Two questions follow me around. One is “outside of yourself, Noel, who was the hardest, wiriest, toughest, and stoutest of them all?”*
The other is: “Do you ever regret the hunger strike?”

I don’t. No man holds the annual Congress of the GAA in higher esteem – notwithstanding the fact that, as Nancy often says, the feeling is clearly mutual – but Someone Had To Shout Stop.

If it had to be me, it had to be me.

It had to be me.

I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday, possibly due to the fact that barely a day passes but I am asked by a visitor to take down the scrapbooks.

“All Gaeldom atremble as Noel is chained during Congress” – the Irish Press. “Noel will not swallow his words – or anything else” was the banner in this very paper. The Irish Times went with the more sober: “Noel’s stance is food for thought.”

The Sun was just beginning to cover Gaelic games and Tommy Fitzgerald went with: “Eat it, says not-for-turning Noel as GAA make right mange tout of rule change.”

It might seem my radical stance was over a trivial matter. But when you peruse the pages of history from the safety of 30 years, almost anything can appear negligible.

I was passionate about preserving the referee’s authority. “Devolving power to the linesmen,” I said on Seven Days, “is a recipe for anarchy. Linesmen are not mentally, psychologically, or emotionally equipped to make crucial decisions.”

I added: “Don’t get me wrong. No man has more respect for linesmen. They do a thankless job.

“Linesmen are grand for flagging a lineball, or maybe even hopping it, if it comes to it.

“But allow a linesman on to tell a ref that the No. 7 and the No. 10 are tangling behind his back, and you completely undermine the referee.

“Next, umpires, for God’s sake! Four fellows rounded up, with no other prospect for profitably passing a Sunday afternoon, and this Congress plans to pave the way for men like that to be involved in key decision-making.

“Don’t get me wrong, no man has more respect for umpires.”

Having earlier consulted with the camera-man, I slipped discreetly into side profile, and stared straight into the camera.

I continued, in the conciliatory tone I was pioneering at the time: “Look,” I said, “it’s a man’s game. There are people up there in Croke Park trying to take that away. We must resist.

“I appeal to them to consider what they are proposing. I speak as a referee, a former inter-county player, current club player, manager, club official, county board official, provincial council official, and as a member of countless Croke Park committees.

“If a referee misses something, that’s his own look-out. If he has to take a blinding, so be it. But this game will be ruined if some harmless poor devil of a linesman is allowed to come running on with his flag up to report an incident.”

And, then, my coup de grace: “In this country, no-one is held in lower esteem than the informant. Desist, I say, and if the price of clinging to our traditional manly values is the occasional unreported broken jaw, that’s a fair price to pay and I, for one, am prepared to pay it.”

I went on in that vein for a full 20 minutes. How a simple tracksuit every few years from the county board would be more than enough to give linesmen the recognition they so rightly deserved. How the devolution of authority could lead to referees reports being over-turned, surrogate referees refereeing the referee, and all manner of calamitous developments.

“And don’t forget,” I warned in grave tones, “we live in a time of new technology. It won’t be long before there is a video camera in every town in Ireland. What will we have then?”

I got great support. Joe McDonagh sang Goodbye Muirsheen Durkin to me on the way in. I followed his career closely– he was a great minor two years later. The Uachtaran pleaded with me to see sense, said I would get my death of cold.

I passed much of the night soloing on the spot, and devised the static solo-run tactic that I put to such devastating use in the following year’s county final, and which is now such an integral part of the game.

I held firm until the motion was reached the next morning. It lost on a show of hands. It was then I tasted the first morsel of food for 29 hours.

Far be it from me to say, but the implications of my brave stance are felt to the present day. This weekend, I will be up at the top table, as usual, and I won’t go hungry.

* Leaving Camogie out, I’d have to say The Red Collier of Meath. I still think of those famous days. People cycled 30 miles just to see us clash. I cycled 40 miles myself one day just to play against him in a Sevens. But, as Nancy often says, I was stone mad on football even at 13.

Noel is firm but fair. But if you want to play it the other way… Email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; visit www.knowledgeablenoel.com; or hit him hard on Twitter (KnowledgeNoel.)

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