'It was my first ever game and there was war, absolute war'

Fr Derek Ryan never planned to be a GAA referee; it sort of just happened. He's now glad it did and he tells JIMMY GEOGHEGAN how, despite a rocky start, he ended up becoming an award-winning match official. Now he takes charge of games where some pretty irreligious language can be heard from time to time

There's a pretty decent chance that nobody has ever kick-started their career as a GAA referee in the quite the same way as Derek Ryan (or Fr Derek Ryan to give him his full and proper title) has.

The recently named Meath GAA 'Referee of the Year' only started out as a match official four years ago in this part of the world yet he has travelled far in a relatively short pocket of time; the accolade a recognition of his rapid rate of progress. His origins as a match official can be traced to a location a world away in just about every respect from places like Pairc Tailteann, Skryne, Trim, Stamullen, Drumconrath or the many other venues in the Royal County where GAA games are staged.

"It started in Africa, I was a working in northern Mozambique and I was asked to become a referee because there was a lot of fighting going on. Soccer matches would take place on a Sunday and teams from different localities would play each other, local derbies. There was a final one day and I was asked to referee it, they got me a whistle and off I went.

"It was my first ever game and there was war, absolute war. I lost control of the game, my Portugeuse wouldn't be the best but I was trying to explain my decisions in the language but they weren't really getting it. There was war."

It was the kind of traumatic experience that would have put most people off taking up the whistle. Not Derek, ahem Fr Ryan. Instead it proved to be something of a beginning rather than an ending. The decision to accept the challenge and take up the whistle was to take him a completely different direction in a life that has certainly not been short of its variety.

"I ended up taking charge of a few games in Mozambique and when I came home in 2019, one of my friends, a GAA referee in Meath, said to me you should really think about taking up refereeing, you would be good at it and we need referees in Meath. That year there was a recruitment, Frank Gallogly, the referees' administrator ran a recruitment programme. I went for it.

"I was part of a group of 20 or 25 lad who were brought in. I don't know how many are still there, some of us are anyway, and we've grown to become friends. We've started out together and never looked back." Since then he has taken charge of many games at all kinds of levels and age-groups, in both football and hurling.

But what about this conuudrum as to what to call him. Fr Derek or Fr Ryan, Father or simply Derek? What, you wonder, do the people in the parish in Dundalk where he is currently based, call him? "Derek" he replies, although he is refereed to as Fr Ryan also from time to time and sometimes in the most unexpected way.

"Everybody calls me Derek, everybody, except for some reason, players when I'm refereeing games. I don't know why they do it but they have a habit of calling me Father in games but most people call me Derek. Players have said various things to me during matches, things like 'For f**k sake Father why did you give that free' (laughs). That was said to me a couple of weeks ago in a Leinster Club game.

"I would be under the impression nobody would know my occupation when I would be refereeing games, especially Leinster games that don't involve Meath or Louth teams, but somehow they find out."

That's just one of the many humorous moments Derek has experienced in the sometimes wild, sometimes wonderful world of refereeing.

BACONSTOWN

"Greed is good" is one of the lines spoken by Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko in the film 'Wall Street', a work that seeks to explore the basic human instincts involved in the world of high finance. The quest to get rich, filty rich. Someway. Somehow. That high-powered, ruthless world of high finance is one Derek Ryan knows something about.

He grew up in Baconstown, the eldest in a family of three. He played football and hurling for local teams went to the Christian Brothers in Trim (now the Boyne Community College), studied business in Dublin City University, graduated and began working with a financial company in Dublin. It might have been far from the cutthroat world of Wall Street but is was still pretty pressurised and Derek had a growing sense it wasn't for him.

After a great deal of soul-searching and questioning he took the route that was definitely less well trod on. He joined a monastery in Dublin and began studying for the religious life.

"I wouldn't say my life was missing something but there was something that didn't fit, the religious life seemed to me a little bit better, it was something I wanted to try out, I wasn't sure if it was going to be for me.

"In the initial few yeas I worked in places like Mountjoy Prison and Cloverhill Prison as part of my training. I worked with an organisation in Dublin that looks after female sex workers. Arising out of that I said to myself this is very rewarding so I took the next step."

He continued his studies in Jesuit College in Milltown, Maynooth University and Chicago, became a religious brother before becoming ordained a priest in 2011; a member of the Redemptorist Order. 'Greed is good' is certainly not a message he seeks to convey in his homilies.

He has worked in wide range of places, Brazil, India, Phillipines and of course Mozambique, Belfast and most recently Dundalk. He has seen all sorts of pain and suffering. Unbelievable material poverty in the third world country, the kind he never thought existed. In this part of the world he has experienced other kinds of poverty.

People who have lost their way, who turn to drugs, are in a dark place. People who see no other way but suicide. His aim is to show them another way.

He has also experienced tremendous human warmth and generosity, many "beautiful" moments, in places like Mozambique and Belfast and Dundalk, when the human soul burns brightly. Belfast is a good example.

"What I was exposed to in Belfast there was a high suicide rate, that was the big thing, very high level among teenagers and men in their twenties, not sure why, even the experts struggle to come to an understanding of that.

"I also saw great warmth in Belfast, there's a great acceptance and warmth towards the stranger, the outsider, they are a very warm, hospitable bunch of people."

He refers also to the intense, "lovely" sense of community in places like Mozambique, a place where he learned a lot - and not only about the realities of refereeing.

VERBAL ABUSE

Like just about every match official Fr Derek Ryan has had his share of verbals thrown his way during and after games. In the arena too he has seen the best, and worst, of human nature.

"Abuse, of course I get it, certainly verbal abuse, I have experienced it as many of my colleagues have but I wouldn't say it's a regular thing but it does happen. I've been escorted off the field a few times, that's at the upper end of things, when you do need to get to the dressingroom but when you think of it, on the grand scheme of things, I've had a very positive experience refereeing in Meath, Louth and across Leinster.

"I did't know if I would like it or not but I do like it, it's challenging at times, it gets me out of the monastery in the evenings. Around six in the evening I'm hopping in my car and I'm going somewhere, Stamullen, Drumconrath, somewhere to referee a game, it could be any age group, adult, juvenile, wherever it is I find it's a great outlet.

"I would say an awful lot of my work as a priest at the moment comes through the GAA, weddings, funerals, baptisms, a lot of my work would be GAA related, I would see the two as interrelated."

He doesn't seek to preach to people, inside or outside the GAA. He instead feels it better that they find their own way to the Church. "I wouldn't be of the opinion we should try and convince them to come into the Church, they know where to come."

Derek Ryan or Fr Derek Ryan take your pick, might have taken the road less travelled to becoming a referee but he's there now - and it seems in that respect also he has found his true path.

FR DEREK RYAN ON ....

...THE GAA AND SOCIETY

"I see it as a positive force for good similar to the sense of community I experienced in Africa, that sense of helping helping each other. There's a great community spirit in clubs and you do get that sense of how the GAA is so successful in bringing people together. There's an awful lot of positive things to be said about it. No organisation is perfect but the GAA does do a good job in this country and around the world, in bringing communities together. The GAA is a international body which is great to see.

...ON HIS DECISION TO LEAVE THE FINANCIAL SECTOR AND BECOME A PRIEST

"I'm a firm believer that it's either in you or not, it's not something that just came to me at the spur of the moment, I thought about it a lot up to that point. I would have had friends in Maynooth University, I would have chatted to different people and made an informed decision. I was a very willing recruit, and when I left the office environment I was working in I didn't miss it when I went into what was a very different world."

...ON ONE RULE IN THE GAA HE WOULD LIKE TO SEE REMOVED

"The advance mark. The kick out mark is fine but the advance mark, no, get rid of it. A forward can, say, catch the ball 20 metres from an opponents goals. A player can then turn and he is entitled to take four steps unhindered, he can't be tackled for four steps so before you know it he's on the edge of the 13m line and he can strike for goal. He can stop and take a kick when he catches the ball but the cute fellows at the moment are catching and running, they know they have four steps on their marker. There's a flaw in the advance mark rule."

... ON HIS AMBITIONS AS A REFEREE

"I have just been appointed to the national support panel so would really love over the next few years to referee some inter-county hurling games. I am a referee of hurling and football in Meath but when you go to Leinster level you have to pick one or the other. I picked hurling. I find hurling a very exciting game to referee, my adrenaline levels go sky high taking charge of a hurling game because it really is up and down the pitch. On those days when you are running hard you could be running from anything to nine to 11 kilometres. I like a good strong Meath championship hurling game too, it's just great to be part of it all."