A survey carried out by the Killarney Advertiser has found that a small majority of our readers are in favour of making an amendment to the Parish Rule which would allow children to play for the club of their parents.

Just under half of the respondents in our online poll (47.5%) said they would be in favour of introducing a Parent Rule, with a further 5% in favour of amending the rule in a different way. 7.5% of those surveyed said the Parish Rule should be scrapped altogether, while 40% stated that the rule should be kept in its current format.

Ergo, all told, 60% of respondents said the rule should either be amended or abolished.

Interestingly, just 35% or those polled said they hailed from ‘town’ clubs, with 47.5% belonging to ‘rural’ clubs and the remaining 17.5% from clubs in ‘satellite’ parishes. Assuming that the responses given are accurate, this means that at least 4 out of 10 of those who are in favour of change are from rural or satellite parishes.

A similar poll which was conducted via this journalist’s Instagram account (@adammoynihan) produced even closer results as 49% said the rule should be kept and 51% said it should be changed or removed.

Readers were also encouraged to share their thoughts on the Parish Rule (both via the online poll and on Instagram) and the contrasting replies certainly highlight the deep divide that exists locally when it comes to this controversial matter.

One respondent said that the rule “does not serve the purpose it was brought in for”, while another added that it was “not fair the way it is currently structured”.

On the other side of the coin, one fan claimed that the “recent talk is nonsense – nobody was talking about the Parish Rule when clubs outside of town were struggling underage”.

“Big clubs would only poach players and destroy small clubs numbers if the rule was removed,” another argued.

In last week’s Killarney Advertiser it was revealed that senior Killarney GAA officials are concerned that if the recent trend of young families moving out to neighbouring parishes continues, and if the Parish Rule is not amended, there may not be enough players in the town to sustain all three clubs.