Warning to GAA that club landscape must change or face ruin

At last year's GAA Special Congress, a motion was passed establishing new demographics committees across Ireland.

Counties have since established the position in their county executives and included the officer’s voice at management level.

And the man who pushed for the position, Tyrone Central Council delegate Benny Hurl, is glad that the position is recognised in the county's decision-making process.

"Unless we change how we do things, we are heading for trouble," he told RTE Sport.

"Demographics is the single greatest threat to our association," he says. "The challenges that are faced by our clubs are real and are mounting. We need to intervene.

Hurl is a busy man. Aside from his role as Central Council delegate, he is chair of the GAA’s Higher Education Council and, at the start of this year, the Ardboe man led UUJ to the Sigerson Cup title.

In the coming days, he will sit down to seal a set of proposals to hand to the association’s management committee.

And he says the GAA will have to be prepared to take some bold measures.

"Our sense of community, pride of place, our sense of GAA community and our Irishness – it is all under threat now, in my opinion, if we don’t act on the information that the demographic shifts are providing us with," he adds.

So wherein lie the problems?

Across the 32 counties the population stands at just over seven million people, up significantly from the low of five million people in1851.

And therein lies a shift. Up to 60 years ago, more than half of our population lived in rural areas. That’s down now to less than 40%.

Populations in areas like Fingal, Kildare and Meath are growing hugely.

The rate of growth is a lot slower in counties like Donegal, Mayo and Roscommon.

This brings its own issues for