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(Editorial, Irelandclick.com)

So that's that, then. Rule 42 has gone and we now ready ourselves for the prospect of watching the Irish soccer and rugby teams running out on to the hallowed turf of Croke Park.

Antrim was one of the counties which was labelled variously by the media as rednecks or diehard nationalists for opposing the scrapping of Rule 42, but in fact those who so passionately opposed the change did so out of a deep love for the game and very real concerns they have about how giving professional foreign codes access to the jewel in the crown of Irish sport would give soccer and rugby a massive boost – to the detriment of our national games.

It is to be fervently hoped that the dread predictions made by many do not come to pass: that Gaelic games continue to be a massive draw, particularly for our young people and that they are not eclipsed by other sports.

For our part, while we accept that both sides have valid arguments, we also recognise that the decision to scrap Rule 42 is effectively to reward soccer and rugby for gross inefficiency. There is absolutely no reason why these two professional sports should not have had an arena of their own. While they continued to play games in the decaying carbuncle that is Lansdowne Road, the GAA was in the business of making dreams a reality and today Croke Park stands as one of Europe's – if not the world's – premier sporting venues.

Soccer and rugby charged huge admission fees to fans who were then forced to watch games in surroundings that would have been considered unacceptable 20 years ago. And when that became untenable, rather than do the right thing, not only did they go running to Croke Park, their pals in the media cynically managed to persuade large swathes of the Irish public that the whole fiasco was the GAA's fault and not their own by portraying counties like Antrim as dinosaurs.

Now that the decision has been made, all that remains to be said is that the GAA is entitled to demand premium rates from soccer and rugby for the use of premium facilities.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on April 18, 2005.