I nearly puked. Honestly.
I mean, well done to Katie Taylor – who until recently had to train in a ramshackle shed without water or toilet facilities. She was excellent.
Well done to the others, who won bronze and silver medals; including John Joe Nevin who, as an Irish traveller, was hardly presented with an Official Ireland silver spoon to his mouth after he received his first slap from the midwife.
The cause of my nausea was not the athletes, but the Irish media's attempts – RTE, Ireland’s version of Pravda in particular – to drum up a mood of patriotic hysteria. Some highly salaried gobshite from RTE Radio was last week playing, over and over again, a recording of Amhrun na… Anhram na… Omadhaun na… The Soldiers Song, waxing lyrical about it all.
[The Solidier's Song was originally written in English before being Gaelicised. A mercy, as few people realise how bad its lyrics actually are, but just parrot them like previous generations did the Latin mass].
[The Solidier's Song was originally written in English before being Gaelicised. A mercy, as few people realise how bad its lyrics actually are, but just parrot them like previous generations did the Latin mass].
The Irish state, and Irish society in general, did little to promote Taylor and Nevin. I hope they refuse to be suckered into any official civil ceremony extravaganzas, and deny Official Ireland and its half-wit gombeens a chance to bask in their reflected glory.
Interestingly, John Joe Nevin's family – including his mother, Winnie - were not even allowed to watch his big fight in their home town of Mullingar, having found local hostelries closed to them. They are travellers, you see. And settled or not, any pubs they tried in Mullingar were not for letting them in.
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7 comments:
Yep,GM, interesting one all right.There was great hope that the woman in her sail boat would get a gold at one stage and the focus was on that for a while and sailing is a very upper class pursuit, more suitable to Montrose. It sums up for me the usual class divide that we pretend we do not have in Ireland, (of course only England has that). We are the great pretenders!!
Interesting to note that Kearney was not paid royalties for his contribution to the song.
Yes John. He would have been a multi-zillionaire given the amount of times RTE played it last week. Had he been alive, of course!
I gave it a miss. How many times can you watch the USA and China humiliate everyone else?
No room at the inn for Nevin's parents? How disgraceful, and how typical. I *wish* I could say I am surprised.
thomas
also gave it a miss thomas but ended up a bit pissed in paris on the night of the 100 metres and ended up in a pizza joint in Nation when it was aired. Jesus - I've spent my married life getting rubbished for coming first after a performance that lasts less than ten seconds and here's your man from Jamaica getting a gold medal for it. The Just World Delusion!
@ thomas. All too typical, I'm afraid.
@ Goldyboy. You're giving too much away there, mate ;-)
That's the Irish for ya all smiles and belly laughs when the race is won. They won't give a toss but when it comes to basking in the limelight they are always first off the blocks. Oh yeaaah I'd say the British are soooooo jealous of nowhere with attitude to the west.
Sure they're all up for "the craic" in Mullingar now, D.
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