From October 1999... Geraghty liked it so much he reproduced it in full in his autobigraphy

The lads – and indeed the lassies – beyond in places like Fergie Maguire’s pub in Kilmessan, in the County of Meath, must have been a bit taken aback at the idea of Graham Geraghty being banned in Australia for calling Rules footballer Damien Cupido a ‘black c**t’, An Fear Rua surmises….

After all, they’ve been calling each other that, or even worse, around Meath for many years without any retribution - even from a decent man like Fergie himself. Some of them might even take the view that the Senechalstown star was merely 'spakin' de trewth'.

Indeed, many’s the time on GAA business in the Royal County – for example, presenting trophies to camogie teams and the like - An Fear Rua remarked to himself on the vile language that seems to be commonplace in the licensed premises of that county. He can recall an occasion in another Meath pub when literally every second word out of the mouth of one patron with his arms plonked on the counter was ‘f****n this’ and ‘f****n that’.

The same individual seemed to think these verbal emissions were enormously hilarious, as he spluttered into his pint glass, and his behaviour brought no more than smiles of benevolent indulgence from the other customers. In any other part of the country, the bar person would have warned him as to his behaviour and in a decent pub like the legendary Tom Maher’s Moondharrig House below in Waterford City, he’d have been instantaneously barred for life.

All of the above is certainly not by way of making a case for the defence of Graham Geraghty. Not at all, man dear, far from it entirely…. The fact that Graham may have grown up in a county where words like ‘c**t’, ‘f**k’, ‘s**t’ and ‘b******s’ account for approximately 50 per cent of normal male converse is no justification for his actions in Australia.

An Fear Rua has no hesitation in going further. The fact that Graham is one of the nicest fellas you could meet anywhere in the thirty two counties of Ireland only serves to make his actions all the more shocking. This year, in particular, Graham Geraghty played the proverbial captain’s role in bringing the Sam Maguire back to the Royal County. An Fear Rua’s correspondents in that fortunate county tell him Graham showed exemplary leadership qualities this year, both on and off the pitch. And surely no one could have failed to have been touched by the Monday morning pictures of Graham holding the Sam Maguire aloft with his seven months old daughter perched inside. That one image, more than any other, summed up the new Graham Geraghty.

So, it is perhaps a great pity, as well as being something of a paradox, that one of the more decent stars of the modern gaelic football era has had to be the one to be sacrificed in order to make a simple point: there is no place whatsoever, good bad or indifferent – as An Fear Rua’s old pal Albert Reynolds used to say – for even the slightest hint of racism in the GAA. And that statement applies even if there was never a Jason Sherlock or a Seán Óg ÓhAilpín gracing the inter-county scene at the moment. Because, as far as An Fear Rua is concerned, racism of any kind is not something either the GAA or the Irish people should have any truck with.

We live, unfortunately, in a world of Sudans, Rwandas, East Timors and former Yugoslavias where murderous, virulent racism has been taken to extremes that might give pause to even some of the darker elements of Hitler’s SS. It behoves all of us, in whatever small way we can, to combat this ugly phenomenon whenever it rears its ugly countenance. The action taken by the GAA in Australia against Graham Geraghty is a small, but important, statement of leadership by ‘d’Association’.

It is no more than An Fear Rua would have expected from a decent Galwayman like Joe McDonagh, who has shown on more than one occasion during his term of office that his political instincts are good, and that he recognises the fantastic leadership role of the GAA in Irish society.

As they might say up in the pubs of Kilmessan or Oldcastle …. ‘Good man yerself Joe… Even if yer only a f****n Galway b******s !‘


Graham Geraghty...