Gilroy proud to be involved with the Game for Gaza

Not for the first time, Pat Gilroy will march the Dublin football team into battle at Healy Park to take on Tyrone – only on this occasion, the result is of the least significance.

This Saturday evening in Omagh at 6pm, stars of the Tyrone and Dublin 2011 teams will roll back the years for a special ‘Game for Gaza’ fundraiser in aid of victims of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Arranged by Gaels Against Genocide in Gaza, the proceeds will go towards UNICEF, the Red Cross and the Gaza Paediatrician Care Initiative, an effort aimed at bringing badly injured Palestinians to Ireland for treatment.

Overseeing the Dubs, naturally enough, is Pat Gilroy, whose playing and management career is indelibly intertwined with the O’Neill County.

He was part of the Dublin panel that overcame Tyrone in the – controversial, we will of course add – 1995 All-Ireland final, and those two groups will also renew acquaintances (not enmities!) this Saturday night in the Omagh St Enda’s clubrooms for a talk show event.

But it was as a manager where he really came to wider prominence.

Pat masterminded Dublin’s surge to All-Ireland honours in 2011, their first Sam Maguire success in 16 years, setting in motion a decade of almost absolute dominance on the inter-county front.

Eoghan O’Gara’s game-winning goal in injury time of the 2010 All-Ireland Championship quarter-final over Tyrone was a changing of the guard moment, and they repeated the trick a year later at the same staging post. And on that occasion, there was no equivocating with the result: Diarmuid Connolly shot the lights out and it had a tangible end-of-an-era feel from a Tyrone perspective.

When the idea of a special charity match between the two counties was mooted, Gilroy didn’t need time to consider – the answer was always going to be a hard ‘yes’, and he believes Ireland is uniquely positioned to support the ongoing efforts to implement a lasting and meaningful ceasefire.

“[Dublin GAA legend] David Hickey has been a real driving force in championing causes where there are people being treated unjustly and I think you could credit Dublin GAA’s support for Gaza 100 per-cent with him,” said Gilroy.

“A lot of players, past and present, have rowed in behind David, and my own take on it is that we’re in a somewhat unique position where a peace process has worked, and I think there’s an onus on us as a nation to try and promote peace.

“The difference up North today compared to where it was 30 years ago is massive, and it shows that people who were at each other’s throats can get on and do all sorts of things together.

“You look at the relationship between the UK and Ireland now, and it’s probably at an all-time high in terms of civility between the two, and through all the difficulties there’s been a realisation that life has to move on and that we can get over terrible, terrible things that happened on both sides.”

Pat also revealed that growing up in Dublin, his family brought in children on an annual basis as a means of giving them precious respite from the seemingly never-ending violence that had engulfed the North.

“Kids from both religions came down to stay in my parents’ house nearly every year for about seven or eight years. There were at least two or three every summer.

“My dad’s mother is actually originally from the Falls Road, so maybe we were particularly attuned to what was going on.

“I think it really helped those kids, they saw how life could be normal.

“In the North they probably weren’t able to talk to each other, whereas they were staying in the same bedroom in our house so there really was no room for separation.

“It goes back to what I’m saying – we’ve been through similar problems and you’ve seen how it resolved with Sinn Féin leaders making agreements and shaking hands with Unionist politicians and British Governments. That seems to be the answer, in my view anyway, though it’s obviously not easy to get to that point.”

He added, “I personally think the North has been outstanding in their support of Gaza, and hopefully Saturday will help raise even more awareness and highlight the fact that there are people who care about what’s going on.

“It’s mainly aimed at helping children who have done absolutely nothing wrong to end up in the situation they’re in, and that’s one of the terrible tragedies of these situations.”

Gilroy is also looking forward to the post-match festivities, a gathering of the Tyrone and Dublin teams that contested the 1995 All-Ireland final.

“It’s the 30th anniversary of that match, there’s a dinner to mark the occasion and it’s a fundraiser for Gaza as well. It should be a bit of craic, and the best part of 40 players have committed to attending.

“It’s a funny thing – I played and managed against Tyrone and I’ve encountered lads down through the years on an individual level, like Colm Cavanagh through work, and Pascal and Peter Canavan, and we always get on well, but collectively we’ve never really done anything together.

“I think there’s a huge respect between both counties so maybe this can be a catalyst to embed that friendship a bit deeper.”

When Pat assumed the reins as Dublin manager ahead of the 2009 season, Dublin were oft-derided as showboating types who would invariably wilt against the Tyrone and Kerrys of this world. While it was an unfair characterisation, Gilroy knew a culture change was needed and Tyrone offered an obvious point of comparison.

“I was fascinated with Tyrone, who had won three All-Irelands having previously won none in their history.

“I had played on Dublin’s last All-Ireland winning team back in 1995, and none of the current players had even played in an All-Ireland final, so in a way we were in the same boat that Tyrone had been.

“We had to look to Tyrone more than anyone else to see how you’d get from nowhere to winning an All-Ireland.

“If we were to take anything from those Tyrone teams, it was their work ethic – we all remember that famous All-Ireland semi-final where they beat Kerry, and that work ethic was something I wanted us to replicate.

“Coming in as an underdog, the one thing the opponent shouldn’t be able to do is out-work you, and Tyrone were the masters at that.

“We beat them in the 2010 and 2011 All-Ireland quarter-finals and I would say to a degree we out-Tyrone’d Tyrone.

“We were the younger, hungrier team and that hunger and enthusiasm got us over the line.”