatches the can from the hapless fellow’s grasp and walks away with it! Was she implementing some obscure Section of the Offences Against the State (1939) Act … did she just have a ravin’ thirst on her for a drop a’ Hudson’s or was she just demonstrating Garda even-handedness as between the Westmeath and Meath fans?

* IR£130 a throw, sorry, a tow! Another Meath fan reports from the Leinster final Sunday how he parked on Lindsay Road, in Glasnevin, several yards from a junction and not on any yellow lines. When he returned after the match, there – as the fella said – was his car and it gone! A costly taxi to the Pound, coughed up IR£130 and got his car back. His only consolation being to see three or four Dubs, in a queue ahead of him, who had also been towed away! But maybe he had stumbled on some cute Kildare way of Charlie McCreevy’s to recover some of the IR£60 million he granted to ‘Dis Great Association of Ours’?

Now the question is, were these just some isolated incidents caused by a few Gardai having a bit of an off day, or is there some kind of unannounced crackdown going on ? It’s interesting that all the incidents reported happened within a few hundred metres of ‘Saint Lukes’ in Drumcondra, the legendary ‘Wolf’s Lair’ of De Man Dey Call Ahern? Could it be that Bertie (‘the cleverest, the most cunning, the most devious of them all…’) ever-responsive to the slightest frisson of voter dissension in his area, has been trying to publicly ride the horse of support for the GAA in Croke Park while privately sending a different message to the residents?

AFR is to the first to concede that being a Garda on big match days is not an easy job. Equally, he endorses the message in the match programme from Combined Croke Park Residents’ Association, reminding us all of their rights. But, so long as Croke Park is located in the heart of an inner-city warren of narrow streets and red-bricked houses, there has to be some sense of proportion on all sides as well. Generally, the people parking cars and mini-buses on match day are decent, respectable, hardworking people who are up from the country for a few hours entertainment. They are not out for trouble and – in fact – they have no real choice but to park in those streets. So long as they do not block junctions, garage doors or emergency services, AFR strongly believes both the Gardai on duty and the residents should exercise a degree of commonness and forbearance for the duration of the game and its aftermath… and a sense of humour wouldn’t go amiss either.

This is no more than AFR would expect from his old pal, that decent and sensible man, Chief Superintendent Naoise Rice, who has responsibility for some of the area around Croker; a man who never hesitated, literally to put his body on the line several times in the fight against terrorist subversion of the State …

’Vote On It!’:
Do Certain Gardaí ‘have it in’ for GAA Fans on Match Day in the Vicinity of Croke Park?
Related Topic:
Matthew 19:13-15