So, anyway, I wrote this book. I got down off the ditch and into the game. Great view from the ditch, you can hold forth in high judgement and you can hide there, in the crowd. Not easy being inside the white lines, against tough opposition, making a show of yourself with everybody looking at you. Nowhere to hide. But I did it, anyway.
Sport is about emotion. I’ve said this before. Other things too, but mostly emotion. And sometimes the emotions aren’t good but we seek them out anyway. We make ourselves vulnerable to them, we put ourselves out there. We let ourselves be open and exposed. Not a common stance for men. We stick our unprotected heads above the parapet in the full knowledge we could get our blocks knocked off.
And so, tomorrow, we come to our fourth September Sunday, when the mighty women of Dublin and the mighty women of Mayo do battle to win the Senior All-Ireland Ladies Football Final. And the no less mighty women of Derry and Fermanagh and Tipperary and Tyrone do battle as well. By the way, I don’t use that word ‘mighty’ lightly, I mean it literally. These women are, as the dictionary tells us: ‘powerful, strong, in body and mind’. They bloody well are. And as the song goes: ‘this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.’ This is the real deal. Try it sometime.
I came out of the café and looked to my right, and there she was: the first swallow of the summer. The unmistakable forked tail streaming below the wire, the pale breast, tawny in the soft morning light, the hint of cobalt and burnt orange. Her mate flew by and she rose in a sweep and they both entered the open door of the barn. The swallows are here!
Two Extracts removed from a short story. A man ruminates as he watches his son play in an All Ireland Final…
“I swear by the oath of my people”, said Cú Chulainn, “I will make my doings be spoken of among the great doings of heroes in their strength” – Cú Chulainn of Muirthemne by Lady Gregory. Heavy hearted after yesterday’s painful replay defeat by Clare in an All Ireland Final, I went out of the house this morning to get some groceries and try to distract myself. When I opened the front door I heard young girls laughing, as they played hockey in the rain at Ashton across the road.
