Game Changer programme providing valuable assistance

By Paul Keane

At the launch of the Game Changer programme in Croke Park last November, Colin Regan spoke about the motivation behind it.

The GAA's Community and Health manager talked about the mountain of correspondence received by his department in the period after Ashling Murphy's murder in Tullamore in early 2022.

It was GAA members, a lot of them male coaches and players, he said, reaching out to help. But they didn't know how. At the time, the GAA committed to working with subject matter experts to better understand an appropriate response for a sporting organisation.

Two years of collaboration with partners Ruhama and White Ribbon Campaign Ireland (administered by the Men’s Development Network) followed, resulting in the development of Game Changer, a programme that aims to harness the positive influence of Gaelic games in Irish society to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Game Changer is supported by the LGFA, Camogie Association and the statutory agency Cuan.

Also speaking at the launch last November, which coincided with White Ribbon’s 16 days of action, was then Minister for Justice Helen McEntee who said that violence against women, particularly 'behind closed doors' had reached 'epidemic' levels.

Seven months on, an activation day for Game Changer took place in Croke Park last Sunday. Coincidently, one of the programme’s ambassadors, Donegal’s Oisin Gallen, not only scored one of the gaols of the championship in the game against Meath, he also featured on the Game Changer awareness video that played repeatedly on the stadium’s big screens.

The awareness video also features some of Gallen’s Sean MacCumhnaill’s club mates and representatives from the Bray Emmet’s club, Wicklow.

However, the most poignant element of the activation day was the participation of Jason Poole and his sister, Claire, both prominent members of the Erin’s Isle club in Finglas, Dublin. Their sister, Jennifer, also a beloved playing member of the club, was murdered by an ex-partner in 2021.

Jason was interviewed on the pitch at half-time of the senior game, after volunteers from the Erin’s Isle club (assisted by Ruhama volunteers) unfurled a huge Game Changer flag in the centre of the pitch just before throw-in of the All-Ireland SFC semi-final.

Jason's message to the packed stadium was a simple but powerful one. "We as a society need to look at how we approach gender and sexual based violence in the future," he said.

The interview was widely picked up on and shared in the hours and days afterwards and Jason reflected on a hugely positive experience. "There was an invitation sent out to GAA clubs around getting involved in the Game Changer programme and Erins Isle, our local club, sent the email on to me and asked would I get involved," Jason told GAA.ie.

"A number of people from Erin's Isle also went in and done the workshops. I had been working with Colin a little in the background and he asked me then if I'd be interested in coming and speaking about the Game Changer programme.

"We had been chatting around the issues of creating male allies and calling out abuses as they happen, about taking that step forward for women. And just being more aware of what domestic and gender-based violence is and what it means when you're in a WhatsApp group and you might need to call something out, or when you might need to do that in a dressing-room.

"So we were having those conversations and he asked, 'Would you come in and speak on the day in Croke Park?' And I had no problem with that, I was happy to do it."

Jason said the Poole family have received huge support from Erin's Isle, their club in Finglas, just down the road from Croke Park. "Clare plays senior camogie, she is the captain of the team," said Jason. "Jennifer would have played alongside her, the two of them would have been team-mates on the same team."

He gets it how the GAA has a presence in virtually every community in Ireland and how it can help. "A lot of the time, kids, people, they don't understand what they're saying because it's learned behaviour," said Jason, referencing the harmful language and conversations which can often go unchecked

"A lot of the time it's not even something that's coming from themselves, it's learned behaviour, what they're hearing other lads doing or saying and then they just think that's normal. Another side of it is that we do often have to look at the family or social background, where this behaviour or language has become normalised in the family home so these lads and girls think that these relationships are normal when they're not.

"If you're involved in the GAA now, you will get some insight into what a healthy or a normal relationship looks like. The Game Changer programme is an amazing opportunity.

"There's a massive piece of education that needs to be done in the whole of Ireland and the GAA are taking that step forward and being the leader on this.

"As a family that's involved in the GAA, and Jennifer who loved GAA, and the GAA club being like a family to us, which was always the case but even moreso since the death of Jennifer, they have really been our backbone and done everything they possibly could for us. So to see the GAA coming out now and supporting a campaign like this is amazing."

The Poole family have been campaigning for several years for a new piece of legislation to be enacted, Jennie's Law. It would create for the first time a domestic abuse register, so that a person could obtain information on offences previously committed if entering a relationship with someone.

"At the moment we don't have a system of protection or a system like they have in Canada, or in Australia or in the UK, where they have registers," said Jason, who referenced the fact that the man who murdered his sister had a history of violence against women.

"Jennifer didn't know that. I genuinely believe she wouldn't have been in a relationship with that person if she'd known his past. If she had access to a register, she would have known his past."

A petition seeking to create Jennie's Law has almost 30,000 signatures and can be accessed at myuplift.ie. It will be presented to the Dail in September.

"We would love anybody from the GAA world to get behind us and sign the petition, it would be a big help," said Jason, who was keen to stress that domestic violence affects both men and women.

He praised the GAA for the determination and ambition it has shown with Game Changer. "I think they've really hit the nail on the head with the content that they've put into it and the fact that it's an e-learning module is going to give access to even more people," said Jason.

"I think it's really, really crucial that we show the next generation, and the current generation of players and mentors, what a healthy relationship looks like, and what domestic violence and gender based violence looks like.

"Because there's so much out there on social media, even as a school teacher myself, lads don't know what a healthy relationship is at times because they're so fascinated by what they're seeing in the media and all of these influencers. They think what they're seeing is normal and it's not in an awful lot of cases."