I think Jimmy Barry Murphy was the only person no one on tfk thought was a cunt
1 Like
Thomas Barr also.
3 Likes
Youād wonder if America had a king like Britain would they elect an nutter like trump. They could all go nuts over the king instead and leave politics to politicians.
Jack Charlton could have been one
A quick reminder that under this unifying force England had a home final where there āfansā stormed the stadium and broke in, supporters regularly take cocaine to rapturous cheers, their players were subjected to racial abuse online and their supporters booed virtually every opposition national anthem. Thatās not even taking into account the various scraps their fans have been involved in (Serbia for instance at this Euros). We have very little if anything to learn from the English national team and their culture.
5 Likes
McRedmond fatherās is David McRedmond, former CEO of TV3 who I think has latterly been CEO of An Post. Sheās a less than gifted writer and obviously only has the gig because of connections.
However, while poorly executed, I think the article does throw up (see what I did there) some fodder for discussion about the value of figures like Southgate in society. I like Southgate on an instinctive level. I like him because I see him as a relic of quiet decency and I think a lot of people in Ireland see him like that too. I have a love-hate relationship with the England team ā sometimes I want to see them win and sometimes I want to see them lose ā mostly under Southgate Iāve liked to see them do well or at least not been actively against them ā though not this time, mostly because I predicted before the tournament that they would not do well and thus had a vested interest in being proved right on the INTERNET.
I recall listening to the great Tim Vickery before the last Euros in 2021 and he talked in a lucid and cogent manner about how Southgate was attempting to be a sort of a unifying figure in English society, but that English society was so divided by Brexit and culture war nonsense driven by the INTERNET that he was probably doomed to failure in this aspiration. I think he sort of achieved what he set out to do, but was ground down by the task, and probably ground down by the football too.
Southgate comes from what I would imagine to be a small c conservative background, lower middle class, very mildly conservative, the definition of middle England really. The natural political constituency of the background he comes from is probably liberal One Nation Tory, with a hint of Liberal Democrat. The sort of āooh, heās one of the nice Toriesā that became common on British news some years back , the sort of people who were being purged by Boris Johnson over Brexit. Dominic Grieve or Rory Stewart types. Heād be a perfect leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Really heās middle of the road in everything. Heās a bit like David Mitchell in Peep Show. A bit of a square, but a decent, likeable, agreeable fella, who understands his own weaknesses. He smiles a lot. He has a surprisingly strong backbone, quietly determined. Heās self aware. Not overbearing. Very easy to get on with. Trevor Brooking was very like all that too and everybody likes Trevor Brooking.
You donāt get many of these figures in the public eye, especially now, and the ones that are there, especially in politics, tend to be devoured because our information landscape is now dominated by millions of right wing trolls shouting obscenities.
You donāt really get titanic political figures now who are, for all their faults, seen as forces of good. That seems to be gone. We have titanic political figures now in the sense that these figures constantly threaten to sink us to the bottom of the ocean as a species. Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Farage, Orban, Modi, Musk. All utter bastards. Zelensky is the only figure who might compare to the titanic figures of the past who were generally forces for good. Being a bastard is very popular now. The most popular people in the world are bastards. Even in sport Cristiano Ronaldo is more famous and adored on a much wider scale than Lionel Messi because heās a preening self-obsessed celebrity content machine, even if heās a considerably worse footballer.
Maybe now in Ireland, because our information landscape is globalised, we define our Irishness most of all as being in opposition to these international ātitanicā figures. We define ourselves as small and decent as opposed to big and boorish.
I have a half baked theory that Irelandās āWonder Yearsā were 1985-1995. That period was filled with titanic figures in Irish society. Not all of them were universally liked ā some were very divisive ā Haughey, Dunphy, Gay Byrne, Bono etc. but none of them were unequivocal gobshites with no redeeming features, as todayās ātitanicā figures in the world all are. They all brought something. They were formidable. They were the sort of glue that held us together as a people.
We donāt really have those figures any more. We donāt produce them.
Last year felt symbolic in that we had the death of Christy Dignam, Sinead OāConnor and Shane McGowan. All three were significant because they were loved. But Sinead was the most loved, we loved her because she was so obviously outrageously talented and beautiful and cool and fearless, but most of all because she was so publicly messed up. We felt almost humbled that somebody like this could come from Ireland and we all felt guilty on some level that she was now gone and we hadnāt protected her enough, even if as a people we would fiercely defend her. Sinead was a sort of glue that made us feel Irish. But Sineadās Irishness was a defiantly outward looking Irishness, a forward looking Irishness, a completely inclusive Irishness ā and intolerant of hateful right wing bullshit.
Itās easier in sport and music to be a universally loved figure. Jack Charlton was loved, even if Eamon Dunphy tried to cut him down. Paul McGrath and Phil Lynott were loved for some of the reasons Sinead was loved.
I think Southgate in some ways was similar to Sinead OāConnor, in that he was completely and utterly different as a person ā and his methods were completely different - yet he still pretty much advanced the same type of worldview. He was quietly subversive. His Englishness is inclusive.
But Tim Vickery is right. You canāt carry all of the people all of the time. Lots of hardcore England fans didnāt have much time for Southgate, because the hardcore tend to be jingoists who buy into right wing culture war nonsense. But Southgate carried the decent people of England with him as a figurehead of the nation, quite like Bobby Robson did. All you can do is what is right. He did all the important stuff right. Winning football tournaments is ultimately less important than how you carry yourself and the example you give as a person.
Ciara Mageean is Irelandās sweetheart. How could you dislike her. She is the Irish person in the international stage we look out for and feel protective of. We all think of her as our daughter or sister. 98% of us do so for the noblest of reasons. 2% donāt, they only see whiteness.
Rashida makes us think of something even bigger, a bit like Sinead did. We can scarcely believe that a talent this explosive and different and new is ours, but she is. We are protective of her because we know there are significant hateful undercurrents in our society which seek to do her down for no reason at all except the colour of her skin, waiting for her to fail in the same way Little Englanders were only waiting for Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka to fail.
Thatās the way itās gone now.
The INTERNET has fucked society up. Anger, anger everywhere and weāre all enveloped in it. Thatās why figures who inspire us, or who we just quietly admire for their plain decency, are important. They make us think something else apart from constant anger and hate and negativity is possible.
12 Likes
I havenāt read it all yet but it looks like youāre after writing the article that young McRedmond fella was trying to.
2 Likes
Unless Finn has changed her gender identity in the last week sheās not a fella.
1 Like
Thatās a lovely opinion piece. You are wasted here.
4 Likes
Duly noted
Will you send this to Joe, or Ladbible etc or those other utter shit clickbait sites, so that they publish a fine bit of writing like this.
I disagree with 1985-95 being the Wonder Years. Twas a time of full on stroke pulling, string pulling, anti women, repressed society.
Base nationalism ā which is the opposite of patriotism ā is all about portraying yourself as an entirely virtuous victim persecuted by evil outside oppressors. It is all about asserting your God-given right to greatness, a greatness which is imagined to have once existed but has been cruelly stolen by these corrupt, evil, outside forces.
In all cases ā even the ones which come somewhat closer to fact than other do ā these narratives are a fake.
Base nationalism is about desire for revenge. Revenge against anybody.
This desire for revenge requires symbols to rally around. Symbols. Flags.
National flags are uniquely vulnerable to misappropriation by jingosist and fascists. And so too are the jerseys of national football teams. And the matches themselves are uniquely vulnerable to being places where fascist sentiments get expressed.
Brazil is a case in point. Bolsonaro has relentlessly turned the Brazil football jersey into a political symbol of support for his fascism.
I worry that in this country, the GAA is ripe for exploitation by fascists who neither make any contribution to the GAA nor have any interest in it. That county colours and county jerseys will become the āsymbolsā of fascist demonstrations. That cannot be allowed to happen. The emergence of more ethnic minority players in inter-county GAA is extremely important in staving off this possibility.
Dublin havenāt had a prominent player of ethnic minority background since Jason Sherlock. Thatās 30 years ago. There needs to be more, and soon.
'Twas of course. But the direction of travel is the point. Even as a nipper, I knew that in 1985, Ireland felt dirty, poor, dull, depressing, a backwater, a kip. It didnāt feel like that by 1995. Thatās why 1985-1995 - and you could probably narrow it down even further to 1987-1992 as the core years of this period - felt so exhilarating. They were years of immense change.
1 Like
Israbraqs champion hurdle wins in the late 90s gave an awful lot of Irish people confidence go to go abroad and be successful.
2 Likes
Lord Clifton Lancelot De Verdon Wrottesley could not have achieved his fourth place finish in the skeleton at the 2002 Winter Olympics without Istabraqās triumphs.
Standing on the shoulders of a giant, while lying down.
2 Likes
That is true. I remember Limk city had some really cool little shops in that period. All closed now. But I would say more choice in Limk now for shopping, just all in bigger shops!
Paul McGrath
You left out hairy jumpers and doctor martens boots (on ladies)
1 Like
And marching powder. Lots and lots of it.
