In the course of the recent election, Corinthians Boxing Club emerged as one of Gerry Hutch’s primary connections with the local community in inner-city Dublin. The club was a hub for the election campaign and members openly supported his candidature.
They spoke about Hutch’s largesse and his light touch sponsorship which has helped keep the boxing club alive. Hutch didn’t frequently go to the club but whenever he did, he was pleasant and welcomed.
Theorists could say it was conscience money from a wealthy man for a community incarcerated in multigenerational poverty, one that has, more than most, suffered from his gangland line of work.
But that doesn’t explain why the boxing club were adamant about his sincerity and why they spoke about his popularity and acceptance.
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Interviewed on Newstalk’s Hard Shoulder in November, Kevin Corcoran, a coach at the club, described how Hutch bought the building 25 years ago and handed it over to the boxing club.
“One euro a year’s rent, that’s all we have to pay,” said Corcoran. “He gave us the building to run as a boxing club free of charge.” Corcoran, who respectfully referred to Hutch as “Gerard” and “Mr Hutch”, was asked if the boxing club could exist without the building.
“Of course not, everybody knows rents, especially in the inner city, are crazy at the moment. We’d probably be paying two to four thousand euros a month for that building. We charge the kids €2 a night for training. We would never be able to afford a building like that.”
The club is close to the childhood home of double Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington in Portland Row and is where she began her boxing career before going to St Mary’s BC in Tallaght.
The Tallaght club is no different from Corinthians or inner-city clubs in Limerick, Galway or Cork that live off scraps and are less easily spooked by people like Hutch.
Towards the end of the count as the numbers began to stack up for him, there was considerable unease in establishment reaction as it collectively clutched its pearls.
The position of boxing in modern Irish sport has always been that of an outlier. It’s a sport in which many people can only see the distasteful side — a violent and dangerous blood sport with few redeeming qualities.
It is also defined by two things — an ability to provide outstanding Olympic athletes and a demographic that takes in a large swathe of working-class and poor people.
Boxing picks them up, supports them, teaches them discipline and respect and makes no judgments on their religion, net worth, home address or ethnicity.
The sport has become used to disaffection and struggle. Those things are part of its DNA and they have given it sharp elbows and made it resilient. Boxing is rarely dissuaded by the higher-minded opinions of people who didn’t grow up in the area.
Very often it won’t be told what to do, even by Irish sport’s principal State agency wielding a large stick. Over the years that has been borne out in amateur boxing, which has been involved in an ongoing war with Sport Ireland.
In lightweight boxing against heavyweight government, there is only one obvious winner … and yet. Ignoring threats to stop the funding, boxing exists in a political space that would give more compliant federations anxiety.
The sport has always doggedly followed its survival instincts. It understands its folk and is compassionate about the flaws and venality that often come with those who step through the ropes.
Boxing has never allowed people who believe they know better tell it what to do. Sometimes that works for it, and sometimes it is destructive. Driving out Billy Walsh and Bernard Dunne as coaches were two poor choices.
But rarely does it stray from the one guiding principle: if it doesn’t help itself, not many others will.
Supporting a gangland figure like Hutch didn’t just come down to people doffing the cap to him for handing Corinthians boxing club a building, but to a community’s disenchantment, alienation and estrangement that has been allowed to fester for decades.
It wasn’t so much a thank you to Hutch for helping community boxing, but a protest and lament as to why he is the only one. Backing him should not have been a surprise to anyone.
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