Fergal Keane, OBE, buttermilk baritone of the BBC, who made a brief appearance as a blood substitute during the first half of this MASSIVE attempt to spear tackle, oops, spearhead the Bid of Paddyland for the RWC 2023, is back on the field of play for the start of the second half.
Once again, as a blood substitute, i.e., to flag the publication on the Dame Dosh Finucane Show of his upcoming book on the Civil War (Irish franchise), and titled:
-Wounds.
(See far below).
Hugo McNeill, head honcho of the B.O.D.-bolstered Bid, is on record as saying that ‘RWC 2023 will be the BIGGEST event to be held in this country EVER’. Leaving no box unticked in his efforts,. El Cid of Le Bid is bound to be South America-bound in order to woo the poncho-wearing gauchos of Argentina to weigh in behind and /or stand shoulder to s. with the efforts of Eireland.
For The Hurling Club of Buenos Aires could well serve as a roll-over-model for RWC 2023, the express purpose of which is a yearning to grow the game of the grubber kick in the land of which Dublin 4 is the kern. When the supply of ash for the clash of the ash dried up in the Land of the Southern Cross-field Kick on account of the Great Donkey Derby 14-18 the visceral decision was taken to switch to the crash-ball game of rugby.
Nowadays, the Hurling Club of Buenos Aires is an oval ball oasis in a footie-loco city.
(Curious thing though, when El Perco found himself in B.A. some years ago it happened to be el noche of el superclasico between the two local club rivals: Boja Juniors and River Plate.
Boja Juniors won and their supporters took to los calles to celebrate. As most of them were wearing the club ganseys – camiseta azul con una banda amarilla – identical to the ganseys of the Tipperary hurling gansey – geansaí gorm le banda buí / blue with a yellow band – B.A. resembled nothing so much as Thurles on Munster Final night. Plaza de Mayo morphed into Liberty Square.
Boja Juniors, sin duda, were the original club of Maradona. Which possibly raises the prospect of a rotund Maradona being a blood relative of, say, Skinny O Mara from Toomevara, but probably doesn’t.)
The subtext of the Bid of Paddyland for RWC 2023, aka, Project Confidence Trick and Supply, is :
-To develop the game of Dev !
The Long Fellow was, of course, a noted line-out specialist in his heyday. Dev was also, ar ndóigh, one who liked to pay lip-service to the Leprechaun, i.e., talk the talk of the Dearg le Fearg demography.
RWC 2023 will also do so, with this minor difference: zip-service rather than lip-service will be paid to the Leprechaun.
Thus, gombeens and other cultural zombies with an Abercrombie and Finch fashionable pash will be on view to do be liking to jig it in Thomond Park in their Derby O Gill outfits . They will gawk the gawk, but bawk at the talk and will give not an inch in their oval-vowel oppostion to the, erm, lingua franca of the Long Fellow. No Amhrán na bhFiann here, boggers.
The religious fervour of the Munster fans often finds them singing that hellish chorus from Connaught, ‘The Fields of Athenry’. Thus, their grip on Geography would appear to be as firm as their grip on Leprechaun – Rosc Catha na Mumhan is Greek to them. Why not opt so for, say, ‘ The White Rose of Athens’ ? While making just as much geographical sense as the feel-good Fields , it is, besides, a far more tuneful and humalong song.
In time, after the massive success of RWC 2023, the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble and the (gulp) humble Poc Fada Comórtas on the Coolie Mountains will make way for the (gasp) Long Ruck Competition where once the camán-wielding critter Setanta used to write to Santa asking for a sliotar.
70 years has, in more unenlightened times, been known as ‘the Biblical Span’. It was 70 years ago, by a quare quirk of coincidence, that the then (gulp) ‘GREATEST event ever to be held in this country EVER’ was held.
It was called An Tóstal (The Pageant) and its organiser in chief was – anam an diabhail ! – yet another clubbable chap name of (gasp) Hugo McNeill.
Could one, one wonders, be talking here, about the, erm, 70 year Itch? At least where H McN’s are concerned.
Touch judge for yourself, dear reader.
The Bowl of Light / An Soitheach Solais was the centrepiece of the An Tóstal scheme of decorations on O’Connell Bridge in 1953. The An Tóstal event was an annual festival which ran 1953 to 1958, aimed at promoting Ireland as a tourist destination, and also luring Irish exiles home to re-engage with the country. It was, quite simply, to be a celebration of Irish culture and traditions at home,
Bord Fáilte stressed that while An Tóstal would be based in Dublin, it would be of national interest. “It will be intended that the whole country will, for the period of three weeks, be at home to Irish exiles and friends from everywhere.”
(Does one detect an eerie feeling of Been Here, Done Thatism about the contemporary spill-ball spiel?)
Major-Gen Hugo MacNeill was appointed organiser of An Tóstal. On the eve of the event, he wrote that:
-In a few days the flag of An Tóstal will be hoisted ceremoniously all over Ireland, and the Easter fires blazing on the hills of Ireland will illuminate the skies with the message of IRELAND AT HOME!’
The event would see the erection of ornaments and public art throughout the capital, but no piece captured the attention of the public quite like ‘The Bowl Of Light’, owing primarily to the fact it was to be a permanent feature.
‘The Bowl Of Light’ would become, alas, one of Dublin’s most short lived public ornaments. On April 19th, 1953, only weeks after its unveiling, the ‘flames’ from the Bowl were chucked into the River Liffey, the actions of one, Anthony Babington Wilson, a young student of Trinity College Dublin.
ABW clearly stood for Anybody But Westbritdissers.
Wilson had been at a party, which was described in the courts of law as “a particularly good party.” Following it, he and friends went around the city enjoying themselves, and were spotted standing on O’Connell Bridge complete with umbrellas, despite it being a fine day. The Trinity students/ C.of I. supremacists made speeches there to the public, and it was evidently clear to those who heard them that a fair amount of alcohol had been consumed.
– “Wilson could not explain how he came to take the light and throw it into the river.”
Witnesses described witnessing a young man climb upon the parapet of the basin, pull the flames from the bowl and make his way towards the parapet of the bridge, hurling the plastic flames into the river. The young man made a run for it, but was caught on Aston’s Quay. Newspaper reports noted that some members of the crowd had shouted “Throw him in the river!” at Gardaí following his arrest. The student was ordered to pay £48 7/6 to cover the damages.
The ‘Bowl’ attracted its fair share of detractors in the letters pages of the national newspapers. However none were as loud in their criticisms as Myles na gCopaleen, who lambasted the Bowl and the Tóstal event itself. On April 9th 1953, Myles wrote tongue-in-cheek of those who had been responsible for the scenes at O’Connell Bridge on the Saturday prior.
When it came to the Leprechaun the bould Myles, of course, adopted a strictly tongue-in-cheek policy, thereby endearing himself, go deo na ndeor, to his adoring acolytes among the hackitariat of The Unionist Times. The more he chucked the dreck of the Gaelic Boggers into the Liffey the more the oval-vowelled ubermensch of TUT chuckled at the knock-down knuckle-draggers of Nationalism.
Babs Óg can consider himself demmed lucky to have gotten away with a mere fine of 48 squids 7 shillings and 6 pence. For Major General Hugo McNeill had some form in dealing with First Time Offenders and was not averse to Sin Binning same, and then some.
To fully appreciate this previous form it is necessary to digress a little: to take, as it were, the high road of moral superiority rather than the low road of moral turpitude, that sorta thingy.
The solemn temple of Thomond Park with its Scottish ring tone to it has already been namechecked: why not the lilt of Loch Lomond in prefence to the sodden yields of The Fields of Athenry (see above); indeed, why not ?
Hamlet, too, with a capital H, was also namechecked as a blood sub in the first half: the legendary loose head prop who was forever caught between using it and losing it. Time now to introduce from the bench an Irish hamlet, with a small h, which has a Scottish ring tone to it.
Lemme see, as they say in Lemybrien. Ah, yis.
Let us now pause and briefly turn, by way of a not irrelevant divarsion, our attention to the hamlet of Stewartstown, County Tryone.
This lower case hamlet, by a quirk of history, bore two sons who were destined to be within earshot of hot shots which echoed around the world; one the actual worldly world , the other one, the Irish world:
–William Greer (September 22, 1909 – February 23, 1985), born in Stewartstown, was an agent of the U.S. Secret Service, best known for having driven President John F. Kennedy’s automobile in the motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963, when Mr. President was assassinated.
-Joe McKelvey (June 17, 1898 – December, 1922). Forty years and a bit before that, this other native of Stewartsown was to hear a different volley of shots in the Dealey Plaza of Dublin 8, the Stonebreakers’ Yard of Kilmainham Jail, where the hard yards of the Hard Men with their Hearts of Stone were finally broken.
On 8 December, 1922, four Republican die-hards, who had courted dissidence in the Four Courts five months before then, , were arbitarily , erm, upped and undered from their cells in the Mountjoy Gaoltacht: L. Mellowes, R. Barret, R. O’Connor and J. McKelvey.
Each first having first been arbitarily and thoughffully chosen to represent the Four Provinces. By way of a summary reprisal for the assassination of a Free Southen Stateen politico, and in which not One in Four had either hand, act or partition. A ‘pour decourager les autres’ sorta deal, thererfore: one which comes rather easily to the Morally Superior:
-A 20-strong firing party carried out the executions, ten standing, ten kneeling. In charge of the firing party was Colonel Hugo McNeill, nephew of Eoin McNeill and Colonel Hugh Gunn ( who had been a personal friend of McKelvey’s). Rory O’Connor died instantly, as most of the fire was aimed at him. At one stage his clothes burst into flames which caused hysteria amongst the firing party. When the firing subsided murmuring was heard from one of the men lying on the ground. It was Joe McKelvey, badly injured. He called on McNeill to shoot him. McNeill fired two shots into McKelvey, one to the chest, and one to the head.
Uncle Eoin gets namechecked in this contemporary report: and while, on this auspicious occasion, there was no countermanding order from the, erm, Grand Stander, as one understands the meaning of the miliary term, nonetheless those anorak-clad hacks and other students of The Concept of Conitnuity will not be disappointed:
-From An Claidheamh Solais to An Soitheach Solais / From The Sword of Light then, to the Bowl of Light..
Uncle Eoin, ar ndóigh, had once penned a thoughttful piece in the first named publication, inspired (allegedly) by a consumer of Coalisland porter, enitled:
-The North Began the Beguine.
It was written, incidentally, in a (gulp) fairly strict 32-County, oops,32-Measure form, according to the old Dance of Death format. The same format, of course, which Colonel Hugo McNeil showed.
The first part of countermand plays a rather central role in rugga since it turned professional: with cash crossing both over and under the counter. Call it the Cash-for-Pash Scheme. Which is not to say that Posh Goys cannot play with the same Pash for Cash as the paper tigers of pauperised amatetursism ever did in the painful days before getting over the, erm, gain line.
To conclude: The Perkin kneels and preys that the Dissies who are, erm, continuously with us will not rain on the parade of ‘the BIGGEST event to be held in this country EVER’, aka, RWC 2023 by uncivilly offloading the above less than nuancy narrative of events which occurred a 100 years or more before.
Rather will the timely publication of Fergal Keanes’’s tome bind up the W in RWC , humanise the contumely and set the comely maidens a-dancing to the catchy tune so beloved of Southern Yunes:
-Wounds, it’s only Wounds.
Two fine and comprehensive removals of the Eirmperor’s new clothes.