When Fiji were destroying Great Britain at the rugby sevens during the Olympics in Rio, the comedian Dara O’Briain tweeted that it shows “how much fun it would be for us Irish if they put hurling in the Olympics. I mean, unfair, sure, but fun.”
If Gaelic Games had reached that level of global participation, the unfairness would probably be felt by “us Irish” who would watch bewildered as our native Gaels were overrun by Fiji or another country which had evolved hurling much as they advanced the games invented in Britain and taken up by the rest of the world.
Gaelic Games never had a 1953, the year when Hungary came to England and showed the country that invented football the many ways in which the game can change.
Protected by that insularity we can convince ourselves of anything. Some can confidently assert the superiority of Gaelic games over any sport safe in the knowledge that it will never be tested, even if a test was possible.
Others can look forward to Irish domination in the games when they are taken up by the rest of the world, ignoring historical precedent and logic which would suggest the opposite would happen. Most importantly, we can be offended by everything, especially if it is an outsider making a mistake.
This phenomenon is not, of course confined to lovers of our great games.
When the Sky journalist Richard Suchet referred to Saoirse Ronan as “one of our ours”, there was outrage. Suchet didn’t back down, He made an ill-advised point about the British Isles which exacerbated the problem, when the only solution if you encounter the howling mob is to tiptoe away quietly, moving with the care and attention a parent would employ if their child has just gone to sleep after a five-hour hysterical fit.
Of course, one Irish newspaper claimed Nick Hornby – who wrote the screenplay for Brooklyn – as an Irish nomination, but that didn’t seem to matter.
https://twitter.com/aidancurran17/status/687914680615055360
This week the excellent Sky Sports presenter Clare Tomlinson was the latest to transgress, when she referred to the All-Ireland final as the “All England final” and had to suffer the consequences.
Naturally some people online took offence, while others pointed out that Sky had DONE THIS BEFORE, when a different presenter talked last year about the ‘All-England football champions’, Dublin.
At that time, Bernard Brogan was asked what he thought of that and, instead of replying, “I think you’re letting eejitry get the better of you, mate”, he made some non-committal noises which suggested he really couldn’t give a fuck.
But, for some the evidence of this ongoing conspiracy was shocking. This year-on-year repetition of ‘All England’ instead of ‘All-Ireland’ was damning and seemed to conclusively demonstrate that presenters on rolling news sometimes get tired and use words they are more familiar with in these moments of carelessness.
Maybe it was a conspiracy, maybe Sky are hoping that they can somehow improve their viewing figures for GAA matches if they persuade people in Britain that they are watching something English rather than something Irish.
https://twitter.com/PaulRouseUCD/status/643829395224985600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Maybe those whispered ‘All-Englands’ are the way Sky feel they will hook people in because strangely Sky’s coverage of Gaelic games has not exactly captured the imagination of the British public, despite the self-evident superiority of the codes to all other sports.
Tomlinson, who has subsequently apologised, was the press officer at Arsenal when Arsene Wenger arrived in England to blank looks and questions about giving it to a man some had never heard of so she is used to dealing with an insular, inward-looking crowd.
Still hiding under a rock after my horrendous gaffe about the All IRELAND GAA final. Apologies to all – please let me visit still..
— Clare Tomlinson (@Clare1744) September 20, 2016
Language has become so devalued online that some of us those who tweeted their outrage probably felt no more offended than they had when they they discovered the milk in their fridge was off, but it might not always feel that way to the object of their complaints.
The details, anyway, are not as important, as much as the determination to police all output and react with outrage if someone in Britain fails to recognise the true Irishness of any event.
In doing so, it tends to reveal something other than a fierce and patriotic love of country. It tends to suggest an endless and incurable obsession with Britain, but no Gael would ever be guilty of such a thing.
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