Ten days ago, representatives of the Gaelic Players Association [GPA] appeared before the Dáil committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport to answer questions about the tortured integration process between the three main bodies in Gaelic games. None of the primary actors were available to attend.
But at the end of the meeting, and mindful of his audience, the Labour TD Alan Kelly went off topic with a riff about drugs. “I have gone to a number of meetings in sports clubs, including my own club, where concern is expressed that drugs are everywhere,” said Kelly, the chair of the committee. “They are across the sporting codes and across the GAA.
“The days of young people going out for a few pints are basically over. Cocaine use, in particular, is off the charts. I have gone to too many talks and seen too many young people affected. It is not changing; if anything, it is getting worse.”
On Tuesday, less than a week later, the GPA published the outcome of its annual members survey. One of the subjects it probed was drug use. Of the 3,676 players who responded, 19 per cent said that “drug use is an issue among intercounty players”. More alarmingly, 20 per cent of male players said, “they were aware of a team-mate who has struggled because of drug misuse”.
RM Block
The focus of the question was “recreational” drug use rather than performance enhancing and in that context the numbers that appeared in the report didn’t make any headlines. The general perception of recreational drug use among young people probably tallies with Kelly’s characterisation.
For an organisation with a footprint in every corner of the island, any changes in societal behaviours are bound to spill into GAA clubs. There is no boundary. But for the GAA it poses a different challenge than it does for other sporting bodies because of their dual personality as a community organisation with pastoral instincts.
Three years ago, Rathdowney Errill GAA club in Laois were so concerned about the impact of recreational drug-taking that they brought a motion to GAA Congress. Their proposal was that nobody could line out in any adult championship match until they had completed educational modules about alcohol, substance abuse, anti-doping and gambling as laid out by Central Council.
“I’ve seen young people that I know using cocaine,” said the club chair, Tim Barry. “I saw the wildness that got into them after using this drug. It frightened me.”
The motion wasn’t adopted but it prompted the GAA to devise some practical supports. The GAA’s National Health and Wellbeing Committee collaborated with regional drug and alcohol taskforces – funded by the HSE – to develop a substance-use education workshop suitable for delivery in clubs. According to Jimmy D’Arcy, the GAA’s youth leadership and sustainability manager, about 120 clubs have availed of the service since it was rolled out.
[ Ireland is awash with cocaine, but how does it get into the country?Opens in new window ]
“Like a lot of these difficult to address issues we try to signpost to experts,” says D’Arcy. “We don’t carry the expertise inherently. We try to contextualise things for the GAA environment across a range of things.”
There is no way of knowing if any of those workshops changed anyone’s mind or habits, and there are people who will argue that the personal affairs of players should be beyond the jurisdiction of sports organisations. The GAA, though, has never recused itself from conscientious interventions. It has always seen itself almost as a secular church. The question, though, is what response is appropriate and what could they meaningfully achieve?
“The topic of drug use in Ireland has moved from the fringes to the mainstream,” wrote the GAA’s community and health manager Colin Regan in a long piece on the association’s website. “So where does the GAA fit into this equation? What is the role of a community-orientated sports association and where does our remit lie?
“A club should consider its role in terms of its members’ decision to use illegal substances in their own time, away from official club activities or events. A percentage of the population will always choose drugs, and this is not exclusive to young people or athletes. While clubs may vary in their thinking regarding what someone does in their private life, the GAA Club Substance Use policy explicitly states that the use of illicit drugs at club events is unacceptable.”
[ Cocaine users are now older, better educated and more likely to be workingOpens in new window ]
This is the time of the year when those lines are blurred. Is a post county final knees-up in the local pub regarded as a club event or not? For generations those get-togethers had a predictable nature. In the weeks and months leading up to the championship players would be asked to swear off alcohol as a declaration of their commitment, and when the season ended a cork would be blown off the bottle, win or lose.
When those pleas are made now, though, they’re liable to fall into a generation gap: middle-aged managers asking players in their 20s to stay off the gargle when drink might not play any part in their weekend kicks.
The scale of the issue is anyone’s guess. An academic study of 5,000 15- and 16-year-olds, published in the Plos One journal during the summer, found that 3.4 per cent of them had used cocaine while nearly 3 per cent had tried ecstasy.
“That’s an equivalent of one student in every class having used these by the age of 15 or 16. That’s a very high prevalence, and much higher than the European norms,” said Dr Peter Barrett, one of the authors of the report and a consultant in public health medicine in UCC.
“It’s becoming more normalised in Irish society. It really is a major public health problem.”
Ciarán Carey, the former Limerick hurler and an addiction counsellor, wasn’t surprised by the numbers that appeared in the GPA survey, although he believes recreational drug use is a far greater issue in clubs than it is at intercounty level.
“From my experience,” says Carey, “I would have come across this at club level 10 years ago. Not only had it got into the club scene, but it had got in very strong. It’s as strong as it ever was now.
“This is where players get a small bit manipulative to themselves when they introduce the word ‘recreational’. I have yet to come across a fella who is recreationally taking weed or taking coke or taking speed for 20 years and he’s fine. I haven’t met him yet. As a country we are slightly in denial about what’s going on.”
In comparison, horse racing is an interesting case study. Cocaine was an issue among jockeys long before it entered GAA dressingrooms. For a rider struggling with their weight, getting by on 1,200 or 1,400 calories a day, cocaine was not only an appetite suppressant, it was also a low-calorie alternative to a 200-calorie pint of beer on a night out.
In the early years of testing, Kieren Fallon and Dean Gallagher were two high-profile cases, both suspended twice for anti-doping infractions in France that involved cocaine use. In Ireland, the first positive case was recorded in 2006, three years after testing started.
“Twenty years ago this wasn’t a conversation,” says Andrew Coonan, solicitor and head of the Irish Jockeys’ Association. “It was not an issue. I’d say five years ago I was having what I would call a busy time of dealing with issues that were arising with regard to cocaine use. And when I say busy, that is very much relative to the jockey population. Busy was maybe a couple of cases a year. The stats now have shown a considerable fall-off in findings of cocaine use among riders.
“I’m not saying it’s not a problem and I’m not saying it’s gone away. I’d be utterly naive to say that. You’re dealing with a young population [of jockeys] and with kids who are getting money quickly. It is there. I know the testing is only at a certain level, but it has increased. I know riders have a way of getting around the system. Do I think it’s a problem? Absolutely, it’s there. Am I seeing it getting out of hand? I’m not seeing it getting out of hand.”
Adrian McGoldrick, who has been a racecourse doctor for more than 40 years, is convinced too that cocaine use in the weigh room is not the issue it was five or 10 years ago. More testing is only part of that change. In 2024, for example, 287 anti-doping samples were taken on Irish racecourses, but that was from nearly 400 race meetings. The testing resulted in one adverse finding for cocaine.
For somebody who is not a habitual user, cocaine leaves the system quickly. Saturday night consumption would not be detected in an anti-doping sample on Monday. For somebody to be caught they would need be very unlucky, or very foolish.
The other factors, says Coonan, have been environmental stuff: education, surveillance, intervention, punishment. One of Coonan’s clients was given a three-year suspension in 2019. Dylan Robinson ultimately returned to the saddle after a year, but only after a strict rehabilitation process.
“The penalty structures here are significantly harsher than they are in the UK,” says Coonan. “I think those that want to make it are realising that if they have a finding against them, it’s very hard to come back from it. Riders now must do mandatory CPD [Continuous Professional Development] as part of their licence and awareness of the effects of drugs and alcohol is one piece of that. The jockeys now are very professional too. I’ve seen a huge change in weigh room attitudes. The peer influence of the top guys is huge in terms of the work they’re doing off the track.
“Also, when a guy is starting to exhibit issues or problems [with drugs or alcohol] it becomes quite obvious quite quickly because racing isn’t that big. Word comes around. With great support from the chief medical officer [Jennifer Pugh] and her team, it can be picked up quite early.”
With a societal issue such as this how much can an organisation like the GAA hope to achieve? The first step is not to turn a blind eye. The GAA has made that start.
