Kerry beat Cork to win All-Ireland. Ireland flop against Georgia. Villa lose to City. But…

As you can see, sport dominated my weekend.

Time was, All-Ireland Football Final Day would have been one of the biggest days of my year. But my move to “hurling fan” has seen an erosion of the football final’s importance. Add in the fact that this year’s final was an all-Munster affair – with relatively little enthusiasm for it in other parts of the country – and the big occasion proved a sort of big anti-climax really.

The other big Irish sporting occasion of the weekend was the Rugby World Cup clash of Ireland and Georgia. This didn’t affect me very much as I personally think that rugby is a game for toffs and oafs. Oh yes – and idiots too. Why else would you have a referee constantly shouting the rules out to players? Imagine if that happened in other sports. Can you imagine it in tennis? “Hit it. Hit it back. Hit it again. Hit it back again.” Or in hurdling: “Run, run, run, run – jump. Run, run, run, run – jump.”

My beloved Villa didn’t do too good today losing out to Manchester City, one of the few teams I actually loathe. But…

The really, really, really big sporting occasion of my weekend, however, was seeing my son’s hurling team reach the finals of their P7 championship. Played in Cushendall on a bright sunny morning, with views of Ailsa Craig and Scotland in the background, the setting was pretty much perfect. Unfortunately, they lost the final but they managed to capture a couple of big scalps along the way. And my boy scored two goals. So he was happy.

We celebrated by going to the shop and buying the kids ice cream before we hit the road. Then, in the car, Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacherman popped up on the radio on the way home. For some reason, one of the kids knew all the words. So the rest all joined in with him as best they could and then they sang it over and over and over again as we drove back to Belfast.

Stuff like that you just can’t plan.

Why Bruce used to matter to me and my mates

Continuing the Springsteen theme, and just to prove that Bruce meant a lot to me a long, long time ago, I attach “The River.” See below.

When this came out it was a bit of a revelation. For some Americans, it was the start of a realisation that there were tough things happening in the land of Apple Pie. For many Irish, it was a real-good feeling because somewhere in Springsteen’s Dutch and Italian heritage he had proudly resurrected a Catholic Irish background that he referred to often. And we Irish certainly made the most of the fact that Bruce was almost one of our own, someone who could tell a story in a really engaging lyric – big time.

Me, I was at University at the time this came out, reading people like Flannery O’Connor  and soaking up much of the vibe about Springsteen as a short-story writer – one who, in the guise of a rock and roller, could almost beat the big American short-story giants at their own game. Better than that, it was like he was Flannery O’Connor, Ansell Adams, Georgia O’Keefe all rolled into one. Writer, artist, image-maker – he could paint vivid scenes or break your heart with just a couple of words.

Back then too, I was also friendly with a beautiful native of Philly – blonde, witty, intelligent, musical (she could play guitar better than Chrissie Hynde, we thought) – who told us great stories of nights travelling the turnpikes, skipping from one bar to the next – chrome wheeled, fuel injected, steppin’ out over the line. The trip from Enniskillen to dances in Bundoran was never quite the same after that.

That’s why this Video is the best – and because it was the first video we ever saw on a great big video juke box. So while we should have been doing lots of other things – like essays and tutorials and the sort – we stood in the Edgewater Hotel in Portstewart and pumped coin after coin into the slot and watched one helluva short story unfold… time after time after time after time…

Boy scores two hat-tricks

God Save Ireland was full of pride last night as he watched Son of God Save Ireland blast two hat-tricks in the Belfast Scouts League. He also notched up a brace in another game and a single goal in another.

All in all, his team played four games over the course of four hours to reach the Northern Ireland finals to be held in June. Watch this space.

Boy, are we lucky

Over the weekend we packed our nine year old off on his first Cubs camping experience. It lasted from fom Friday evening until Sunday afternoon and for us slightly anxious parents it was maybe the longest weekend of our lives.

Not that we needed to worry. On his first night, he didn’t get to sleep until 1.00am because ‘Johnny was singing karaoke’ in the tent. They also played moon and and stars with their torches on the side of the tent.

But that first night was very cold for May. So he and his tent mates got up at 5.30 on Saturday morning and played football until breakfast at 8.00am in an effort to keep warm.

The rest of the weekend revolved around skirmishing, water bombs, grass sledging and what-not. I’m not sure if he brushed his teeth much. We know he didn’t change his underwear. And he only changed his socks because the pair he was wearing got wet during a water activity.

So compare this innocent weekend’s camping with another story of a boy spending time away from home.

On BBC Radio 4 last week, the Book of the Week was A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.

It’s a harrowing story, an astonishing tale of unrelenting horror and eventual redemption. Ishmael is just 12 years old when the rebel forces attack his village in Sierra Leone and he is separated from his family. He roams the forests trying to avoid the attention of the rebels who might recruit him. Near starvation and desperate to belong, he’s picked up by government forces. Eventually, a gun is placed in his hand and gradually he turns from a kid interested in mimicking hip-hop artists to a drugged-up killing machine, thirsty for vengeance against the rebels that wiped out his village.

Ishmael eventually escaped and went to live in the US where he graduated and wrote his story. But not before he had killed God knows how many people and had his childhood stolen.

And our chap? We took him to McDonald’s as a treat. He fell asleep on the way home.

Armenian buskers, Bairbre de Brún & grey skies: it must be Saint Patrick’s Day in Belfast

 

Greetings fellow Gaels – I hope your St Patrick’s Day festivities were as good as ours.

Because of the day that’s in it, I may break into rud beag Gaeilge anois is arís as I bring you this eye-witness account of events in the northern capital of this sceptred isle. So if you don’t understand the native tongue of the Gael, gabh mo leithscéil.

I have to begin by saying that the day started on a veritable and unexpected high when my son burst into our room with his violin (sorry, fiddle). ‘Let’s get this party started,’ he cried before launching into St Patrick’s Reel – something he had been secretly practising all week. Bullaí fir!

Cascades  of presents were then heaped upon God Save Ireland because today also happens to be my birthday. (My parents obviously thought that it might be a bit of a predictable cliché to simply call me Patrick. So after much thought they opted for God Save Ireland. Incidentally, my brother was born on the 4th of July when the family were on holidays in New York. So naturally he was called God Bless America. Our sister – Advance Australia Fair – was born in Earl’s Court in London.)

But I digress. Mrs GSI quickly rounded up all the children and we made our way into the city centre (lár na cathrach). We assumed it was going to start ag cur fearthaine (raining) so we looked a bit like the Michelin family as we proceeded to City Hall (Halla na Cathrach), following the lilting sound of music that sounded distinctly non-patriotic. And sure enough, as we rounded a corner, there they were – a very lively bunch of elderly Armenian buskers who were belting it out on accordians, trumpets and guitars. I assume that the tune was their treatment of Hail Glorious Saint Patrick, but it swung a little too much, so níl a fhios agam.

By this stage, we were half an hour late for the official beginning of the parade (tús na paróide). As it turned out, we were actually half an hour early for the actual beginning of the parade (tús na paróide).

Although it was officially billed as the St Patrick’s Day Parade (Paróid Lá Fhéile Padraig) it might just as well have been billed The Irish Papier Maché Parade (Paróid Pháipéir Maché na hÉireann) such was the amount of hardened wet paper that passed  us. All painted forty shades of green of course.

The SDLP Mayor of the city – Cllr Pat McCarthy – led the first stilt walker (fear mór) out of the gates of City Hall and we were off. There followed three more stilt walkers who wowed the large group of spectators. This is going to be good, thought everybody!

Alas, the third of the stilt walkers was followed by a school group who interpreted the theme of St Patrick by wearing their football kit and doing keepie-uppies. (Who knows – maybe St Patrick supported The Southampton ‘Saints’ or St Patrick’s Athletic or just plain old Man Utd.)

Then came lots of little school groups. And more little school groups. And even more little school groups.

Thankfully, the sequence was broken by none other than one of our MEPs – Sinn Féin’s Ms Bairbre de Brún – who seemed to have a whole section of the parade to herself and her two minders. With Cllr McCarthy of the SDLP leading the parade, Mrs GSI pointed out that this was probably the only time in recent memory when Sinn Féin trailed the SDLP on anything.

So we dutifully stood and watched the end of the parade (deireadh na paróide) before we popped across the road to do some Mother’s Day shopping (siopadóireacht Lá Fhéile Mamaí). We then had a very posh lunch and watched the Irish rugby team battle against Italy in the sunshine of Rome. It then suddenly dawnwed on me why there were so many of us poor people out watching the parade in wintry Ireland – all the rich Irish people were off in Rome watching the rugger and sipping Frascati in the sun. Ah well, at least we saw Bairbre de Brún strutting her funky stuff down Royal Avenue.

We then left the centre of this beautiful city and headed home to our own part of this beautiful city, passing through one of the many British sectors of this beautiful city. These sectors don’t actually celebrate St Patrick’s Day as all that Irishness is too offensive to them. Too much green. Too much Gaeilge (barraíocht Ghaeilge). Not enough keepie-uppie.

Pity they didn’t know about the Armenians. Who could be offended by that?

My sad son, last night:

“Dad. Arsenal’s out.”