If the Clerk of the Weather is kind (as the deceased, distinguished GAA writer John D Hickey used to write so many years ago), in the remaining hours before dusk on Saint Stephen's Day, the unmistakable 'thick-thock' of hurling leather against ash will echo from the John Redmond Memorial Gaelic Field in the village of Gowlnacalley, writes An Fear Rua... Páirc Sheáin Mhic Réamoinn, as the County Board prefer to call it.

The sound will make its way past candle-lit windows, along the quiet streets of the village and may even awaken the Very Reverend Canon Edward Guiry PP VG as he dozes in front of a well-stacked fire in the parlour of the Parochial House. In his right glaic a favoured tumbler of Jameson and champagne (a favourite tipple of the Young Irelander hero, Thomas Francis Meagher) and his trusty 'Bod Dubh' lightly clutched in the other fist.

After the last 'wran' has been well and truly waked outside the hall doors of this tiny village as well as in the 'shnug' of Ma Molloy's drinking emporium in Main Street, a couple of the lads and lassies will make their way to the Field. This is an annual ritual of ours. There is, of course, no better way to banish a Stephen's Day hangover than a few pucks of the sliotar around a hurling field, avers AFR.

Tis' now the turning of the year. The Stephen's Day puck around is a way of marking the fact that what the ancient Gael called 'the long dark nights after Samhain' will soon be coming to an end.

The Winter Solstice will have passed one more time and we are still alive and healthy, thank God. The Solstice rising sun is a token of re-birth, of growth and of hope. Thus, everyone connected with 'dis great Association of ours' may face the year 2012 with new hope. At the back end of Winter, even the lowliest Junior 'B' hurling or football side is - for a time - equal with the Kerrys and the Kilkennys of the All Ireland Championships. The achievements of 2011 are over and done with, the slate is wiped clean for 2012. Not a ball has yet been kicked nor a sliotar pucked, though we are only days away from the first tussles of the O'Byrne and McKenna Cups.

It's at this time of the year that the wisdom of a saying of AFR's old pal, the oul Dunboyne Alchemist himself, Mr. Boylan, becomes apparent: 'They don't eat any more, nor any better, potatoes than we do....' In other words, it all comes down to the attitude and performance of a panel of players on the day. There is no pre-destined outcome that says Kerry must always beat Waterford in Munster football, or that Kilkenny will always despatch Carlow in Leinster hurling.

As An Fear Rua gazes into the reddening embers of his Christmas fire, many fine memories of 2011 will flicker through the flames. In addition to new opportunities, the year 2012 will bring new challenges for the GAA - for example, issues like violence in our games and the standard of refereeing, increasing commercialisation and increasing competition for allegiance from rugby and soccer. An Fear Rua will continue to report and comment on all of these, as well as on the quirkier aspects of GAA life, without fear or favour.

But, for now, his wish for all his readers is the same as that of the decent people of Connemara: Go raibh Nollaig Mhaith Mhór Agaibh ar fad agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise !

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