The case of Robert Ruane and St Mary’s shows up the dangers of volunteering in the GAA, as leaked documents, false allegations, cover-ups and national coverage that avoided so much of that conspired to ruin reputations and cause endless damage, writes Ewan MacKenna
Last month, an envelope arrived to an address in Athenry.
It contained a mere two pages, the first of which had a black-and-white GAA logo in the corner and nothing more than a name and location for delivery.
The second lacked so much as that logo, didn’t contain a date, and didn’t even bother with a signature. As apologies go after settlements, this was barely acceptable.
It read: “The GAA acknowledges that at a Code of Behaviour hearing on 1 November 2017 that Robert Ruane was wrongly identified as having intimidated a juvenile. This allegation became public knowledge, including to members of St Marys (sic) GAA Club. This allegation is entirely false and defamatory of Robert Ruane and it is withdrawn unreservedly. The GAA apologise for any distress caused to Robert Ruane or his family and his many friends at St Marys (sic) GAA Club. The organisation has taken appropriate steps to redress the damage caused to him.”
And that was it.
Five sentences to wash away an episode that should bring concern to all their vital volunteers.
As far as the association was concerned, it was the beginning of the end, but there are those in the club left somewhere between bemused and furious. For them this is merely the end of the beginning.
The notion of child welfare in GAA and in any and all sports is of course of utmost importance. But such a seriousness can coincide and co-exist with a seriousness around allegations and mutterings aimed at adults in that sphere. A minor and their well-being is paramount and there must be hawk eyes on all mentors, but it doesn’t mean adult reputations are there for torching.
Indeed what we’ve learned from this episode is that some senior GAA officials appear to have no difficulty in sacrificing the good names of club officials, and no issue with punishing the club’s children to avoid an examination of how inadequately they conducted child welfare hearings involving that club.
On the weekend of the All Ireland final replay you might have come here looking for reaction but no matter how much Dublin-Kerry meant, it’s still just a game. This is real life. It takes priority.
The story of Robert Ruane and former St Mary’s officials is a long and winding road.
It has reached a troubling destination.
* * *
On 6 May, 2018, elements of what happened around the Athenry club were covered extensively in the pages of the Sunday Independent. Sources in Galway say they’ve little interest in bemoaning that article or journalist Paul Kimmage, as tempting as that is for obvious and clear reasons as you’ll see, for it’s how he got the information that perturbs them first and foremost.
What is also disturbing is how a club volunteer’s name can be dragged through the national media mud – via a big build up, advertising countdown, and supposed expose – having done no wrong.
As a starting point we must go back to July 2015 when a complaint by the parents of a 12-year-old was made to both the club and the Gardaí. It alleged a coach had grabbed their son and shoved him into the dugout. There was a lack of evidence however and it went no further. That, they presumed, was the end of it, having investigated it and found no cause for concern.
Soon though it would conveniently resurface despite the earlier findings.
By February of 2017, a number of other complaints arose involving St Mary’s. They began when the club lost an under-12 match and two of the players were far from happy with the result. It is added that neither were their parents, although those parents said this was a case of maltreatment. So they sought to change teams, moving up the ladder to under-14, and they showed on 11 March for a championship game in Loughrea. It quickly went downhill as club secretary John Cloonan spoke there to the boys in the dressing room without supervision.
Shortly after that episode, a parent wrote a letter to Gearóid Ó Maoilmhichíl, the National Children’s Officer, and noted there that: “What happened next is as follows: John Cloonan told our son and the other player that they ‘got a jersey to play today, but it would be the last time they would get an Athenry jersey…’ The way in which John Cloonan prevented [our son] from leaving the dressing room with his team, and then the subsequent manner in which John spoke to our son in the dressing room has made [our son] feel very intimidated.
“Moreover we feel quite strongly that John Cloonan has breached Underage Code of Behaviour guidelines insofar as he spoke to our son alone, contrary to the recommendation given in the GAA publication ‘Our Games Our Code’ page 9, where it states [that coaches should] ‘be accompanied by at least one other adult at coaching sessions, games and in underage team dressing rooms’.”
That’s one side of the story – a side the club dispute. But it had all kicked off.
Ó Maoilmhichíl, having read up on the incident, passed it back to Galway who suggested that the club should try and resolve it internally. However, St Mary’s tell us that these parents would not engage with them, and have documentation showing they reached out repeatedly. They also say that, given this was a child welfare issue, the parents were given forms to make complaints but did nothing, instead suggesting management should be removed or they’d pursue it all further.
At that point, with a stalemate reached, the case file returned to the county board who suggested the national committee get involved. They did, but part of their efforts involved dredging back up the 2015 dug-out incident as well – in essence an autopsy on a corpse that had been examined and then buried. The committee was chaired by Fearghal Gray, the county Clare Children’s Officer, who was assisted by Denis O’Boyle and Oliver Donagher, as well as an observer, Michelle Harte.
In terms of the hearing around Cloonan and the boys, the club argued, that as secretary, he had the official team list and the two boys weren’t on it, and they weren’t even supposed to be there. Thus he held them at the dressing room door with a mentor still behind them. However, as he explained the situation that they couldn’t play as this was under-14, that mentor left. The club add that with the gate to the field 100 metres away, these two players still managed to jog past that mentor before he even made it that far as the conversation took half-a-minute to finish. Those in the club including Cloonan admit this still broke a rule and it shouldn’t have happened.
Next up was the hearing for that 2015 case, resurrected. The person who was alleged and cleared around the shoving incident brought in Robert Ruane as a witness and he noted that nothing had happened. Another person called was the original mediator from two years earlier. At one point paperwork by the hearings committee was produced and the mediator was asked after a reading if that was their report. They said it wasn’t, and pulled out the actual report.
Turns out pages had been left out and the case fell apart.
That should have been it. Only it wasn’t.
Soon after, a letter arrived from the National Hearings Committee and one section read: “The conduct of Club members who approached and remonstrated in the hotel foyer with complainants or witnesses, some of whom were 11 years of age, was at the very least unnecessary and in poor taste and at worst could be seen as intimidatory.”
This stunned many in St Mary’s.
Following the conclusion of the hearings and the release of findings, 2018 rolled around and the back-and-forth continued. Players involved started making transfer requests out of the club as is their right but, on 12 March, a letter arrived at the club from the chairman of the hearings committee. This letter also reached Kimmage and the Sunday Independent when it was supposed to be confidential to the club executive. That’s journalism for sure, but this isn’t about that for the only people that could have provided him with it were the GAA or the club.
It wasn’t the latter.
It made several recommendations and allegations of varying seriousness and threatened consequences if not accepted.
In fact, whether co-incidence or otherwise, on 2 May, four days before the Independent article hit the shelves, another letter to the club stated that the Management Committee discussed matters “including adherence and knowledge of child safeguarding procedure”” and they had decided without due process or application of their own rules and procedures to ban the club from hosting and children playing in Feile na nGael. The club were also informed that their juvenile players were to be banned from competitions until a Child Safeguarding Risk Assessment was carried out and the club was completely compliant.
By 31 May, the club officers were summoned to Croke Park for a meeting with the NCSC. Frances Stephenson chaired the session with seven other NCSC members present including Ó Maoilmhichíl. “The meeting descended into a disgraceful display of intimidation, accusations, and abuse of the club officers present for over three hours,” one source tells us.
It was here that the idea of a person “who had whispered in the ear of an 11-year-old-child” in the hotel foyer was brought up again. The club officers informed the committee that no such incident occurred.
Given it was their claim, repeated requests for details around who was alleged to have done this were made and finally, on 16 June, there was a breakthrough. The committee blamed Robert Ruane and, more outrageous still, was that the child they claimed he had intimidated was the son of one of his closest friends. One person on the committee also replied to a query about whether this had been investigated with, “What do you think we have been at for the past six months?” Remember that line.
Of course there was no truth to this. Club officers contacted the father of the child alleged to have been intimidated and he said it was a false claim and provided the club with a letter stating that he did not make any complaint about Robert Ruane or any other club member around intimidation of his son. This letter was also sent to Croke Park. Michelle Harte in an email to the new secretary the following day advised that it was a different child.
“It was unbelievable that a committee representing a national organisation would state as a fact something as serious as this without first investigating it,” one source recalls.
While other matters documented by Kimmage rumbled on, this was now another major flashpoint. Although tellingly, having been shown up over a false claim, in regards to other issues and after having been suspended from juvenile games for two months, suddenly a letter arrived from Croke Park saying the club was actually now compliant with all rules and regulations.
It was some sort of resolution. But for Ruane’s his remained way off in the distance.
Weeks went by.
Then months.
October 2018 meetings were cancelled and then cancelled again.
By the time of the Athenry AGM, it was ruled that it couldn’t be dealt with as it was ongoing and Ruane’s name continued to be sullied in a small and close community. Finally, after Christmas, a meeting with Croke Park officials was at last called. There the GAA publicly admitted in a statement that Ruane did not intimidate the child. Asked what the club were supposed to tell him after all this, they were informed that the GAA “didn’t know” and “they’d come back with an answer”.
At this point Ruane got a solicitor involved. Within days the GAA were eager to and did settle.
An envelope arrived to an address in Athenry.
It contained a mere two pages.
The apology received didn’t have so much as a signature or a date.
And this after all Ruane had been put through.
For the past couple of months the club meanwhile have been trying to get answers. Writing to the GAA and president John Horan repeatedly, they have posed a list of questions around all this.
Among them are the following.
Were the National Child Safeguarding Committee hearings conducted fairly and properly, in accordance with the GAA’s Code of Best Practice and in the best interests of child welfare?
Did any person, group or committee misuse the GAA’s Child Welfare procedures and if so for what purpose?
What action, if any, was taken to deal with GAA officials and people who deliberately misled the hearings in verbal and written submissions, providing false documents and evidence?
Was it a breach of the GAA’s Code of Best Practice that the same journalist, who has claimed to have tracked confidential child welfare hearings in Athenry, was accommodated and briefed by a senior GAA Child Welfare official?
Was it a breach of the GAA’s Code of Best Practice that confidential documents containing false allegations and the names of innocent volunteers were provided to the journalist and published in an article in a Sunday newspaper?
Why did the National Child Safeguarding Committee post hundreds of letters, having been made aware that they contained false and defamatory allegations about innocent club volunteers, to all St Mary’s GAA Club members in June 2018?
Why did the National Child Safeguarding Committee insist that a copy of this same letter be posted on the club’s website for one week, as a condition for the suspension of the children to be lifted?
They’ve received no answer as of yet.
Meanwhile recently one member of the club got talking to an official from another club at a match when Ruane’s name came up. “Oh yeah, he’s the guy that bullied the child,” was the opening line.
Flames aren’t the deadliest part of the fire. Instead it’s the heat.
15 September, 2019.
*This article is in response to the original article published by Paul Kimmage in May of 2019 that you can find at this link – https://www.independent.ie/news/paul-kimmage-low-lie-the-fields-of-athenry-the-gaa-story-every-parent-will-want-to-read/36879150.html
Ewan MacKenna 