We are a nation of begrudgers apparently. So Bono said once. In one of his cleverer insights, he traced this scepticism of success to soup-taking during the famine. Then he rambled off on a patronising parable about some yank and a big house and the American dream and Irish dreamers and I lost interest again. But if we are begrudging as a people then it might just be one of the few things we do well. And even stranger, we do it well without falling over ourselves to congratulate one another about the whole endeavour.
We are also a nation of bandwagoners. Bebo, head shops and Garth Brooks all captured the public imagination here and became the greatest thing ever for a few days/weeks/months. And then they mostly just disappeared from our lives and we reverted to our normal selves, eagerly awaiting the next fad to sweep us off our feet. But what if one of those short-lived, harmless-seeming indulgences endured? What would Ireland look like in an apparently permanently obsessive state? Locked in a national embrace with a sport few play but everyone claims to love, weâre currently finding that out.
In the conflict between bandwagoner and begrudger Iâm happy to be in the latter camp. There may not be anything necessarily evil, or even mildly harmful, about the infestation of rugby into the consciousness of the Irish public. But the scale of this love affair with rugby is nauseating to those who arenât particularly interested. You canât just ignore rugby, the same way you couldnât just ignore the Plague in the Middle Ages. It occupies the news pages, the sport pages and the social pages of our newspapers. Social networks are corrupted by the rambling ill-informed opinions of a general public who have only taken any sort of interest in this sport in the last decade. And the assumption that grates the most is that weâre all ever so proud of how this small little nation is performing on the world stage. And weâre not just proud of them, weâre proud of ourselves for our fantastic support and our growth as a nation.
The unbridled euphoria that greeted Irelandâs Six Nations win last weekend was far from unexpected. Some of it was merited. By kick-off time there had been three weeks of intense media coverage about the retirement of Irelandâs greatest rugby player. And the stage was set for a grand finale. A win in Paris would be the perfect send-off. Except it wasnât quite a perfect send-off. It was a championship win in a tournament where the championship plays second fiddle to a Grand Slam. And that battle had long since been lost. This is an annual six team tournament, where only five teams have any sort of realistic chance of ever winning and only four teams have had any sort of realistic chance for the last decade. Ireland won. Itâs an achievement we should be recognising on a fairly regular basis by now.
Ireland have 2 âGrand Slamsâ in more than a century. Simple mathematics assumes you should win four matches in a row about once in every 16 years. The paucity of our return isnât shameful â itâs simply a reflection of the standing rugby has held in Irish society for the vast majority of its existence. It didnât gain widespread popularity because it was too complex to be enjoyed casually, it was too elitist to be played universally and it was frankly too boring to draw in a curious crowd beyond the core support base.
But now, itâs almost become our national game. Everyone has an opinion. From the sports fan at work who loves every game going to the crank calling Liveline to complain about the disrespectful noises made when someone was kicking for a goal, everybody has something to say about every game Ireland play. The Marian Finucane Show features some class of a rugby pundit virtually every week. And Marian herself isnât short of a viewpoint of course. Sure didnât she watch the game the same as everyone else? And didnât her heart skip a beat when âwe went upstairs to the TMOâ to confirm what was obvious in real-time?
The problem with these opinions is they are all the same. The game is won and lost at the breakdown. OâConnell has the heart of a lion. OâDriscoll is so brave. And what hands! Oh what glorious hands! And thatâs about it. The more adventurous armchair fan might venture to rehash a Gerry Thornley opinion on Conor Murrayâs pass or the âlinespeedâ of the French defence. But the overwhelming probability is they havenât played the game, nor have they seen a game played outside of a stadium so they donât really have anything to offer. They just regurgitate the same opinions each week, simply changing the name of our next opponents and seemingly believing in the nonsense they are spouting in unison. Itâs creepy.
Living in Dublin and not having much interest in rugby is what I imagine living in Mount Carmel, Texas and not being a fan of David Koresh must have felt like. You can politely nod at the brainwashed masses, exchange pleasantries about a game you didnât watch but know in detail because every middle-of-the-road, mainstream, bland DJ on the radio felt compelled to mention it at every turn. But the overriding feeling is a horrible sense that everyone has been taken in by a con. And they are blissfully unaware of how ridiculous they all sound extolling its virtues.
It would be more polite to stand idly by while the country pauses to cheer on their heroes but that stance is almost impossible for anyone with any emotions whatsoever. It would be more mature to simply ignore the delight others are taking in a victory. But maybe the whole country didnât grow up as a nation that fateful day when England or France came to Croke Park. Some of us have been left with real emotional reactions like bitterness and jealousy and self-righteousness and cynicism.
Without wanting to try and out-Bono the man himself, thereâs something particularly post-colonial about our infuriating need for acceptance from the world. It wouldnât be enough to go to France, win a match and return home with the trophy to a modest gathering at the airport. A gathering proportionate to the percentage of the population who actually play rugby maybe. That wouldnât do at all. This was rugby.
So we didnât just honour Brian OâDriscoll ourselves, thank him for the years of service and tell him how great he was. We wanted to know what the English thought of him. Were they honouring them the way they should? And as luck would have it wasnât Enda in the White House? Getting Obama to mention him by name? Perfectly appropriate, measured and sensible apparently. The idea of a speechwriter or political assistant with an imagination deficit suggesting to Obama that he mention Brian OâDriscoll in his St Patrickâs Day aside is cringeworthy. Has a Taoiseach ever looked more demeaned and insignificant than the beaming Enda Kenny, giddy and gleeful that Obama was deigning to humour us with that shout-out? Can you even imagine Ronald Reagan mentioning some long forgotten obscure Irish rugby hero from our unforgettable Triple Crown in 1982? Would anyone have known who on earth he was talking about?
The unfortunate reality is that this frenzied attraction to rugby is not likely to diminish in the short-term. The emperor may be wearing no clothes but the public have decided that doesnât matter â they all love the no clothes look. Itâs a topic everyone can be an expert on without risking ridicule, because the narratives are so consistent everyone can keep up. Complexities are airbrushed out of the conversation. And now thereâs even reason to celebrate. Against all the odds Ireland have managed to produce a victorious international team to parade alongside our triumphant provinces who regularly trample all over their opponents in grossly imbalanced competitions. The resulting hysteria is frightening.
