{"id":481542,"date":"2026-06-03T21:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/481542\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T21:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:03:08","slug":"malachy-clerkin-the-ger-brennan-saga-would-have-fizzled-out-without-jarlath-burns-making-his-snide-aside-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/481542\/","title":{"rendered":"Malachy Clerkin: The Ger Brennan saga would have fizzled out without Jarlath Burns making his snide aside \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The particular details of Ger Brennan\u2019s<\/a> solicitor\u2019s letter don\u2019t actually matter as much as the fact of it being written at all. The deeper you get into the weeds of it, the clearer it becomes that all sides are dancing on the head of a pin to some extent. Try explaining the whole affair in a TikTok and your head will spin at the speed the kids swipe the screen.<\/p>\n

Dublin<\/a> argued all the way to the DRA that Brennan should have been charged with a lesser offence than the one that carried a 12-week suspension, citing a disparity between the official list of the Galway team as stated on the day and the one in the referee\u2019s report. Their argument was that Cian Breathnach McGinn\u2019s name appeared on one and not on the other and therefore there was cause to go with a lesser … you\u2019ve lost interest already, haven\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

The more interesting aspect to it all is the fact that an intercounty manager has found himself so aggrieved by the comments of the GAA president that he has felt compelled to engage a legal professional to make his point. Brennan would obviously have been asked for his take on the suspension as a whole on Sunday week after the Cavan game and would no doubt have given it. But Jarlath Burns\u2019s interview on Morning Ireland on Tuesday<\/a> morning changed that.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dublin boss Ger Brennan issues \u2018statement of clarification\u2019 through solicitor over Jarlath Burns commentsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an irony in the fact that Burns probably thought he was diffusing the situation. It\u2019s not the first time in his presidency that his inclination to overcommunicate has got him into trouble. He could very easily have dead-batted any questions about the similarities (or otherwise) between Brennan\u2019s case and that of Jim McGuinness but his instinct most of the time is to Burnsplain the issue of the day. <\/p>\n

It can be an appealing characteristic, especially from an incumbent of what has more often than not been a grey and uninspiring office. It almost certainly won him some votes when he was running to become Uachtar\u00e1n. GAA people tend to like an official who doesn\u2019t shilly-shally, who cuts through the layers of regulatory complexity and technospeak to plainly lay out what\u2019s what.<\/p>\n

\"DublinDublin manager Ger Brennan was aggrieved by his punishment. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo\/Inpho <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no doubt that Burns can occasionally be a little loose with this stuff. He has a tendency to hold forth sometimes as though he\u2019s still a media pundit rather than the figurehead of a massive, knotted, impossibly territorial organisation in which petty jealousies and the paranoia of injustice are the oil in the engine. That\u2019s what has caused the bother here.<\/p>\n

Casually throwing out as \u201cirrational\u201d the argument that Ger Brennan and Jim McGuinness have been treated differently was clearly the final straw for the Dublin manager. Technically, of course, Burns is correct. But only in the sense that the arcane functioning of the GAA\u2019s disciplinary system makes him correct.<\/p>\n

To the half-interested outsider, this appears to be a case of two football managers putting their hands on members of the opposition, in contravention of GAA rules. One got banned for three months, the other didn\u2019t. The GAA president could easily have bored the arse off the Morning Ireland listenership by patiently explaining the reasons for the disparity. But by throwing in that snide aside, he inflamed a situation that was most likely just going to fizzle out.<\/p>\n

What happens next? Probably nothing. The GAA want no part of a prolonged ding-dong with any intercounty manager, least of all the one in charge of the team with (potentially) the biggest fanbase. Brennan might find it handy in the long run to cultivate a chip on the shoulder, maybe even light a fire under the lost sections of that fanbase for what remains of their summer. His team badly needs a spark from somewhere, that much is for sure.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say the Dubs find one and let\u2019s say they hit some semblance of form in the next few weeks. It\u2019s not at all unlikely that Dublin could draw Donegal in a do-or-die game before this month is out. The atmosphere would get fairly salty around a game like that in a hurry, even though neither side has any particular bone to pick with the other.<\/p>\n

So goes the warp and weft of life in the GAA. Jarlath Burns has been around it long enough at this stage to be able to spot a landmine before he steps on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The particular details of Ger Brennan\u2019s solicitor\u2019s letter don\u2019t actually matter as much as the fact of it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2179,4183,2181,61,60,59576,112],"class_list":["post-481542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-dublin-gaa","tag-gaa","tag-ger-brennan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jarlath-burns","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}