‘After all, it is a sound principle of rational belief that when in doubt, favour human stupidity over conspiracy as the best explanation of anything’… A sentiment that may be of relevance to recent visceral events in the internecine world of Gaelic football in Dublin, writes An Fear Rua …

Since they seem so appropriate, AFR would like to be able to claim these words as his own. However, they are, in fact, taken from a book entitled 'Nothing is Permitted - An Argument for Moral Eliminativism' by the American moral philosopher, Richard Goode. In turn, the title of Goode’s book, is borrowed from a phrase attributed to the great Russian writer, Fyodor Mihailovic Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881), who is alleged to have said: 'If there is no God, nothing is permitted'.

Now, AFR is not quite sure how familiar the Dublin County Board Chairman, John ‘The Light House’ Bailey, is with the works of Richard Goode or, indeed, of Dostoevsky himself. Mr Bailey has the gaunt look of a man who might be more at home with the pages of ‘The Messenger of the Sacred Heart’ than with the meanderings of a moral philosopher or the interminable intrigues of small towns in Czarist Russia. On second thoughts, however, the jewel in Dostoevsky’s oeuvre is reckoned by many to be a book called ‘Crime and Punishment’ and that, indeed, may yet prove to appropriate in Mr Bailey’s case.

The conspiracy theorists would claim that all of what’s happened is just an elaborate ‘Bring Back Brian Mullins’ plot that accidentally got out into the public domain before it had been fully sprung. The name of that decent man, Val Andrews, has also been mentioned as a possible successor to Tommy Carr. If that is so, Val would need to get his head examined. After being publicly shafted by Cavan County Board – in circumstances that look remarkably like a dress rehearsal for the Dublin farce – Val would be well advised, AFR believes, to hold out for another while for a job somewhere else.

The idea behind ‘floating’ Mullins’s name in the national ‘meeja’, apparently, was that he was reckoned to be so popular with The Hill and other fans that, if he was touted as the successor to Carr, it would deflect a lot of grassroots criticism of the machinations. Fortunately, as we have long suspected, your average Dublin football fan is a ‘dacint skin’ and, while they like to win All Irelands as much – if not even more, than other counties – they also believe in honesty, decency and fair play. Mullins, in any event, is well ensconced as Director of Sport in UCD – where the facilities are superb, thanks largely to the late Dr. Tony O’Neill.

So, the ‘Mullins for Manager’ ‘meeja’ bandwagon all along was just a rather thin smokescreen for the true object of the courting by ‘Light House’ and his three colleagues in the ‘four-three’ majority. ‘Ah, yes indeedy … Step forward, pleeeeze … the good Dr. Pat O’Neill! …’ The man who brought The Dubs their last All Ireland back in 1995. ‘Light House’s’ thinking seems to be that if the patient known as Dublin football is languishing on a trolley in the corridors of a public hospital somewhere, who better to revive it than the good medical doctor himself?

Followers of Dostoevsky and Richard Goode, however, would probably argue that what Bailey is engaged in is not so much conspiracy as stupidity. Apart from anything else, the damage done to player morale (and make no mistake about it Mr Bailey, it’s players who win All Irelands, not Managers or even County Board Chairmen!) is devastating … the effect on relationships between county officials and between clubs is equally damaging … and no matter who comes in now as Manager and selectors they will constantly be looking over their shoulders to see if another knife is poised over their shoulder blades. Not exactly conducive to team building over the medium term.

But, An Fear Rua would go one step more. The Dublin GAA behaviour was not just stupid. It was cowardly, cruel and unnecessary. Even if Tommy Carr and his team had lost every game they ever played, no manager and selectors deserved to be treated the way they were – hounded and buffeted by ‘meeja’ leaks, publicly shafted in a bizarre mixture of carelessness and incompetence and a meeting in Parnell Park that veered between black comedy and farce and, ultimately, ended as tragedy.

In fact, over the four years he was at the helm, Carr had done a good job with a selection of playing material that was far from great and had restored confidence and respectability to Dublin football. Certainly, the Dubs' championship performance this year had earned him another ‘shot’ at it, particularly in the context of a repeat of the ‘back door’ system which would favour a team like Dublin who seem to suffer from an infuriating inconsistency at times.

Anyway, AFR’s advice to Tommy Carr is to put ‘Light House’ Bailey and his cohorts out of his mind as soon as he can … to avail of the remainder of his six months’ suspension to take a complete break from matters GAA. AFR hears Tommy is currently selling his magnificently-appointed house on Dublin’s South Circular Road and we wish him well in that endeavour, particularly as the property market seems to be taking a bit of a downturn.

At least the vagaries of the market should be somewhat easier to deal with than the Machiavellian machinations of the Dublin County Board …