Yeah I know but the point stands
Easily every big irish company wants them on their LinkedIn, ads and giving speeches for the workers. A previous company i was in had Gary O Donovan in after rio. Game him a quick tour of the nonsense i was working on. Neither of us gave 2 fucks about it either
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Dutch generosity got us the medals in 96. After anfield they sent a highly regarded discus thrower over to us and the rest is history!
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I watched it but didnāt they say it was a split decision.
Wow. It seems the stalker has become the stalkedā¦
The randomness can be interesting.
I was in the company of Con Houlihan on the way up and back to Dublinās 5 point win over Louth in the 1990 Leinster SFCā¦I struggled to catch most of what he said but remember that he speculated how different the lives of Barry McGuigan and SeĆ”n Kelly might have been if the former had been born in Carrickbeg and the latter in Smithboro.
āFull many a flowerā¦ā as he described the counterfactual possibilities.
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He was copying you doing zoom meetings in his jocks too afair
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If Bod can trouser 100k for a morningās work, surely Kellie, Daniel, OāDonovan + Mccarthy, and Rhys can command a handy million?
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We are the highest nation on the rankings there to have never hosted a games I think.
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Fair play to oul Liam. Went out at the top like Kelly.
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I have awful memories of OāSullivanās in Pigalle but I have great memories of the generic Irish Olympic House.
This year OāSullivans is the Irish Olympic House.
I drank in OāSullivans until 5:30am after the Henry handball and then got on a train to Geneva without sleeping.
The afternoon Katie Taylor won her final in 2012 I was in the Irish Olympic House which was the Big Chill House in Kingās Cross. It remains one of my favourite sessions ever. The fight was on about 4:30 or 4:45 in the afternoon which was the perfect time for such an event. The place was rammed and they had the RTE coverage on. Bill OāHerlihy was presenting* and Jimmy Magee was commentating and there was a real conscious feeling that this was the last time youād experience either of these things for a big Olympic moment. Immediately before the fight RTE played that āReal Human Beingā song which is actually called āA Real Heroā by College & Electric Youth which was the first time Iād ever heard that song but the synth sounds of it instantly stuck in my head and it felt like a moment of unimaginable bigness. The tension in the place was unbearable and the roof nearly came off at the decision. The place was already full but it grew fuller and fuller. There was a big beer garden at the back of the upstairs floors. The evening was long and the view was amazing. This place suddenly became the centre of the world. Everybody was Irish. Ciara who lived in Putney was pointing out the new skyscraper The Shard to me and I was asking her was she Laura Whitmore. People were humming Chariots Of Fire. Random people would just appear. My college friend Fiona appeared. This was a different Fiona to Fiona Looney who also appeared. Dara OāBriain appeared, I think. Usain Bolt appeared on the telly and people were open mouthed. Ken Early appeared and he was cranky as hell and drunk and chain smoking and ranting furiously about Cian OāConnor. āWhat the fuck does Cian OāConnorās medal mean to me? Iāll tell you what it means - fucking NOTHING.ā Then he stormed off. As dusk was on the side of darkness there was a big roar from the balcony. Katie Taylor was making her entrance down a back lane with a spotlight and photographers flashing.
I donāt remember much after that but I know it went on for a while and I know I slept in a four person dorm in Marylebone with three Syrians.
If the night in OāSullivanās tonight is a quarter as good as that night itāll be good.
The Olympics has a different buzz to anything Iāve ever attended. Itās way more celebratory and way more international than the Euros or the World Cup. Itās more ephemeral and more exotic and thus better. Itās just better.
*It is possible Bill OāHerlihy was not presenting
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Nice lad, Darren. He was one of the glass collectors in Langtons when I had a stint there at the end of me college days.
I live a very sheltered existence as a quiet & introverted individual, but I was unaware of this concept of the Team [Insert Nation] House until this Olympics. That pub in Paris is getting mentioned constantly in the coverage but I donāt recall that happening before. It probably did & I wasnāt paying attention.
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I think the caste system there means that anyone any good at anything wouldnāt be allowed represent their country unless they came from the correct background. A bit like rugby in Ireland. An embarrassment as you say.
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Paddy O Sheas was the irish house in Beijing in 2008 and my local cos i knew all the lads who owned it. Nearly every irish team member turned up there and it was where much wheeling and dealing was done for tickets. It was a ten minute walk from the workers stadium where the boxing was and my gaff was halfway between. The night of Egans final was absolutely epic. It was obvious from before the fight that hed need to actually kill the chinese lad to get a decision but he probably lost the fight anyway. A heap of oul irish china heads got very serious about making sure nobody jeered the anthem cos youd never be seen again. He was mobbed by the time he got to the pub and there was a massive singsong outside for hours. Great days. One of the best 2 weeks of my life id say. Got engaged to Mrs J on the night of the opening ceremony. 8 is lucky in China so they did it on The eighth of the eighth, 08. Never waste a fireworks display as the old proverb goes. Weāre still married @Horsebox
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As a keen observer of our Royal Family, no doubt you are also aware that Princess Beatrice was born on the eight of the eight, eighty eight. That was the same day as the 8888 uprising in Burma. Specifically chosen for good luck.
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OāSullivanās is the OFFICIAL Irish pub in Paris in a general sense. There are other and probably better Irish pubs than it. Itās big and itās overpriced. But itās where the Irish gather when thereās something big on in Paris. Often outside it and often paying local corner shop prices for cans rather than whatever it is for a pint there these days.
London and Paris are different from Rio or Beijing for obvious reasons. London was a home Games. Paris is nearly a home Games.
My āplaceā in Paris is Au Clair De Lune in Montmartre which I like because a random couple standing smoking at their door after Ireland v Sweden in 2016 decided to talk to me and four other lads as we walked past and invited us into their loft apartment and then brought us out to this pub. The girl was Irish and gorgeous and flirty and later touchy and her French boyfriend was gorgeous and flirty too and he didnāt seem to particularly desire exclusive rights over her.
You get a different class of Irish person altogether living in Paris. They do not go to mass and if they were sportspeople they would have no problem in confidently exclaiming how they were going to win.
I go back to this place any time Iāve been in Paris since then, which is once. The pub, not the loft apartment.
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MING IS IN! Weāre coming for you cunts!
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