Comments on: O’Haiku

By: Thom Brooks

Thom Brooks — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:16:38 +0000

Surely, Ireland is the team to beat now. Highly impressive: they keep getting better!

By: ejh

ejh — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:26:32 +0000

Rugby league might be played by gentlemen. Rugby union is played by thugs who stamp on people’s heads in the ruck.

By: jay bee

jay bee — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:32:25 +0000

If rugby is a game for ruffians played by gentlemen, football (association) is a game for gentlemen played by ruffians, GAA (football) must be a game for ruffians, played by ruffians?

Thankfully, of course, hurling is a different class of a game altogether…

By: Maria

Maria — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:15:10 +0000

A tad over the top on describing the emotions of the day, but today's Irish Times describes the significance of this weekend's match and some of the historical background for readers unfamiliar with it.

By: astrongmaybe

astrongmaybe — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:24:50 +0000

Or maybe a number of English fans actually are “nasty boorish racists” and “smash stuff up”. That reputation abroad didn’t arise out of nowhere.

Sure: there’s no “or” about it. Many of the English fans were like that. The Irish fans were making a conscious choice in response to that fact; it’s just that the choice was a cultural-semiotic one as well as a simple moral one. “Self-righteous” was too strong, though. “Mildly self-satisfied” is more like it.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:11:07 +0000

they are quiet because Irish rugby fans like to think they’re a cut above the bowsies who watch Gaelic

Yeah, that’s what I meant, more or less.

It’s also true that Irish football fans consciously cultivated an image in opposition to the bad reputation of their English counterparts.

By: Andrew John

Andrew John — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:49:20 +0000

[Chris] Won't Mother England be surprised?

By: EWI

EWI — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:05:21 +0000

Gave a sort of warm internal glow of self-righteousness, maybe.

Or maybe a number of English fans actually are “nasty boorish racists” and “smash stuff up”. That reputation abroad didn’t arise out of nowhere.

By: astrongmaybe

astrongmaybe — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:28:44 +0000

@12 (as I understand it, and I think Kieran is right): it is a self-conscious marker of class distinction: they are quiet because Irish rugby fans like to think they’re a cut above the bowsies who watch Gaelic, and above such uncouth, unsporting behavior. Rugby Union, in most places in Irl., as in most places in Eng-Scot-Wales, is a bourgeois sport.

Similar thing in the 80s and 90s – one of the reasons the Irish soccer fans behaved relatively peacefully was because it showed they were a cut above the English fans, who smashed stuff up and were nasty boorish racists. Gave a sort of warm internal glow of self-righteousness, maybe.

By: EWI

EWI — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 22:07:27 +0000

Ahem?

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:58:32 +0000

I remember listening to Scrap Saturday (a satirical radio show) years ago on RTE when there was some prospect of a football match at Croke Park. Their version of the GAA representative was of course violently opposed and referred to the appalling prospect of a “ball full of poison English air” being booted around the holy ground. Frankly, I’d have been shocked if this attitude had been anything more than a tiny minority view at the weekend.

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:53:25 +0000

Don’t assume that the “our little Free State is all grown up now” was just in the British papers. From the (Irish) Sunday Independent—
This was a day when Ireland grew up.

All the talk of protest and old GAA greats handing back their medals faded into insignificance.

It was a moment to savour for those who have fought for reconciliation, another important milestone in the growth of a nation.

This was more than a rugby match between Ireland and England, it was a defiant symbol of a new maturity and a confident battle cry that we will no longer be prisoners of the past.

By: tom s.

tom s. — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:41:50 +0000

What is this haiku?
Should you not mark the event
with a Limerick?

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:47:05 +0000

That kind of self-imposed crowd control is very well embedded in Irish rugby culture and nothing new—it probably has its origins in the class differentiation between GAA and Rugby players in the first place. At times it can be kind of a psychological weapon in itself: The “Munster Hush” at Thomond Park has unnerved more than one place kicker, as the entire crowd goes dead silent for the kick, instead of jeering.

By: Maria

Maria — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:03:57 +0000

Nope, the score was so impressive, and the rugby so beautiful, that no one’s bothered by a bit of patronising. And, in fairness, there was a lot of public discussion during the last week about how things would play out at Croke Park, given the particular atrocity that took place there during the war of independence. There is some satisfaction all round that we can acknowledge and honour the past and still enjoy an afternoon’s rout!