A working GAA weekend in the life of Conor McKenna ...

Club member Conor McKenna is a second year journalism student at DCU but Conor has also been practising his trade as a very busy freelance journalist covering GAA matches at weekends. Conor name has featured on match reports published in a variety of media outlets including RTE.ie, The 42.ie, The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner, The Daily Mirror, The Star, several provincial newspapers as well as delivering spot reports to local radio stations across the state.

Here Conor describes a working weekend last summer, which involved 1,000 km of travel, 29 hours of duty and a bare-knuckle boxing fight on the way home.

The opening weekend of last year’s Hurling Championship was very busy, but very enjoyable.

I was in Dunloy in North Antrim on Saturday 12th May, for Antrim v Kerry in the Joe McDonagh Cup and down in Walsh Park, Waterford the next day for Waterford v Clare in the Munster Hurling Championship.

I do this at my own expense, as it’s very rare a client gives mileage. I’d make a decision to go, based on how much work I’d expect to pick up and if it was worth it then I’d travel to the ground.

I set off to Dunloy in North Antrim which was at least three hours of a drive from my home and it was almost a 600km round-trip. I picked up my friend Barry Lenihan, who works with RTE Radio as a news journalist, outside a Belfast Hotel. Barry was off duty and was one of the only Kerry fans in the ground; anyone who frequents Kerry GAA games in either code would recognise him.

Two of us used Google Maps, but could not find the ground in Dunloy. We stopped to ask very friendly locals for direction in a historic part of the country, where the only religion that matters is the Gospel of Hurling.

There was no press facilities at the venue and I had six different jobs to do, including regular updates for Radio Kerry.

The throw-in was at 5pm and I had my first online report sent in by 18:42pm, which was less than five minutes after the full-time whistle.

Then I had to interview both managers post-match and I had to wait over half an hour for one of them to come out and we left the ground around 7:30pm.

I always make sure to call into my great friend Odhran Fox when I’m up in Antrim, so we stopped to see him in a café across from the old Casement Park.

There was a bare-knuckle boxing fight taking place in the bar beside the café, causing the lady working there to bring down the shutters, but we got out safely!

Stopped at Supermacs in Drogheda for food, before dropping Barry at the airport and it was after 1am by the time I got home, having left for Dunloy 15 hours earlier.

The next day then I was up at 7am getting the reports from the game typed up and quotes transcribed, before leaving for Waterford at 9am.

I was in my seat in the Walsh Park press box for 12pm, before finishing my reports on the previous day's game.

I saw Brendan Cummins for the second day in a row when I went in to the ground, as Brendan was also in Dunloy the evening before, as a coach with the Kerry hurlers.

The match started at two, but I had an instant on the whistle report to file, while I also needed to get reaction from both managers.

I do not get to focus on the match when I’ve an online report to do, instead focusing on scorers and subs. And that is not easy in the modern hurling game especially. Last years Westmeath vs Cork game in the All-Ireland Preliminary quarter-final was a good example of the pressure of online reporting. I needed to get an on the whistle report out before I went out to talk to John Meyler. The score was 1-40 to 0-20 in Cork's favour, while both sides emptied their benches. That left 61 different scores and 10 subs to account for, so I had 71 different match details to include, in addition to listing the teams. The throw-in was at 3pm and my first report was sent at 4:36pm, with 71 match details.

Certainly not an easy task!

Straight after the match both managers are interviewed, while I try and fill 1300 words for the Daily Mirror.

Finally I leave the ground after 5pm and stop in Kilkenny City for a bit of dinner, before getting home around 9pm with the work finally over, after 1000 km of driving and 29 hours of duty over a two day period.

That’s just an example of the travel demands involved, while I had nine different gigs over those two matches, two of which were well over 1,000 words.

Most of the time managers are quite friendly and helpful, along with the players. The best and most intimidating part is interacting with the top stars regularly.

I have been in interview situation with Henry Shefflin, Brian Cody, Michael Fennelly, Eddie Brennan and Davy Fitzgerald along with many others, while I also got to speak to the likes of Jackie Tyrrell, Aidan Fogarty, Dónal Óg Cusack and Óisin McConville in various press boxes.

Tight deadlines are very tough and it’s a chicken and egg scenario, because you’d need to take on a big work-load to make going to a game worth your while, but the game isn’t enjoyable if I’ve too many jobs, as the workload is huge.

For Westmeath home games, I’d often have three online reports to do and then newspapers as well, so they’d be very intense.

The hardest part is actually securing jobs at a match. I’d normally email editors in papers and radio stations on a Monday morning and see if any of them will commit, before sending out an email then to all my clients, about my schedule for the week.

It’s a poorly paid profession, without question, with cut-backs coming in constantly and rates often being reduced, while you could be out in the open with no shelter, with a deluge of rain.

The good certainly outweighs the bad however, without a shadow of a doubt.

GAA is my main passion in life, as anyone who knows me will already know, while I also love driving, so I cannot wait for the work to get back up and running.