SPORT FOR ALL

But if I did believe, I d say that Irish sport has turned some kind of corner. Some benevolent astral body has swum into our ken. The aspects are positive. So apparent is this change in fortune that I even have hopes that Ireland might actually qualify for the next World Cup, Mick McCarthy notwithstanding.
Hard on the heels of the exploits of our runners in the indoor European championships, there was the soccer team s defeat of the Czech Republic (admittedly in a friendly). And then there was the turn-around in the fortunes of the Irish rugby team.
Now, there are three views on rugby. There are those who hate it, frequently for class reasons, and most usually because in Dublin the game is the preserve of a particular kind of bourgeois. Then there are those who know nothing about it and care even less. They have much the same attitude towards other sports. Like soccer, Gaelic football, hockey or tennis. They are as legion as they are inexplicable. Finally, there are those who think that rugby is another of the great games, notwithstanding that some of its proponents are complete tossers.
But hide that prejudice in Limerick. And in Cork. These are places where you see the oval ball in the hands of kids in council estates. These are passionate places. Quite a few of the present Irish team also played hurling or soccer as well. Mick Galwey was a Kerry footballer.
And remember, the ould republican cod de Valera always maintained that hurling and rugby were the two field games that most closely matched the Irish temperament.
All this is by the way to acknowledging the feat of the Irish rugby team in winning three in a row, and beating France in Paris on Paddy s weekend . . .
Well, there s more to this than Dublin 4. I mean, see all these great archetypal Irish faces. Mick Galwey. Keith Wood (Fester Agonistes). Malcolm O Kelly. And then, a new superstar in Brian O Driscoll. Damn only 21. Watching these fellows lunging forward, attacking, defending. Really going for it. Mighty. You don t see it all that much elsewhere. Apart from Roy and Robbie Keane. And Ollie Baker. And Stephen Collins. But that s the zone we re in.
But these were not the only great archetypal Irish faces among the sporting winners. There was another Istabraq. What a face!! A Gael through and through. Clearly! As you could tell from the cheers! The devotion. Ole ole ole. This was like Ireland winning the European football championships. This was adoration. This was surrender!!
It s an emotional thing. The hoss pinned his ears back and went for the line and I swear the blood curdled, the throat dried, the fists clenched. If only he could talk!
Afterwards, the English were nonplussed at the complete devotion of the Irish for a horse. As were the French, who couldn t understand the OTT reaction to what was, after all, just a win in a rugby match . . .

But the Irish are a sporting people. Paddy Power was wont to ascribe it to the agricultural background - when you put a seed in the ground, you re gambling. When you bring a horse to be fucked, you re gambling. Sporting and gambling. Put two snails on a plate and we ll root for one or the other.
Not only that, but sports history has the most extraordinary grip on our imagination. It truly means something different here, matched only by pastoral American recollections of the golden days of baseball. People recollect. Their eyes grow misty. Heads shake. Oh boys oh boys, those were the days.
Some of this may be to do with families. Sport is the great common ground where parents and children can communicate without fear. I include mothers and daughters, but it is especially true of fathers and sons. So the great sports occasions are often steeped in a nostalgia for a lost communication.
But they are also about identity, about ourselves. This is sport as a metaphor for the struggle of life. We have taken a few knocks in the great game, so when we turn one over, we are entitled to a bit of a celebration.
But of course, there s a shadow at the door, even as we crack the bottles open. It s this identity thing again. And its association with those great archetypal Irish faces. And with great sporting occasions, and emotions that have their roots in families and parishes. It s to do with suddenly remembering that France won the World Cup, and how much it meant to them, and how it was achieved with a multi-racial and intercultural team. And we took their rugby team on St Patrick s weekend, a time when we celebrate being Irish, being ourselves, having a few bob to throw around, and starting the tourist season.
In a few years time, the Irish teams should look different. There ll be less of the mighty archetypes. They ll be there, of course, but the range will be extending. (Horses have already been there believe me!)
How will we deal with that? Will we need a World Cup to start to think of the bigger Irish identity? To embrace all the differences and contradictions that are emerging all around us?
Is anyone thinking about this? Is anyone bothering to develop policies and programmes to settle and integrate all the people who are going to enter or re-enter Ireland in the next decade? So they too take their places in the folklore of sport, and so much else? Wearing the green?
You better shout louder. I can t hear you.
The Hog