'Pride of place': GAA clubs and the community around them
The French word terroir regularly crops up in the world of food studies. Originally a wine term, it usually refers to the complex interplay between the natural elements of soil, aspect and climate that influence any viticultural site. According to many foodies, this is what gives a food or drink its sense of place.
But the word can evoke something much more fundamental. Amy Trubek, author of The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir, insists that culture, in the form of a group's identity, traditions and heritage in relation to place, must also be part of any consideration of terroir.
The impact of the recent pandemic has shown us that the concept can also apply outside the food world and that institutions like the GAA regularly demonstrate their sense of terroir. This has been especially noticeable recently. Because of Covid, many children and adults have had the experience of staring at pristine pitches behind locked gates festooned with yellow and black covid warning signs.
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Thankfully, we have moved beyond these difficulties (for now). Many of our GAA club strongholds owe their recovery and success to the hard work of a small cohort of dedicated men and women. Terroir people might be an apt moniker for such a group. I know some of these terroir people because my own upbringing in Co Dublin exposed me to their positive influence.
Situated on the very outskirts of the county just off the busy M7, Newcastle is very different now from the small village I grew up in. With its picture-postcard thatched pub, church and old village school, this was a place steeped in the GAA. I spent many happy years wearing the St Finians' club jersey before leaving for London in my early twenties.
When I started in the 1970s, there was no clubhouse to speak of and players would change in a dilapidated wooden shed in the darkest corner of the field. There was always a pungent smell of wintergreen in the air, an elixir used to keep bare legs warm in cold weather.
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The field was exactly that, a single field, located behind the now closed Gondola pub on Newcastle's Main Street. It was on loan from a benevolent local and cattle were sometimes allowed to graze there. Frequently, players were forced to weave between manure as well as opposition during games. Later, the club moved to much better surroundings on Aylmer Road, but it is the old field that bears the strongest memories of those early years.
Match days were a village affair and support came from near and far. The opposition were sometimes better prepared and, in truth, often had better players, but we were proud to play for St Finians. That sense of team pride stemmed from our relationship with our club, and it was the people from that club that made us strong.
They were special people who gave the club its identity, its sense of terroir, by giving of their time and dedication. Names like Harney, Dunbar and Fitzgibbon, ring loud in collective memories as local GAA pillars who underpinned the very existence of that club. They ran teams, organised the club, chaired meetings and fundraised. Above all, they encouraged players to be proud of the club, the village and their place.
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As with many smaller Dublin clubs back then, a shortage of players sometimes led to younger club members being drafted into battle as part of more senior teams. To less experienced eyes, these senior players were giants of the club, men who played with fearsome aggression. The younger conscripts were energetic and nimble, but they were also nervous. GAA football in 1980s' Dublin was no place for reticence and was frequently peopled by players who felt their advantage lay more with their fists than their feet. Referees were more lenient back then and there seemed to be less rules.
But the younger cohorts were protected. If things got rough, and they sometimes did, these guardians, these terroir people, would step forward and form tree-like cordons around any threatened younger player. It was made clear to potential aggressors that this was a club, a single entity, that always stuck together.
Newcastle village changed dramatically during the Celtic Tiger years. Some say that dramatic growth weakened its sense of place and it has been assimilated into a bigger, more industrial Dublin collective. There may be some truth in that and it now takes a real local to recognise the old village outline among the surrounding Celtic Tiger developments.
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Thankfully, though, the community remains as strong as ever. St Finian's GAA club is thriving, with an expanded range of women's, men's and juvenile teams. Nowadays, most GAA clubs have a multitude of dedicated mothers and fathers, who give of their time freely every week to help out in the interests of their local community. These volunteers are crucial to every GAA club's survival.
But sometimes if you look closely enough, some very lucky clubs also have a small cohort of terroir people who are the incarnation of the spirit of the place. Long after their own children have grown up and others, like me, have moved far away, these special men and women continue to maintain the beating heart of their local GAA club.
Like the turf beneath their feet, they remain a club constant. They quietly go about their work - running teams, organising, chairing and fundraising. Most importantly, they nurture a club tradition rooted in a pride of place that allows players, supporters and even those of us who have long since departed to still feel a true sense of belonging, a true sense of terroir.
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As soon as the pandemic protections were lifted, the numbers of families exiting homelessness started to fall, from 88 in April to just 24 in October 2021. This downward trend continued in 2022. As the number of families leaving the system declined in those two years, the monthly average number of new families presenting as homeless in Dublin remained steady and even began to climb. For 2022 and 2023, the ratio was stuck at almost 1:2, for every one family leaving emergency homeless accommodation, two new families would arrive. Throughout 2023 and into 2024, Dublin Region Homeless Executive repeatedly stated that the drop in "families exiting homeless accommodation to tenancies (was) the main driver of the increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in the Dublin region". Last year saw some improvement in the number of families able to move out, but there were still more new arrivals than exits. So far this year, the gap between the two has been widening once again. The number of exits stalling means families are experiencing longer stays in emergency homeless accommodation. Back in March 2022 more than half (51%) of homeless families left emergency accommodation within six months of their arrival. By March this year that had fallen to just over a third (36%). At the same time the number of families spending two years or more in emergency accommodation climbed almost 134% from 192 to 449. When we speak about homelessness, fears for lost childhoods and the stress and distress caused by parenting in such conditions result in focus firmly being placed on family homelessness. However, single adults and those in childless couples make up two thirds of the adults in homeless accommodation, and around 2 in 5 of the total homeless population here. While overall homelessness figures fell during 2020 and into 2021 – corresponding with the fall in families - the number of people in these categories remained stubbornly static, hovering between 4,400 and 4,590 for almost a year and a half. Some people working in the sector argue the State needs to look at different strategies to tackle these two different cohorts, because what impacts one may not impact the other. They note that families and single adults (or adult couples) tend to have differing routes into homelessness. More families than single adults become homeless because the property they have been renting is going to be sold or similar by their landlord – in other words they have been given an eviction notice, or what is called in the data a 'Notice of Termination'. In Dublin last year, 2 in 5 newly homeless families gave this as the reason for their homelessness, but only one in ten single adults did. The other main reason is relationship breakdown. Together, the two have accounted for 60% of all new family presentations since May 2022. Other factors like overcrowding, domestic violence, newly arriving into the country and family reunifications all feature regularly as reasons too, but they drive fewer families into homelessness. For single people, the path into homelessness is not as clearly defined and it has also changed a lot in recent years. At the end of 2022 and in 2023, the biggest driver of single adult homelessness was a breakdown of a relationship, accounting for 1 in 4 new presentations in 2023. This dropped to 18% in 2024 and 16% this year to date. The main reason currently driving adult-only homelessness is people leaving direct provision. It has gone from accounting for less than 3% of new presentations at the end of 2022, to around 10% in mid-2023 to 26% the following year, and to 27% to date this year. In 2023, people who had International Protection status for two years but were still living in direct provision accommodation began to be moved elsewhere. They were typically moved to emergency International Protection accommodation which was often in different parts of the country. For adults, that accommodation could include tents. There is a clear link in the data between an uptick in these transfers and the increase in people who had lived in direct provision accommodation presenting as homeless. However, it's worth noting people are not being moved directly into local authority emergency homeless accommodation from direct provision. Last month, DRHE Director Mary Hayes told an Oireachtas Committee on Housing that she was "concerned" about the process, describing it as the "institutional discharge from one institution into another". "That does not seem to be well-thought through or a planned approach to homelessness," Ms Hayes said. Newly arriving from abroad, leaving overcrowded accommodation, having insufficient funds, rough sleeping and leaving hospital or treatment, were also regularly cited, accounting for between 3% and 6% of all cases. A raft of other reasons are given by people too, from release from prison, ageing out of childcare services, to leaving informal housing arrangements. When addressing such a myriad of reasons for single adult homeless, it is safe to say that a one-size-fits-all solution is not going to work. Solutions and stumbling blocks Housing First was one way of addressing the complex issue of long-term adult homelessness and rough sleeping. The idea is to provide secure accommodation with specialised support services. It exceeded a first set of targets of supporting 650 people between 2018 and 2022. The next target was 1,319 more tenancies by the end of 2026. By the end of last month 899 of those had been delivered, but rates have been falling, and in Dublin they've effectively stalled, with just 3 tenancies created in the 3 months to June, and 16 created in the previous 3 months. The reason for this is because the service, which was provided by the Peter McVerry Trust, is currently out to tender. But it's been out to tender since this time last year, and as a result referrals have been paused. A dearth of one bed and studio apartments in the private rental markets has also been pointed to as a factor blocking exits of homeless single adults and couples from emergency accommodation. The Department of Housing is hoping to boost the supply of such apartments by attempting to entice developers to build them. That's one of the reasons it gave earlier this month for cutting the minimum size of studio apartments to the equivalent of one eighth of a tennis court. Perhaps more of these apartments will increase the options available to homeless single adults, if they can afford them when they come on the market, but this is at best a medium- to long-term solution. Families too face a shortage of exit options, bringing us back to the almost 5,000 children currently hoping for a home outside of the emergency accommodation they are now living in. The latest Locked Out of the Market survey by the Simon Communities of Ireland showed that there were 13% fewer properties available to rent in June than even in March of this year, regardless of how they are priced. There are fewer still that qualify for the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), a social housing support to help people who qualify, to rent private accommodation, on the basis that they can find it below a certain price point. However, the number of places available within HAP price limits stood at just 32 nationwide, down 22% on the previous survey. While local authorities have some discretion on these limits and there is a boosted Homeless HAP rate, it seems clear that the supply simply isn't there to meet the demand. Despite some gaps in the data, it is clear to see from DRHE reports from 2020 and 2021 that the majority of exits from emergency accommodation in Dublin in those years were into HAP tenancies. This flipped in 2022 as the supply of rental housing available within HAP limits declined, and the number of overall exits fell too. In November that year DRHE said the drop in families exiting homelessness was "concerning" with just six families exiting homelessness via HAP into private rented accommodation the month before, the lowest in at least five years. Another potential route out of homelessness is into social housing. In 2022, two thirds of adults who moved out of emergency accommodation went into social housing - in the form of local authority lettings combined with Assisted Housing Body (AHB) lettings. That increased to three in every four adults last year, and that's still the case this year. But while the supply of such housing is increasing, it has not increased enough to reduce the number of people in homeless accommodation. Despite local authorities having targets for the number of social homes they need to build, many have missed them - Dublin City and Fingal County Council among them. Those local authorities are able to assist people leaving homelessness, but also prevent people entering the system. Key to that in recent years has been the Tenant in-Situ scheme, which was launched in early 2023. It enabled local authorities or the State's Housing Agency to buy properties where landlords were selling up and the tenant was in place. The scheme was widely praised for being an effective tool, and the stats bore this out. Before its introduction, data showed 779 people were prevented from entering homelessness in the first three months of 2023. That rose to 1,334 for the same period the following year, with the Tenant in-Situ Scheme accounting for 30% of those. Yet 2025 has seen that trend change. In the first quarter of this year Tenant in-Situ acquisitions have fallen 56% from where they were during the same period last year, and that was before Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council suspended the scheme saying their budgets had been exhausted. By this time last year, the Tenant in Situ-Scheme had prevented 742 adults from entering homelessness. That's down 60% this year to 292. Overall documented preventions fell in the first six months of this year too, down from 2,610 to 1,868. The plan is: there will be another plan The last promise to "prevent and reduce" homelessness came in 2021's 'Housing for All'. It gave a deadline of 2030, in line with an EU-wide commitment. A new plan is rumoured to be in development, so we'll have to wait and see what new promises, ideas, and deadlines it might bring. There is no silver bullet to solving a complex problem like homelessness. What is frustrating some working in the area is that some measures that were meeting a need have run out of money or out of steam. A new no fault eviction ban is set to come into place for large landlords along with new restrictions for smaller landlords. They're part of the new suite of renting rules, linked to the extension of rent pressure zones across the country. We have to wait until the end of February next year for those measures to kick in. There will be seven more monthly homelessness reports by then, and there's little to suggest the figures will go anywhere but up.
