'Toxic' threats force Mayo GAA officials to contact Gardaí

Executive officers of Mayo County Board have laid bare a shocking tale of intimidation and toxic threats to which they have been subjected, with confirmation from chairperson Seamus Tuohy that he and treasurer Valerie Murphy are to submit formal statements to An Garda Síochána later this week.

The full weight of the GAA was in Westport on Monday night to lend its support to its Mayo unit, with GAA President Jarlath Burns and Director General Tom Ryan mounting a robust defence of the county board at a meeting of Mayo GAA delegates in Knockranny House Hotel.

In a surprise move, the Mayo GAA executive gave a slideshow presentation that demonstrated to delegates the scale of abuse involved, with secretary Ronan Kirrane sharing what he said was only a small selection of emails received from an individual that the executive said it would not be naming.

It was said that in waging this campaign with Mayo County Board, the individual was working in tandem with a “small group” of other people.

Allegations of financial mismanagement within Mayo County Board, which have been circulated mainly across social media platforms, have increased in intensity in recent months. In a detailed presentation however, Tom Ryan assured that Mayo County Board had received the full benefit of a debt write down and contrary to the allegations, said this was visible in the board’s audited accounts.

“The claims about Mayo’s finances that have been published online are utter nonsense,” said Seamus Tuohy, who admitted that legal avenues are also being explored by the board.

“We feel our county delegates need to be made aware of the level of intimidation the county board officers have been subjected to. This form of behaviour is unacceptable in our association,” he added, describing the situation as an “adult safeguarding issue”.

Mr Tuohy revealed that on the night of the previous Mayo County Board meeting on May 13, he received an email that labelled him a “coward” for not attending. The chairperson was in hospital at the time. Mayo County Board had thus far felt that silence was the best response to what Tuohy described as a “persistent campaign of intimidation”, but the escalation of that campaign in recent weeks prompted Croke Park to intervene.

GAA President Jarlath Burns informed the attendance that on Monday alone, he had received eight emails from the same individual communicating with Mayo County Board, and that the toxicity and threatening nature of what the officers were having to deal with had “gone way beyond” anything that could be considered acceptable.

Describing Seamus Tuohy, previous chairman Liam Moffatt and their predecessors as people of the “highest integrity”, Mr Burns said it was important for Mayo GAA’s officers to know that Croke Park “had their back”. He also implored whoever among the club officers and delegates were sharing internal communications with third party individuals, to “reflect” on their actions that were facilitating the bullying of volunteer officers. That was after Ronan Kirrane explained how shortly after he, as secretary, last Thursday night issued a notification about this particular meeting, a communication was received within the hour from the individual already identified as making threats, alerting them of his knowledge of the meeting. That was despite the secretary sending the notification strictly to selected club officers.

Tom Ryan assured the meeting that Croke Park did not make any profit in the exercise of taking on Mayo GAA’s debt and that at €1million, thw write down represented “one of the highest single value discounts secured” by any of the association’s units.

A large number of delegates spoke in support of Mayo County Board and like John Gibbons of Louisburgh GAA, expressed their shock at the tone and content of the communications sent to county officials.

“I didn’t think someone could stoop that low,” said Mr Gibbons.

In expressing his belief that it was important to “expose this bullying and intimidation,” Jarlath Burns said that Mayo would never win Sam Maguire without unity so urged that this would be “the night that everything changes for Mayo GAA”.