The GAA, Camogie Association and Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) have committed to merging into a single organisation by 2027.
But while the ambition has broad support, the scale of the task — from facilities to fixtures — is becoming increasingly clear.
Last week, disagreement on how much the merger costs became publicly clear, as the Chair of the Camogie Association, Brian Molloy, dismissed as "nonsense" an estimate of €500m put forward by the GAA President Jarlath Burns.
Prime Time has been speaking to people within Gaelic Games, to try understand whether the plan in place remains viable.
The GAA owns or operates vast swathes of pitches and facilities across the country.
The LGFA and Camogie Association are separate organisations.
In 2022 the three associations passed motions to prioritise integration into one, unified organisation.
A steering group led by Mary McAleese is working towards a 2027 deadline, but with 800,000 members, multiple county boards and a shortage of existing facilities, the joke goes that achieving Irish unity might be easier.
Despite the scale of the challenge, there are green shoots at club level.
Chair of Oulart-The Ballagh GAA club in Co Wexford, Shane Reddy and Camogie All-Star Ursula Jacob look at each other puzzled when asked to explain how their club has already successfully integrated hurling and camogie.
There wasn't an elaborate plan. No blueprint worked out by a committee.
"It just happened very naturally. There's a huge level of respect for everyone in the club," Ms Jacob explained.
Facilities are shared across the 22 men's, women's, girls' and boys' teams. The club has two of its own pitches and use of a third but despite the facilities it can still be difficult to balance the access.
Matches take precedence — hurling or camogie — and then it’s first come first served for the remaining squads.
"Oftentimes you'll see three and four teams on the pitch here together," Mr Reddy explained.
"Everyone makes the effort to help everybody get space."
Men's team training has to make way if the camogie women have a match, and vice versa.
It helps that the women have had great success in recent years winning multiple Leinster titles and an All-Ireland in 2021, Ursula Jacob adds.
"It's a lot of the same families that are working on both sides of the hurling and the camogie. When I was playing, I was wearing the red and black jersey of Oulart-The Ballagh and that's all that mattered," she said.
"I think we've shown here that integration is not impossible," Mr Reddy said.
"It's vital that girls and boys have equal opportunities moving forward. Whatever the obstacles, it has to work."
Many other clubs are already on an integration journey — some introducing a formal One Club policy — but the biggest roadblocks will likely come at intercounty level. Fixtures, finance and facilities — the three Fs that the organisations will have to merge.
Around the country, county boards report a huge demand for pitches and facilities.
In Co Laois the joint manager of the camogie team has complained that his squad are not getting fair access to the county’s Centre of Excellence and county stadium, O’Moore Park in Portlaoise.
"We're always requesting, we're always begging, but it's just not happening," Pat Collier told Prime Time.
He said that even in their Junior All-Ireland winning season this year, the squad trained at the county’s Centre of Excellence only three times.
"For our main county grounds, O’Moore Park, we had five home games this year and we got in once."
"The team trains as hard as the men," Collier said, "but they're definitely shown no respect."
"I know that no county board can give their ladies footballers or camogie players 50 per cent access overnight because they don't have enough facilities, but they can surely start by giving 15 or 20 per cent."
Acknowledging there has been a lack of access to facilities, Laois GAA outlined to Prime Time the pressure it faces accommodating its county squads, league matches and boys’ and girls’ schools competitions.
"This presents ongoing challenges having sufficient pitches for Laois GAA’s own squads, so much so we have no choice but to seek alternative venues," a statement from chair PJ Kelly said.
It said it was committed to making facilities available to Laois camogie where feasible, including hosting this year's county final and ongoing training of referees.
The association said it was "fully supportive and committed to integration" although PJ Kelly said he was on record "expressing reservations around the timeline of 2027," and calling for urgent investment in greenfield sites and facilities.
Concerns about the stated timelines are echoed by John Fogarty, GAA Correspondent with the Irish Examiner, who described the 2027 target as overly ambitious.
"There's a hell of a lot of money and goodwill required but I'm not seeing it. There's not a lot of detail out there which is a big concern," Mr Fogarty said.
Those concerns are not just about deadlines. At national level, the debate has also been marked by mixed messages.
Eyebrows were raised recently when GAA President Jarlath Burns put the price tag of integration at €500 million, a figure described by the Chair of the Camogie Association, Brian Molloy as nonsense.
The inharmonious messaging from two men on the integration steering group hasn’t gone unnoticed by Ursula Jacobs, who said "I would have hoped they would bring out the same rather than conflicting messages."
"That probably doesn’t look overly positive from the outside," she added.
An update from the integration steering group in February pointed to progress in communications, facilities, finance, fixtures, games development, HR, membership and match officials.
But many county chairs feel like the integration project has become a top-down process, according to Mr Fogarty.
He added that some believe the LGFA and the Camogie Association should have been the first to merge.
"That would make it a hell of a lot easier because they have their own difficulties in terms of fixtures, dual players playing on the same day or playing on the same weekend."
However, Mary McAleese made clear last year that she would have walked away if the merger involved only two organisations.
More than 90%of delegates at the three congresses voted in support of integration in 2022.
For Ursula Jacob, the timeline for implementation may need to be flexible.
"There’s only one opportunity to get it right so if it means taking a little bit longer than 2027, I would say that I would rather take longer and get it right," she said.
Laois manager, Pat Collier maintains that integration will surpass expectations.
"People talk about changing Gaelic Football rules and it is fantastic what they've done but this is hundreds of times bigger. This is massive."
A report about GAA integration from Louise Byrne and Tara Peterman airs on the 9 September edition of Prime Time on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player at 10.35pm.
