These are mixed-up times. In a week when the future of policing here was being picked over as the fall-out from the Patten report continued, contradictory signals and viewpoints with regard to the RUC and the form its successor should take were only to be expected.
With two sides set implacably against each other that sort of argument and counter-argument was inevitable. These opposing positions are well-rehearsed and are played out in a drearily formulaic way.
But from a sporting and cultural point of view it is interesting that, somewhere along the line, it has become part of the shorthand of the media debate about policing to invoke Rule 21 and push and prod at the GAA for some sort of contribution to the political discussion.
There is a clear agenda at work here. As the other elements of the Patten debate become bogged down in recriminations about badges and disagreements over redundancies, it is the GAA that is expected to provide some momentum to a process that has slowed to a crawl.
This is an invidious position for an avowedly non-political organisation to be put in, but still the hacks come looking for the mythical white smoke from Croke Park.
If anything, the increasingly desperate attempts by some elements of the media north and south of the Border to "spin" the Rule 21 story reveals the bankruptcy of the political debate itself. When the fundamentals cannot be agreed upon by any of the major players, the debate inevitably drifts out towards the edges and tries to pull the GAA centre-stage.
That is why we have stories that the association may be about to "reconsider" its position, when all the available evidence, both public and private, suggests that nothing could be further from the truth.
Unlike many of the politicians and other interested parties who line up on either side of the debate, the position of the GAA is crystal clear and has been for almost two years. It was agreed at the special congress in May 1998, when the well-documented attempt to delete Rule 21 was shelved in favour of a commitment to remove it "when effective steps are taken to implement the amended structures and policing arrangements envisaged in the British-Irish peace agreement".
There is no confusion. When the political culture is altered by the implementation of the policing changes envisaged in the Patten Report, Rule 21 will be consigned to history. But not before. If there are elements pushing for a change to this policy, with their woolly talk about the GAA "providing a lead", then it is a sure sign that the political process itself is experiencing difficulties. What difference do they think a high-profile announcement by the GAA would make? Would all the deep-seated Unionist anxieties about the denigration of the RUC and their implacable opposition to the altering of the badges and the emblems suddenly melt away in the wake of a grand GAA gesture? Or is Rule 21 just another symbol to be bandied around in a political arena already littered with them? These are the questions we do not hear being asked.
The GAA has become more street-wise than in those heady days of 1998 when most of the country attempted to bask in the reflected glory of the Belfast Agreement. Joe McDonagh's presidential push for repeal of Rule 21 was undoubtedly well-intentioned. But in the light of what has happened since, it was also premature. His attitude to the issue since then has been much more guarded, hence his description of last week's proposals to implement Patten as "a positive development". Having had his fingers burnt back in May 1998, he is unlikely to come back for a second helping.
In the past week there have been strategic suggestions that the outgoing president might make one final heave at his farewell congress next April and push once more for the removal of Rule 21. If McDonagh is to go down this road, he will need to spend much more time preparing his constituency than he did two years ago when Ulster delegates, in particular, baulked at the pace of the hastily put together proposals for change and dug in their heels.
But even if he does adopt a more softly-softly approach, it is highly unlikely that McDonagh will be any more successful this time around. If the Ulster delegates were not prepared to dip their toes in the water and surf the post-agreement wave of optimism two years ago, little that has happened since will convince them to change their minds.
Media mischief-making aside, the GAA finds itself in much the same position as the main protagonists in the protracted Patten debate. The legislative plans are in place but it is not envisaged that full reform will be implemented until autumn 2001. By that stage the political landscape will have been either transformed or the new structures will have collapsed under the welter of organised opposition and intransigence.
Where that leaves the Patten proposals, and by extension the GAA's commitment to reform, is anyone's guess. Will the police reforms go on regardless, or are they too tied to wider political forces? In such a climate of uncertainty, the wisdom of the GAA's "wait and see" policy is being emphasised by every passing day. As Sean McCague takes office there is unlikely to be any dramatic shift in policy or emphasis. His address to the Monaghan convention before Christmas was predictably dissected with most attention focusing on his suggestion that the Ulster counties would have to lead the way in moves to repeal Rule 21.
Most commentators, however, failed to hone in on the fact that he qualified this by saying it would happen at the "appropriate time". The McCague era, it would appear, will herald no dramatic deviation from the established position.
These are clearly difficult times for the GAA. It is under intense pressure, just as it been during the very worst years of the violence here when its members were murdered and its clubrooms were destroyed. All through that difficult time the association did not deviate from its exclusively cultural and sporting aims.
Now, more than ever before, the GAA needs to cling to those same goals and resist the attempts of others to manipulate it for their own political ends.
