This week, Mary McAleese walked away from the steering committee tasked with integrating the GAA, Camogie Association and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA), amid anger and recriminations on both sides.

She described the management committee as “less than impressive” and “lacking in vision”; the GAA president Jarlath Burns asked her to reflect on her remarks, which he described as “offensive”.

After four years of herding the three organisations towards integration into a single body in her role as chairwoman, McAleese’s resignation has thrown the cat among the pigeons. Her presidency was defined by “building bridges”: bringing people together to facilitate rather than force agreement. And therein lies the problem. The GAA clearly will not jump into integration; it will have to be pushed.

As members of these three organisations up and down the country shared their views of this latest publicity fiasco on the airwaves, it is hard not to be struck by how invested so many people are in Gaelic games generally, and the GAA specifically.

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For a psychologist like me, the GAA offers a heady mix. It is a means through which people........

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