Inconvictus

Though every new Clint Eastwood film is worth a gander, the quality control is not always the most stringent, so it's not terribly surprising that two good films, The Changeling and Grand Torino should be followed by one that's, well, more than a bit silly. Invictus is an adaptation of John Carlin's Playing the Enemy, the account of how Nelson Mandela put aside his well-founded prejudices toward the Springboks and got behind their surprise World Cup win in 1995. The film is very much a white person's wishful-thinking fantasy and it's hard to imagine Hollywood making a film about Bafana Bafana's victory in the Africa Cup of Nations a year later, despite the fact the footballers had more white players in their squad than the Springboks had black players in theirs. The rugby is likewise not too realistically filmed, and the matches take place in decidedly more balmy conditions than those who watched the World Cup in that South African winter will remember.

I also find it hard to believe that so many black South Africans shed their hostility towards the Springboks so quickly as appeared the case in the film. I would guess that the kindest emotion many of them expressed was rather indifference. Readers of this blog will know about my own indifference to rugby; I can't quite say I would always support Ireland's opponents in a match (though whenever Argentina dump them out of the World Cup, I always find it strangely amusing) but their Six Nations success last year left me as cold as a Chelsea-Man U League Cup semi-final would be likely to. If that's my reaction, I would find it strange that the majority of black South Africans could bring themselves to be so magnanimous to the sporting symbol of the hated apartheid.

But of course Mandela was exceptionally magnanimous, in this, as in many other cases in the years following his release. And, among his own electorate, he was largely alone. The film lacks the subtlety or the insight to really flesh out the historical stakes of Mandela's intervention; for all its good intentions it cannot avoid appearing to resolve more than four decades of apartheid by means of a unlikely sporting success. I'm reminded of a review I read of Roland Emmerich's Independence Day when it came out; the now forgotten critic said that though the world has been destroyed and civilization lays in tatters, the characters celebrate the conquest of the alien invader's like they've won a volleyball match.

But all this is a little unfair on Invictus. It's a likable enough film despite its manifest flaws. It is by Clint Eastwood after all, one of the more likable and admirable personalities in the US, never mind Hollywood.

Invictus - Official Trailer [HD]



It's as silly and enjoyable in its own way as this little masterpiece:

Upon Not Basquing in the Success of Others

A rare rugby post here. Biarritz and Bayonne play the big Basque derby in France's Top 14 on Saturday. Biarritz president, former French winger and consummate businessman Serge Blanco has decided to maximise the game's economic potential by moving it down the coast to Donostía-San Sebastián to play at the bigger Estadio Anoeta, as BO have done on a number of occasions in the past. Bayonne fans aren't having any of it, refusing to line the pockets of their bigger, more illustrious rival. The club has sent back two-thirds of its 1600 allocated tickets. It's amusing stuff and you have to admire the dogged bad faith shown by the Bayonne fans, a far cry from the bland bon enfant culture of most rugby supporters.

Ireland's Athletes

Well done to Ireland's athletes who performed well in the World Championships in Berlin, only one year after being tarred as failures at the Beijing Olympics by the media. A silver medal for Olive Loughnane in the 20km race walk, and superb performances in sprints by Derval O'Rourke (4th and a new Irish record in the 100m hurdles) and David Gillick (6th in the 400m). These performances are phenomenal from athletes that often labour alone with little official support and are forever dependent on the benevolence of sponsors willing to invest money in unfashionable non-stars. They deserve better than the pillorying they've been getting in recent years by armchair critics and deserve better than the outrageous snubbing delivered them by RTÉ in its decision not to cover the Championships.

Gift Horse in the Mouth

After digesting Rangers' defeat (which proved to be a surprisingly underwhelming experience), I listened alternately to John Phillips (he of the Mamas and the Papas), rain falling outside, which, if you strain your ear, sounds slightly tropical, and the latest batch of Gift Grub sketches, including Bertie's resignation. No sign yet of a Gift Brian Cowen - maybe Mario Rosenstock doesn't want to repeat the backfiring effect that the Gift Bertie had on Ahern's popularity. Has Biffo been on Gift Grub before? Does anyone know?

Another character who I'm surprised doesn't feature on the show is RTÉ football stalwart George Hamilton, the man of ripe metaphors, recondite references to the popular culture of the 1970s Federal Republic of Germany, and absurdly accurate pronunciations of Johnny Foreigner names. And he does all the same on Lyric FM too, I'm told. Surely this is a man that needs to be cloned and cast in amber for future generations. Mind you, there's never been a Jimmy Magee either though, has there? It would be hard indeed to beat Magee's real-life comment at the opening ceremony of the 1982 World Cup finals in Barcelona: 'and there it is - the international symbol of peace - the pigeon!'

Flagging Orders

We have already heard of Irish hurleys being manufactured in Poland (it appears one-third of our camánaí originate beyond the Oder), of Palestinian keffiyehs being made in China, but hearing that the Free Tibet snow flag is being made to order in a factory in Guangdong despite being banned in China is the strangest piece of news yet.

While I'm quite sanguine regarding the reality of lower manufacturing costs in China or elsewhere these days and I'm not too sentimental about the decline in symbolism occasioned by this, surely this is a desacralisation of old nationalist shibboleths; exposing them to the cold harsh light of global economics may be the beginning of the end.

Not Gone on the Rugby

I have but a passing interest in the Rugby World Cup; any matches I will see will be - like the second half of yesterday's opener between France and Argentina - purely by chance. The main reason for my apathy is because I don't have any rooting in the sport and also because I have no affinity with Irish rugby or the Irish rugby team. This is due to reasons of class and region; too often the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly side of Irish rugby is all I can see (and please don't mention the working-class rugby heartland of Limerick, this is merely the exception that proves the rule). There will of course be people that will accuse me of pettiness, small-mindedness and having a chip on the shoulder, all of which I am perfectly ready to admit to and none of which cause me sleepless nights. But I have numerous friends who have an almost violent dislike of football - which doesn't cause me any heartache - and I don't have any plans to send Irish rugby followers to the sporting Gulag whenever it arrives. This year I even intend to avoid spiteful reflexes such as the one that made me chuckle when Ireland were knocked out of the 1999 World Cup by Argentina. But even if I did the same again, there would be nothing wrong with that; real sports supporting thrives on spite, schadenfreude and ill will. Living in France is also frustrating for an Irishman indifferent to rugby as the average Frenchman's conception of Ireland involves nothing more than Guinness, imagined anglophobia and rugby mainly because Ireland's number four sport is the only one that we play les bleus in on a regular basis. Some French people have even expressed surprise that Ireland have a football team, finding it strange that the world's most popular sport might also have a foothold in Ireland. I have thus taken to passing myself off as an Icelander to avoid inane, patronising chit-chat with strangers I have no desire to talk to.

It is also perplexing to watch the International Rugby Board's attempts to dress rugby up as a world sport when it is nothing of the sort; to put it simply, having twenty teams in the finals is a farce. There is no justification for having the amateurs of Portugal face the All Blacks. For there to be sport there has to be a semblance of competition; while there might be one or two flailing teams at every football World Cup, none of these are San Marino, the Faroe Islands or American Samoa. The IRB, of course wants to popularise the sport in previously untapped territories, but there is more chance of Sébastien Chabal fitting into my Levis than kids in Portugal, Georgia or Sweden suddenly throwing aside footballs or hockey sticks to play rugby. But the IRB's padding-out of the tournament probably has more to do with vanity and hubris of the sort that has prompted them to impose disgraceful conditions on photographers covering the tournament, limiting each photographer to fifty shots per game, with the IRB retaining all rights. Even FIFA wouldn't have the brazen cheek to do this. Most of the world's major photo agencies have decided to boycott coverage of the tournament and the IRB have since been forced into a climbdown.

What amuses (and irks) me the most about rugby folk though is the way their class prejudices are instantly crystallised when comparing rugby to football. While I don't begrudge people thinking their sport superior to others (and I don't think that football is necessarily superior to rugby, merely of broader interest) why must every rugby person I meet feel the need to stress the virtuousness of rugby players vis-à-vis footballers? Of course footballers earn obscene amounts of money (though often only at the very top) and there have been many involved in disgraceful behaviour, but these are the stories that attract tabloid interest. For every Lee Hughes, Craig Bellamy, Joey Barton, Lee Bowyer et al there are dozens of ordinary footballers (making comfortable livings) who live decent lives away from a media glare uninterested in such ordinariness. Rugby players are similarly absent from that media glare because, as Germaine Greer observed in a piece on spit-roasting a couple of years back, they have less money. There have been a number of ugly incidents involving rugby players, such as the murder by former French international Marc Cécillion of his wife at a party as well as others enumerated here, but these prove nothing other than the fact that rugby players, like footballers, are sometimes prone to bad behaviour and the odd enormity, which being middle-class is no barrier against happening.

Rugby players are also supposed to be more intelligent than footballers, a generalisation which is questionable unless one is the sort of person that confounds formal (often private) education with intelligence. There are many rugby players that are indeed bright and articulate, and there are also footballers past and present such as Jorge Valdano, Lilian Thuram, Billy Bingham, Oleguer Presas, Dominique Rocheteau, Liam Brady, Javier Zanetti, Michel Platini and Martin O'Neill. I would wager that the majority of players of both sports are not the most intellectually-inclined, something that wouldn't be too surprising as they are not employed to be so. Rugby players are not, by necessity more intelligent, their accents are merely more middle-class.

French rugby folk (who, I have to admit, I find generally more likeable than their anglophone counterparts) also have an annoying tendency to equate the French rugby team with 'true' Frenchness in a way that veers dangerously close to Le Pen's xenophobic creed of français de terroir. I have heard countless times about how the French rugby team is closer to the hearts of French people than the football team is, which as well as being unquantifiable is also suspect, as there are wide tracts of the country where rugby doesn't exist at all. But I suppose there are some French people that view French football, traditionally the pastime of immigrants - initially Spanish, Italian and Eastern European and later African and North African - as not 'truly French'. Interestingly, the Vichy régime banned Rugby League in France and forced football to revert to amateurism as a means of promoting the more nationally pure code of Rugby Union. It is unfair to tag all French rugby - which has traditionally had a rural, left-wing base - in this way but there nonetheless exists a blind spot regarding the so-called mythical place of rugby in French society. I also wonder whether the French XV, should they crash out at the opening stage, which is now a real possibility, will be derided in the same way as the football team were when they were knocked out in Korea five years ago? I remember French people turning on their erstwhile heroes, calling them overpaid, lazy and ungrateful. What moral shortcomings will the rugby team display if they fail?

French business magazine Challenges has on its cover this week French manager - and soon to be Minister for Sport in Nicolas Sarkozy's government Bernard Laporte, with the headline "Rugby Spirit - XV Values for Business". Aside from the fact that it's hard to imagine footballing proles such as Arsène Wenger or Guy Roux used on such a cover, one is reminded that Laporte has been implicated in a campaign of public intimidation of Socialist councillors in his fief of Arcachon who had the temerity to oppose planning permission for a number of his business interests. Sound values for business perhaps but not the ones that business would be too keen to trumpet about either. Nice to see that rugby managers can be every bit as dodgy as those famed duckers and divers Alex Ferguson and Terry Venables.

So there's my bit on the skewed value systems of rugby and football and the double-standards inherent in most rugby folks assessments of the personnel of each sport. Nobody likes a moaner so this will be the last post on the rugby for the duration of the 'world' cup. I hope that those planning to enjoy the rugby do so but please desist in the future from silly value judgements about the relative virtues of rugby players and footballers. Both, despite the efforts of some in their respective sports to elevate them to godlike status, are all too human. Sometimes depressingly so...

Underachievement's Annual Sumo Wrestling Post

The Guardian's always-entertaining Fiver mailshot is the source for today's scandalous news. Mongolia's sumo-wrestling pride and joy Asashoryu Akinori (apparently considered one of the greatest wrestlers in the long history of Sumo) has been banned from the next two grand tournaments after being caught playing football back home in Ulaan Baator, despite telling the sumo authorities he was injured. The chat forums (including this thread started in Dublin) are hopping and here is the newsflash from Japan just in case you don't believe us:

The Weekend's Football

A couple of heartening news stories from the world of football over the weekend; the bigger one was the triumph of Iraq in the final of the Asian Cup in Jakarta, winning the continental title for the first time ever with a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia, with a goal from Kurdish striker Younis Mahmoud. Iraq's players are preoccupied with greater troubles than most professional footballers, primarily the security of their friends and family. Though the win will bring welcome cheer to a people whose nightmare has got progressively worse over the past twenty years, the squad and their Brazilian manager João Vieria are keeping quite level-headed about the ultimate significance of the victory; Vieira said after the victory about the spate of suicide bombs that have accompanied the celebrations in Iraq: "Its very sad; we changed Iraq's history, and then these senseless killings happen. If we lose, people get killed. If we win, people still get killed." Simple but economical. It is unlikely that the Bush administration will be quite so brazen as to use the team's success as an electioneering stunt as they did when Iraq reached the Olympic semi-finals in Athens three years ago .

On a lighter note,Viktoria Berlin and Hanau 93 played out the, erm, delayed final of the 1894 German championship. Viktoria had been awarded the title by way of a walkover that year as the Hessian team were unable to fund the 250-mile-journey to Berlin to contest the final. The two teams, both amateur as they were back in the day, played out a two-legged final under the auspices of the Deutscher Fußball Bund, which Viktoria won 4-1 on aggregate, laying to rest any doubt about their right to the title won when Bismarck and Nietzsche were still strolling on German soil. Alles gute, then.

Back on Irish soil, Sligo's draw for their All-Ireland quarter-final was not the most favourable, pitting them against Cork at Croker next Saturday, the team that ended their All-Ireland campaign two years ago. But we're used to a good dose of fatalism down in Sligo. It won't do us any harm.

I'd Be Late for my Own Funeral...

I have waited literally my entire life for Sligo to win a Connacht Championship; when I first saw the world in October 1975, Barnes Murphy's men were the reigning champions, only the second title in their history, though the lustre of their replay win in the provincial final had been lost by their hammering at the hands of the mighty Kerry team of Eoin Liston, Jack O'Shea, Mikey Sheehy et al in the All-Ireland semi-final in the eighth month of my gestation.

There have been three provincial final defeats since, in 1981 and 1997 against Mayo and five years ago against Galway, when Sligo later defeated Tyrone and ran eventual All-Ireland champions Armagh to three points in a replay. The latter two finals were contested by men that were very much my own generation and I'd played underage football football and soccer against many of them. I was at the final defeat by Mayo ten years ago and followed the campaigns of five and six years ago on TV. This makes my failure to remember yesterday's final, which resulted in a 1-10 to 0-12 win over Galway, all the more embarrassing and unforgivable. It was a text message from my mother, who was at the game, that told me the good news. I wait every minute of my existence for the unthinkable to happen (and this year the prospect of a provincial final win was particularly unthinkable) and when it does, I am, as it were, at the bar, or in queue for the jacks, if you will.

Even worse, I have been unable to see the edited highlights on RTÉ's news streaming because of foreign broadcast rights. No sign of it yet either on YouTube. Apart from one Sligo person I know over here, there is no-one to celebrate it with either. How can one savour a moment in isolation? I suppose people did it easily enough in the pre-Setanta era but that's no consolation. I won't be missing the quarter-final clash, whenever it is, and whoever it's against.

More Logo

Further to the last post, the Guardian reports that the poor logo, when animated has triggered a seizure in a young man suffering from epilepsy. It all sounds, at best, unfortunate; at worst, strangely occult.

Logo Area

I could write something about the jailing of Scooter Libby, the potential stand-off between Russia and the US over missile shields, but why not have a look at the newly-unveiled logo for the London 2012 Olympics? It has provoked a mostly negative reaction, some people comparing it to a fragmented swastika, while others have pointed out the similarity of the logo for Chris Tarrant's old TV show 'Tiswas' (which, bizarrely makes an anagram of 'swastika' if one adds an 'a' and a 'k'). While many of the objections to it are predictably middlebrow and unimaginative (check out the 'alternatives' proffered by the BBC's web article for examples of truly awful logos) it's hard not to see the logo as both sloppily conceived and tacky. The font used for the word 'London' is weak and the word itself badly positioned and is dayglo pink an advisable colour to use to publicise an event that is still five years away?

Earley Bird Catches the Worm

My fellow Ballymote-man Lieutenant General Jim Sreenan's relatively brief tenure as Irish Defence Forces Chief of Staff has come to an end but the Connacht mafia remains in power in Óglaigh na hÉireann (official branch) with the appointment of former Roscommon GAA star Dermot Earley (or Major General Dermot Earley to you and me) as his replacement. Typical, the Irish army goes for the glamour candidate. I'm sure that Maj Gen Earley will be well up to the job though, but I wonder are there any other former sports stars in history that have had the opportunity to run an army? Answers on a post-card, please... I just hope that Dermot doesn't lose the run of himself and set out to exact revenge for the 1980 All-Ireland final.

Look! No Hands! - Soccer at Croker

Forget about the rugby: the real story about Croke Park being opened up to 'foreign' sports is the entrance of the Irish football team there for the first time, something that I never expected to see when I was growing up. This is analogous to the US opening an embassy in Pyongyang; the rugby team running out at Croker was, in comparison, about as momentous as John Howard sending an Aussie ambassador to North Korea. The Irish media understood this and so had to manufacture a controversy about 'God Save the Queen' being played at Croker to make the build-up to the England game a bit spicier. Rugby is a sport that has traditionally had barely any crossover with Gaelic games (or football) in terms of players or supporters. Soccer however, especially in places like Donegal, Sligo, South Tipperary, Cork, Dublin, Dundalk and in the north, among Catholics, has always been the chief rival of the GAA, the Ban on GAA members playing or attending foreign sports owes more to self-preservation than knee-jerk Anglophobia (Rule 21, was, of course, determined by the latter).

There was always a lot of pettiness in the GAA's attitudes towards soccer, especially as so many of its members were enthusiastic players and followers of it, seeing it, not as an English sport, but a world one, or more often as simply a game to play during the winter when Gaelic football was dormant. I remember being kicked off the local GAA pitch by one spiteful local official one evening when I was about ten for playing 'soccer'; this act of interference backfired badly on his part as the result was that we reformed the underage soccer team and promptly went about winning almost everything there was to win. Everybody on the team also played on the local Gaelic team, which did fairly well too. This incident was typical of many people growing up in Ireland, even for up to twenty-five years after Rule 42 was rescinded in 1971.

But the GAA has changed a lot since then, partly because the Old Guard has died out, partly because of a large amount of its membership playing other sports, and also because both Gaelic and hurling weathered admirably the competition from soccer in the 1990s. Croke Park realised that soccer, despite its rise in popularity was not the threat it was once thought to be, and Gaelic games remain undiminished in their appeal in their traditional strongholds. In fact, the success of our rugby and soccer teams internationally (not to mention the cricket team) is remarkable given that such a small population base is spread so thin over four team sports. Countries of similar sizes, such as Scotland, Croatia, Norway, Denmark and Finland usually have to grapple with no more than two sports.

And today, Ireland face Wales in the first soccer game ever at Croker. Given the decrepit nature of the FAI at the moment, the GAA can even be favourably viewed as the more visionary, more professional, and more enlightened organisation. They did, after all, get their act together and construct one of the finest stadiums in Europe (albeit with the help of substantial public funding). There are few die-hards left in the GAA that will spite the footballers (or the rugby players either); the majority of GAA members will rather feel extra pride at the international attention their magnificent stadium is getting.

As for the match itself, we live in hope. If we do not beat Wales and then Slovakia on Wednesday, the remaining five group games will be nothing but glorified friendlies. Even with two wins (against teams that we would normally expect to beat at home) the outlook is bleak enough. The best thing to hope for would be for Germany to run away with the group (starting today with a win in Prague, which is not beyond them) and for the Czechs to drop points here and there, in which a case an Ireland team producing improbably superhuman performances might grab second place. There is an air of the Euro 88 qualifiers about this group, and remember we won that group at the death in spite of not really winning that many games at all, and playing atrociously against the minnows of the group, Luxembourg. It is also easy to forget that Ireland have turned out two creditable - if hardly astounding - performances in this group, against both the Germans and the Czechs. But of course, we took only one point from those two games and, as Johnny Giles remarked this week, Staunton's boys are playing 'reaction football' alternating good performance with abominable ones - a clear sign of a lack of management. And the management is the real problem, especially when one sees the superb seasons the likes of Kevin Doyle, Stephen Ireland, Richard Dunne, Stephen Hunt and Robbie Keane are having in the Premiership. It is true that, as Roy Keane has pointed out, few of the senior players are being quite so good, and his namesake certainly never matches his Spurs form in a green shirt. We remain optimistic however. The Irish football team is one of the few things that still evokes a strange child-like state of innocence in Seanachie.

Irish Stumped By Cricket

On the eve of Ireland's World Cup cricket game against hosts the West Indies, I listened to a sports bulletin on Ian Dempsey's Breakfast Show hosting a cricket enthusiast explaining the game to the greater Irish public and a piece by Owen Boycott in The Guardian also remarked upon this. Am I the only person that finds it surprising that Irish people are incapable of understanding a sport that is effectively only baseball (read 'rounders' for all of yous that ever took part in the Community Games) with a few embellishments thrown in? I remember learning the rules of cricket (in the same afternoon as those of chess and tennis) when I was a nine-year-old unencumbered by the cares of an underachieving lifestyle, by heaving a couple of volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica off the shelf. If comprehending the rules of cricket is beyond the Irish it's hardly surprising that very few of us have ever bothered mastering even basic elements of computing and similar technology. And, of course, 'rules of cricket' can be Googled...

A Strange Week

It has been a strange week, with the announcement of the commissioning of an 'official' film of Ian Paisley's life, to be scripted by Gary Mitchell, the alleged murder of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer after his team's sensational defeat by Ireland and news of the State of Israel's very own MySpace page. There is an amusing article on the latter in Salon by former Israeli Presidential scriptwriter Gregory Levey, treating of a charm offensive by Israel to win the hearts of the under-35 age group in the US. Though the site is separated by as little as two degrees from some very unsavoury elements, it is largely inoffensive as are most of the comments left on it. In any case I'll be a Zionist for one day tomorrow to cheer Yossi Benayoun and Co. on against England; aren't we so petty, the Irish?

As for Paisley, if I were to spot the Grand Old Reverend in water-borne difficulties I would find it hard to intervene to save him, not least because I can't swim (and I imagine the man upstairs would, in most likelihood, be picking up the tab on that one). But that considered, I can envisage the film being a fascinating prospect, charting the life and rise to power of a genuine anachronistic religious nutcase, a sort of bin Laden with Ovaltine and slippers. I wonder if Big Ian will insist that all involved on the film abstain from the 'Devil's buttermilk' for the duration of the shoot?

Cricket and the Absent Irish Flag

There was a pleasant surprise on St. Patrick's Day with the amazing defeat of Pakistan by the Irish cricket team in the World Cup; though Seanachie does not know a single Irish person who has ever wielded the willow, he is an admirer of this fine sport and he whiled away many languorous Spring afternoons as an undergraduate watching games in College Park. But I was disappointed when I logged onto the Cricket World Cup's official site to find that the only country that is not emblematised by its proper national flag is...Ireland. I don't know if the Irish Cricket Union has anything to do with this but one is moved to ask why this is the case. I can understand that there might be some members of the Irish cricket team (as is the case with the rugby team) that profess at least an equal allegience to the British flag, and Seanachie is not so chauvinistic that he cannot respect this. But, considering that both England and Scotland are happy to line out (at least on the ICP's official website) under flags other than the Union one, and that a number of the Irish team originated in South Africa and Australia, one might be forgiven for thinking that the tricolour would serve everyone on the team equally well. Its colours do, after all, embody an equality between two communities that is seen on few other flags in the entire world, and, despite the Republic's many faults, this is something that has never been interfered with by that State. Right-wing nutcases in cases such as this usually rant on about 'political correctness' and whatnot, but Underachievement is above all that. Here's hoping the Irish XI hoist the national flag for the game against the West Indies.

Copywriting the Peace Process

While flicking through the London Times the other day I came across an ad, placed by the British Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, calling for tenders, not for the design of a new stadium on the site of the former Maze/Long Kesh prison, but for the right to have it named after one's company, one's brand, or if you're feeling particularly extravagant, oneself. The planning of the new stadium is to be overseen by Mott McDonald HOK, whose previous portfolio includes Croke Park, the Emirates Stadium and the impending Lansdowne Road rehaul.

While I am not so cynical that I cannot hail a peace, however fragile, finally settling on the troubled northern corner of our island, there is a wearisome recourse to vacuous jargon and rhetoric in the text of the ad:

'The vision of the future of Northern Ireland is for a peaceful, inclusive, prosperous, stable and fair society firmly founded on the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust.

'The proposed development of the Maze/Long Kesh former prison site is planned to provide a physical expression of the ongoing transformation from conflict to peace and to provide an inclusive and shared resource for the whole community.'

That's a lot of positive language in two short paragraphs, but, given its recent history, Northern Ireland can be forgiven for engaging in 'wouldn't it be great if it could be like this all the time' wistfulness, even when the wilful politeness of this New Labour-honed prose does seem to protest too much. What I find ultimately depressing however is the final clunker dropped at the end of the ad, which calls for the wonderful opportunity to brand this symbol of peace and prosperity:

'We are seeking a sponsor who supports the ethos of the Shared Future for Northern Ireland [note all those block capitals] and who appreciates the mutual commercial benefits to be gained by being associated with the international branding of this iconic proposal.'

When George Best shuffled off this mortal coil eighteen months ago, many pointed out that he was probably the only Irishman for centuries to have been viewed with the same favour of all his compatriots both north and south. If one were to be permitted to be sentimental, might one not suggest that he might be a better choice to bear the name of the stadium, rather than have it be yet another Allianz Arena, a Budweiser Bowl or Vodafone Park? Admittedly there is not much money to be made from Bestie, now that the after-dinner speech circuit is closed to him, but it is hard to share the Strategic Investment Board's enthusiasm for a project that is always going to symbolise more the reach of a multinational conglomerate than any putative spirit of peace and reconciliation.

Brit National Anthem Disrespected by Some - Shock!

The Ireland-England rugby game took place last Saturday but the Irish media, obviously embittered at its inability to foresee a civilised reception of the Bruddish national anthem, has since decided to do a post-mortem on those unsporting types that dared to slag the Brits off the minute their national dirge floated across the airwaves. Apparently some wag in 'rugby great' Peter Clohessy's Limerick boozer had the idea to play the Wolfe Tones' 'God Save Ireland' while the lads in white were beating out their submission to their monarch live on screen. Those present at the time seemed to be sufficiently amused (and Seanachie would see it as a typically provincial, but funny joke). But, since a bit of bad publicity for 'the Claw' is unwelcome, Clohessy has vowed to discipline those staff members with a sense of humour. A similar thing happened in Seanachie's homestead of Ballymote, Co. Sligo, whose local website deplores one pub that dared to turn the volume down as 'Gawd Loves a Queen' was played. I can guess what pub it was but I am not really disturbed that the reaction was a muting of the dirge in question; to be honest, I would have expected a bit of lusty jeering.

These acts of insubordination are, no doubt, boorish in the extreme but the Irish have long been that way to each other without having had the opportunity to be so on such a mediatised scale towards the British. I fail to see the big story here as it is obvious that the fabled event of 'God Gave the Queen' being played at Croker did not spark off a renewed wave of anglophobia. But there was no real surprise there. Barring a few unfortunate exceptions, English people are generously welcomed in Ireland these days, and the perception of the Irish in England has seen a corresponding improvement. That does not, however, mean that we should be forbidden from engaging in a bit of banter whenever it need be; I have yet to start cheering for England in football and my English friends accept this with resigned laughter, but that does not translate into racism or an insult to our neighbours. The Irish should not be forced into apologising for their past any more than the English should be, and in any case, the foreigners at the brunt of most hostility and disgraceful abuse in Ireland these days are certainly not English. I will leave you all with Langerland's very funny 'What did the Brits ever do for us?'. Or does that make me a racist too? (I wish to point out that neither Seanachie nor Underachievement plc. endorses criticism of the British crown, the Windsor (né Hanover) family nor any or its dependencies by reproduction of this cartoon).

A Defence of Footballers

I hadn't intended pouring cold water on Ireland's historic win against England yesterday but a quote from an Ireland rugby fan in today's L'Équipe resurrected a few of my pet peeves. He said that God Save the Queen was never going to be booed because 'Irish rugby has always set itself apart from politics. If it were a football match, it would have been a completely different matter.' I said as much on my posting earlier on today. However I didn't intend to say that rugby was morally superior in this matter, as that person obviously did. Once again I am sick to the back teeth of rugby being compared favourably to football.

I have no animus for the Irish rugby team; their performance yesterday looked superb (I only saw the last twenty minutes) and rugby is a sport, like cricket, that I can say I admire without being really that bothered about it. But this valorisation of rugby players at the expense of 'overpaid' footballers is something that I cannot stand. Every time I hear this lauding of the moral virtues of rugby players vis à vis footballers, usually enunciated every time there is a tabloid-friendly spit-roasting scandal, it makes me sick. Such pundits make it sound like the choice between football and rugby was something that was made for games in 1st year at Belvo or Wesley. Or between Geography and German for Junior Cert. Never is there any reference to the social background of the various principles involved. The reason that God Save the Queen was thankfully not booed yesterday was not because rugby folk are more decent than footballing people but simply because their sport is for the most part divorced from many social realities. Rugby is followed in places like Donnybrook, the Malone Road and other well-heeled areas of Irish towns (yes, I know about Limerick, but this exception has been wheeled out far too many times for it to be relevant anymore); there aren't many hardcore Republicans in those parts. And so be it, I'm not hoping for a surge in support for Republican Sinn Féin in Dublin South East any more than I am for one for the PDs.

But this is the case for rugby with regard to football the world over. The rugby World Cup later this year will feature twenty countries, when one would be hard pushed to find half that amount where most people know they even have a rugby team representing them. Rugby is a minority sport (and even in Ireland this is very much the case) whereas football is not. By that information alone one might glean that professional footballers are drawn from a wider pool than professional rugby players, and therefore might be spared the condescending stereotypes that they are subjected to.

Rugby players generally benefit from a better education and more privileged upbringing than the majority of footballers do, and I don't begrudge them that, and neither am I salivating for the downfall of Brian O'Driscoll or Paul O'Connell in a tabloid sting. But I would like a bit of balance when comparing the two sports. When one hears rugby being lauded at the expense of football one hears the ugly resonance of class prejudice. Rugby and football are not rival sports; there is scarcely an overlap in personnel between the two. It is Gaelic football and 'soccer' that scramble for the talent, the two most popular sports in the country (yes, sorry, hurling is an exotic curiosity confined to the southern part of the island); and that, rather than anti-English bigotry, was the real reason for the GAA's infamous bans.

There are not many Irish sportswriters who have pointed out that the Irish rugby team is an irrelevancy for most Irish people, though Paul Howard, creator of the hilarious Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is one, as is my fellow Sligo man Eamonn Sweeney, who has this great piece in the Sindo today about Craig Bellamy. Not saying that I agree with him about Bellamy but he sums up what I've been saying; don't damn all footballers on the strength of a few muppets.

Anthemic

No postings in the past few days, even the Croke Park/God Save the Queen 'controversy' didn't tempt me into the ring. I found the story a bit fatuous, especially as the Irish rugby fraternity has rarely been home to hardcore Republicans. It was to be expected that Republican Sinn Féin would muster a gaggle of protesters but I don't really see what the problem was there. This issue was decided long ago when the GAA voted to allow football and rugby into Croker; they debated it then and the outcome was that having the British monarchy's anthem played at a rugby match was not going to unduly bother them, especially with the prospect of two and a half million euros to soften the blow. The incident would have been a lot more fraught had the match been a soccer international - rugby fans are such polite sorts that it would be hard to imagine them booing anybody's national anthem - but I still think that God Save the Queen would have been respected by the Irish soccer crowd, though this respect would have been leavened by an appropriate amount of slagging too.

Anyway both Amhran na bhFiann and God Save the Queen are god-awful dirges when examined from a musical point of view and the previous should be replaced (not because of its violent lyrics - listen to the Marseillaise or dozens of other anthems for that matter) but because it is a drearily unmotivating piece of music. And, no Ireland's Call is not a suitable replacement (only the rugby shower could concoct a palliative as dull and unimaginative as this one), nor is The Fields of Athenry, a piece of plastic Paddywhackery that best symbolises the Irish people's loss of any remaining connection with genuine Irish culture. But given what passes for 'Civic' songwriting in Ireland these days any possible replacement would no doubt be something like John Waters and Tommy Moran's composition which will represent Ireland at this year's Eurovision. This piece of pan-European piffle demonstrates how truly toothless the Castlerea autodidact really is. When Slovenia gained its independence in 1991 it chose for its national anthem a verse of 'Zdravljica', a celebrated poem by national poet, the 19th century Romantic, France Prešeren, which begins with the most generous line: 'God's blessing on all nations'. The verse had already been set to music by Stanko Premerl, there presumably being no Slovene equivalent of Phil Coulter. It is a national anthem to envy, one that bears comparison with the best, such as the Marseillais, Brazil's and the Russian/former Soviet one. Ireland's choice would no doubt be selected by a Louis Walsh-chaired phone-in contest. It really doesn't bear thinking about. Better the devil you know.