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http://blog.ireland.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?webtag=itb_shoulder&entry=21
Dulchies not Culchies
Back in the day, Shoulder remembers Meath-Dublin games with fondness.
Meath people were different then, a more rugged type who came down in their hordes in their big Land Rovers on match day and they looked, for the most part, like big red faced country folk in their KEPAK jerseys. The Dubs on the other hand were “Dubs”. They had the look of semi-malnurished Arnotts wearing city dwellers and the clash of the teams were as much a clash of cultures on the field as of it.
The Meath lads even had strange names like Bernie, Hank and Mattie the surnames were even different. The Dubs had a swagger which the big Meath lads loved to knock out of them. The Meath brutes were big strapping hardy whores like Mick Lyons and Liam Harnan and Gerry McEntee and they were men of steel with ice on their veins. Meath backs would thump and hit the lads in Blue and they littered their forward line with twinkle toed assassins like Bernie Flynn, David Beggy and Tommy Dowd. The Dubs knew they would have to fight for every inch and every yard against their country cousins.
Good Dublin teams and Dublin players would lose narrowly to the Royals, and Meath inevtiably came out at least 50-50 in those years from the mid 80s to 2000.
Today is all change. Meath is a county which is now, by and large, part of Greater Dublin. The kids on the streets of Navan, Ashbourne, Trim and Dunshoulghlin are as likely to wear blue as green and gold and the commuter belt has morphed into a bland extension of the capital.
Meath people are no longer the big strapping farmer type who looks like only comes to Dublin for IFA protests, December 8th shopping and the big match. Meath types now look for the most part like Dublin types. They even speak like them.
The clash of rural versus urban and town versus country is long vanished and the rivalry of days gone by will never have the edge it once had.
Tighter discpline and the backdoor have blunted the exchanges but the transformation of Dublin and expansion of the capital into Meath has made Dulchies (Dublin Culchies) of Culchies until they are Culchies no more.
