Back in the heyday of British journalism – long before they started taking too many tabloids and London’s Fleet Street was the centre of the Empire and the Universe – there was a rhyme which ran something on the lines of: ‘There is no need to bribe the British journalist … when you consider what he will write unbribed…’

Someone probably penned it, like George Orwell or Evelyn Waugh, in exasperation at the propensity of some of their less scrupulous colleagues to prostitute their trade in support of the Establishment or Big Capital.

Albeit, in a different – and a distinctly Irish context – these words keep running through AFR’s mind these past few days since the ‘Burlington Bertie’ Episode of annual Congress. (That’s another British music hall reference that most of AFR’s younger readers won’t follow and it’s too complicated to delay explaining it now).

Apart from the many cogent reasons for amending Rule 42 at Congress, one reason stood out above all others in AFR’s mind. This was that the adoption of the Roscommon motion would have mercifully spared us from the sight of the assembled and massed Irish media, in full flight, and in high dudgeon, relishing ‘having a go’ at the GAA yet again. Very like what The Bould Oscar Wilde described, in another context, as ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable…’ The GAA is included in that select band, that also includes Fianna Fáil and the Roman Catholic church, that the naysayers and doomsayers of the Dublin 4 ‘meeja’ set like to attack on the slightest pretext. And the ‘Burlington Bertie’ episode was more than just ‘the slightest pretext’!

The Old Lady of D’Olier Street picked up her skirts and lace pantaloons and daintily aimed several editorial kicks at the groin of Dis Great Assosheeayshun Of Ours. In its Editorial, the paper described the Congress outcome as ‘depressing’. It said the GAA’s good name was being ‘held to ransom by a conservative rump’. AFR recalls the acerbic comment of the late Seán Lemass – whom history will ultimately judge as the greatest Taoiseach the State ever had – who once said ‘Irish Times’ editorials read like they were written by ‘an old woman sitting in a bath, with the water cooling around her fanny …’ Seán Moran’s conference report bore the memorably OTT headline: ‘GAA Embraces Ignominy Again’. For one awful moment, AFR thought Congress had passed an emergency motion demanding that paedophilia is legalised! The use of the word ‘Again’ is interesting. Obviously, the ‘Irish Times’ believes the GAA is an unredeemable recidivist.

As might be expected from Dr O’Reilly’s Middle Abbey Street Organ – the newspaper whose editorials after Easter Week 1916 effectively pulled the trigger on James Connolly – there was even more of the same: ‘Croker an icon to Sporting Bigotry’, over a piece by Eugene McGee and an Editorial headed ‘How to Miss an Open Goal’. Not to be outdone in having a lash, our country cousins in ‘De Examiner Bhoy!’ editorially fulminated: ‘Lack of Consistency Damages Bid for United Society’. Dr O’Reilly’s Sunday Organ had a headline: ‘Narrow Win for Fearful Bigotry, and Colm O’Rourke came off the bench to say ‘Shameful Decision by Out-of-touch Delegates’. Only the ‘Sunday Tribune’ stood out as being in any way balanced or level-headed in its coverage.

And there was much more of the same in succeeding days. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, many of the newspaper writers predicted a ‘PR disaster’ for the GAA because of the Congress decision. That’s a bit like being warned in advance that you’re going to be savaged by a dead sheep, possibly one that had at last succumbed to Foot and Mouth. To make the prophecy come true even more so, into the attacking breach stepped the ‘dead sheep’ of the Aggressive Democrats Party, led by The Head Girl Herself, Mary Harney. If that decent man, Danny Lynch, is, by any chance, being paid by the column inch for GAA coverage in the media, he must be a wealthy man indeed after last weekend.

There is no doubt the Congress decision was wrong and was taken in an entirely wrong fashion. AFR avers that both An tArdStiúrthóir Himself and President McCague would probably dearly love to turn the clock back to about an hour before Saturday’s vote and run the video again. And the fact is, that given the largesse already shown by Burlington Bertie to the Football Association of Ireland, the GAA was entitled to around IR£60 million in Government assistance whether they opened up Croke Park or not. There is no doubt that within the year – if not sooner – the rule will have been changed.

But kicking the GAA while its down – as we have witnessed over the last few days – is not the way to achieve this. It just induces a ‘Circle the Wagon!’ mentality among the diehard minority …