The party's main line of defence has been that the commemoration was not a Sinn Fein event. That would be entirely credible, but only if the entire country came down in the last rain shower.

Is the party seriously expecting us to believe that a rally addressed by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and jointly compered by Sinn Fein MEP Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Fein councillor Toireasa Ferris was not a Sinn Fein event?

If it looks like a Sinn Fein rally, walks like a Sinn Fein rally, and acts like a Sinn Fein rally, then it's a Sinn Fein rally. The SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell summed it up well when he said that Mary Lou McDonald had "everything to do with Sinn Fein and nothing to do with the hunger strikes".

Few would deny the right of Sinn Fein and the republican movement to commemorate the men who died in the hunger strikes 25 years ago but, by steamrolling its way into Casement Park, it put the GAA organisation in a hugely embarrassing position and gave plenty of ammunition to the organisation's critics in the unionist community.

The rally cleared breached rule 7a of the GAA's official guide, which dictates that the association must be non-party political.

It also broke rule 44a which prohibits activity, outside of gaelic games, at a GAA ground without the approval of Central Council.

Not only did Central Council not give its approval, it specifically prohibited the rally taking place. The organisers of the rally, in a breath-taking show of arrogance, blindly ignored this ruling.

Any temptation to criticise the GAA for not doing more to ensure the event did not take place should be resisted. The organisation did all it feasibly could. And expecting the Antrim county board . . .

which was reportedly split on the issue . . . to tell 20,000 or so people to go away or to just lock the gates is simply not realistic. It is much more relevant to ask the rally's organisers why they didn't use either one of the two parks close-by that could have accommodated the numbers.

It must have been obvious to everybody involved that opting for Casement Park would set the rally on a collision course with Croke Park. The GAA was always going to seek to maintain its political independence just as it did . . .

causing much turmoil in the process . . .

during the hunger strikes a quarter of a century ago. Yet, incredibly, Sinn Fein opted to drive a coach and four through such sensitivities.

Surprisingly, criticism of the party's high handedness has been pretty muted south of the border. Imagine if Fianna Fail or Fine Gael had ignored a ruling handed down by the Central Council of the GAA and organised a rally at a major gaelic games ground. They would have been hammered by every media outlet and rival party. The political fall-out and damage to the party would have been enormous . . . and rightly so.

Sinn Fein has made enormous strides over the past decade and the republican leadership deserves credit and support for the way the republican movement has moved away from the armed struggle to concentrate solely on political means.

The process was a painful one for republicans, but it will ultimately lead Sinn Fein into government south of the border . . . it's now a question of when and not if. And, whatever reservations many people harbour about the party, that is a welcome development.

However, that also means that Sinn Fein must be judged by the same standards as the other mainstream political parties. The same rules must apply and the party cannot continue unchallenged its practice of routinely doing and saying exactly what it wants to do, regardless of the consequences.

No other political party in the Dail would dream of associating with a rally at a GAA ground that had been specifically prohibited by the association's governing body, so why does Sinn Fein feel it is acceptable for it to do so? Does it feel there is one rule for Sinn Fein and another for everybody else?

From a strategy point of view, it is also surprising that none of the very clever and savvy people at the top in Sinn Fein stopped to think about the potential damage the decision to hold the rally in Casement Park would do to the party.

Surely holding the rally in an adjacent park would have been just as appealing to the party's core support, while avoiding alienating GAA people across Ireland, who are floating voters and might be considering voting for Sinn Fein.

There is no doubt that Sinn Fein is going to make gains in next year's general election, but it is also clear that the steady growth in the party's support has stalled over the past 18 months. If it wants to break through the 10% glass ceiling on its support, thumbing its nose at the most powerful and respected sporting organisation in Ireland is not the best way of going about it.