The Clare county board have been very energetic in their attempts to take on anonymous 'trolling' of their players and management on the internet.
Clare have endured two very flat years since winning the All-Ireland in 2013. Some of the online commentary has been stinging.
Pat Fitzgerald, the Clare county secretary and father of Davy, lashed out at the trolls in his annual report to convention.
Nobody deserves to be pilloried by people who haven't the courage to reveal their identity and hide behind pseudonyms.
To me, there are boundaries as regards acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Some of these postings on these sites overstepped the mark and instead of being based on constructive criticisms were used as a means of personal attacks.
[Irish Independent]
Clare officials have had anonymous trolls in their sights before.
At a county board meeting three months ago, irate (and now outgoing) chairman Michael McDonagh said, 'some people hide behind social media and say what they like. They are anonymous. I know nothing about it. I was never on a website or a computer in my life.'
We had a serious problem with An Fear Rua. That website, had supposedly Claremen castigating some of the Clare players for two years. It was so bad we had we to try and find out who they were to ask them to desist.
The print media didn't emerge from that meeting without criticism. Kildysart delegate John Meade gave some curt feedback on the work of a couple of local journalists.
There are a couple of journalists in this county and what they have written about Clare GAA is absolute shite.
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