John Kelly

No, definitely not, David.

The last 10 to 15 years, I would say, would have seen a slight decrease in sales.

But the Irish and the GAA match going public in particular retains a strong affinity to the printed programme.

And it's still an integral part of the match day experience, particularly in the GAA, I would say.

Certainly it did.

The seasons 2020 and 2021, obviously, sometimes with no attendances, sometimes with very much reduced attendances, meant that the programmes weren't printed, certainly in the numbers that they would have been before that.

DBA, the company that prints the programmes on behalf of the GA, introduced the online or the digital version of the programme at that stage, which has continued.

I wouldn't understand how the sales of that have increased, but I think that it's still very much the physical programme that is looked for.

Yeah, absolutely, David.

It's certainly a generational thing for people of my generation.

It's the physical programme where the younger people are accessing content via their phones or devices.

And as you mentioned earlier, you know, with the conduct final and the monster final this weekend, the teams will be released tonight on the social media platforms after training.

So people will have a good graphic of what the team looks like already.

So it probably decreases a little bit.

The All-Ireland final programme for the last year or two has cost eight euro, which is pretty good value when you compare it maybe to the FA Cup final programme, which is £10, or the Champions League final could be up to £15.

So the GAA programme still retains good value, really.

Yeah, absolutely, David.

Probably as a historian yourself, you realise that these documents are primary source material that contain...

not just local history, social history.

You know, looking back at the 1914 All-Ireland Final Programme, it contained an advert for where to buy your volunteer uniforms.