THE LAST POINT: Leitrim's wide world of sport
THE LAST POINT
Leitrim is a GAA county, or more particularly, it is a Gaelic Football county - it is how we define ourselves, how we're seen by the rest of the country and something of a badge of honour. And there is absolutely no doubt that when it comes to public interest, the performances of our men's gaelic football team occupies quite an amount of bandwidth when it comes to public discourse.
Everything that is written above is 100% accurate - it is also 100% false as even a cursory glance at this week's sport pages of the Observer tell with exploits in rugby, soccer, athletics, mixed martial arts and even ladies gaelic football and hurling all liberally mixed in a bewildering array of activities and sporting heroes.
The picture at the top of this page shows members of the Morris Martial Arts Club before they head off to compete in the Global Association of Mixed Martial Arts European Championships in Slovakia while the one at the bottom has Carrick AC's Gerard O'Donnell with members of the Dublin Sprint Club he coaches after they sealed Ireland's place at this Summer's Olympic Games last weekend in the Bahamas.
The exploits of Rhasidat Adeleke, mentioned in these pages on more than one occasion over the past few years, are the talk of the Track & Field world and maybe the young Tallaght woman will break into the public's consciousness the way Sonia and Katie once did - the fact that I only have to use their first names illustrates just what an impact they had on the Irish sporting public but Adeleke has the potential to move into that territory, if not this Summer then certainly over the next few years.
But a trawl through the national media, both print and online, this weekend sees that it is the exploits of Jamison Gibson-Park, Conor Gleeson, Damian Comer, Shane Walsh and David Clifford and even Erling Haaland, Mo Salah or Kai Havertz that garner the most column inches as our so-called 'minority sports' trail well behind the big three of Gaelic football, rugby and soccer.
It is a curious phenomenon that carries right down to local level - whatever Leitrim Ladies do this weekend in a Provincial Intermediate Final against Roscommon, public interest will be dwarfed by the response to what occurs in Pairc Sheain Ui Eslin on Saturday evening when Andy Moran's troops take on Waterford.
Leitrim hurlers faced an existential threat to their existence late last year thanks to proposed reforms of the Hurling pyramid but last Saturday, a Green & Gold team won their place in an All-Ireland Final - it may be a 'C' grade but that is not nothing by any stretch of the imagination but it has barely raised a ripple in Leitrim's sporting pond.
It is a conundrum that not even Albert Einstein could solve were he still alive - you can't make people care about a particular sport and in large parts of this country, the only thing that matters is Gaelic Football. Down south, Hurling is God, a religion that frowns upon the big ball game every bit as much as hurling struggles here.
Let's be honest, our fascination with Men's Gaelic Football is not unique to Leitrim - our neighbours across the Shannon boast two world class boxers in Lisa & Aoife O'Rourke from Castlerea but I'd hazard a guess that members of the Rossies team that won last Saturday's Connacht U20 crown are better known in Roscommon.
Dean Clancy, with his family links to Manorhamilton and training out of Sean McDermott Boxing Club, joins his fellow Yeats County stars Mona McSharry and Chris O'Donnell in qualifying for the Olympics but I'd imagine they trail a distant second to Niall Murphy or Niall Morahan in capturing and holding the attention of the Sligo public.
I could go county to county, picking out stars of a minority sport who are truly world class but who languish in the shadows, ploughing a lonely furrow away from the public gaze and putting in superhuman levels of performance that somehow only gets them to the level of 'I wonder if they would have made county if they concentrated on the GAA?'
It's not just the GAA that thinks that way - I heard one League of Ireland expert opine on the airwaves that the speed reached by those in the SSE Airtricity League would see them qualify for Olympic Semi Finals, I kid you not! Comparing sporting disciplines is fine and dandy but let me unequivocally state here and now that not one GAA or League of Ireland star could get remotely near the Olympics without years of dedicated training - and not one of Ireland's relay heroes in the Bahamas is going to line out for their county in this or any other parallel universe.
The GAA is where it is at in Leitrim - let's make no apologies for that. But we should also take time to honour what Carrick RFC have achieved in recent weeks in winning a Provincial A crown and becoming a growing force in rugby in Connacht; what Carrick Town did last week in reaching two Connacht Girls finals, what the members of the Morris Martial Arts Club are trying to achieve in Slovakia and what our athletes have consistently achieved since the days of Eddie Leddy.
It mightn't quicken our pulse the way Gaelic football does but they are of Leitrim every bit as much as those who take to the field this weekend and Leitrim's wide world of sport should be celebrated for that very fact alone.