Our first Nobel prize-winning poet wrote of a lake isle of Innisfree, in the county of Sligo, where ‘peace comes dropping slow … dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings…’ recalls An Fear Rua …

If Yeats were alive today, he might well lift his pen to comment on a part of Ireland where – whatever about peace and the crickets – it seems news ‘comes dropping slow’. And this time the place involved wouldn’t be the county of Sligo, nor yet the fair hills of Wickla’… but the mountainous Kingdom of Kerry.

It may well be they have their own ways of doing things in that pleasant land that lies between, say, Tarbert to the North and Cahirciveen to the South. How else can you explain an interview with that ardent Kerryman, Mick O’Dwyer, which took place on Radio Kerry (God bless it!) on Saint Stephen’s Day, but only reached the national media on the fourth of January – nine days later ? Is it possible that the news of O’Dwyer’s scathing comments on several aspects of GAA life got ‘stuck in the bushes’ with ‘the wran’ around Killorglin on Stephen’s Day and never got out until the fourth of January ? Or maybe the journalists involved filed the story to the national media on the day of the broadcast, but used a boy on a donkey and cart to convey the story to Dublin and Cork ? Could it be that ‘The Bull’ O’Donoghoe’s 115-miles-an-hour Mercedes wasn’t available on Saint Stephen’s Day to speed things up a bit ?

And, isn’t it a sorry comment on the national media themselves that newsworthy remarks like O’Dwyer’s could have been made on the radio in Kerry on the 26th of December, but were only picked up by the ‘nationals’ early in January? Ah sure, God be with the days when a good ‘stringer’ freelance journalist in a county like Kerry would have picked up this story immediately and would have flashed it to Dublin just after the final syllables had left O’Dwyer’s mouth.

By the way, AFR notes the comment of one contributor to our own ‘Speak Out!’ Discussion Board who claims the real reason the timing of the issuing of Micko’s comments to the national media was to coincide with the publication of his hagiography ‘Manager of the Millennium’. Ah come on now … Would the cutest of Kerrymen even think of a stroke like that ?

Whatever the reasons for the timing of the remarks, some of the bould Micko’s comments bear a little further scrutiny. Not too surprisingly, he is a strong supporter of the Gaelic Players’ Association (GPA), believing players are still not treated properly by the GAA and also believing managers should be paid for their time spent with inter-county teams. AFR believes these type of comments have been overtaken by events of recent months – the poor turnout at the GPA’s AGM, the improved mileage allowances for players and the GAA’s efforts to put more sponsorship money back in players’ pockets. In addition, the President, Seán McCague, has signalled very clearly that he’s prepared to talk reasonably to the GPA if only Dónal O’Neill would stow his media megaphone.

AFR would aver that Micko is on much stronger ground (no pun intended) with his criticism of the GAA’s approach to spending too much money or ‘bricks and mortar’ and not ploughing enough back into the counties who help generate all the money. Even more pertinent are his comments on the eccentric design of the new Croke Park stadium. When he says ‘they must have got their plans in California’ he’s not too far off the mark. AFR believes stadia in several parts of the world were looked at by the architects and – in general – looking for ideas and inspiration abroad is a good thing. But, Micko has a point when he says the basic design and roofing layout should have been much more customised to the specific needs of the Irish climate.

AFR is still not in the better of the drenching he got in the outer reaches of the lower New Stand at the ’99 hurling final. Fortunately, on the way in, he had procured several of the free copies of the Sunday ‘Indo’ that were being dished out along Dorset Street that day. These sufficed as cover until about the final ten minutes of the game when they finally sogged and sagged under the belting rain and AFR was left wet to the skin and with Mary Ellen Synon’s breathless copy spread all over his hands…