Normal People & LOI (ie LOI v GAA)

[sparky12345678]

Normal People was supposed to have a LOI reference but apparently wasnt part of the image we wanted to sell internationally

:s
up the GAA

https://www.thesun.ie/sport/gaa-football/5432430/normal-people-director-lenny-abrahamson-paul-mescals-gaa-rte/

[Nesta99]

Bit cringe to hear that London GAA club, Thomas McCurtains, contacted the chap to see if he would be available to play for them based on the few scenes of Gah!

[Bucket]

They do make a good point, if he's a Gaelic player, the soccer scenes wouldn't look authentic

[sidewayspasser]

If they had just cited the actor's GAA experience as a reason, that would have been fair enough. But putting the national game on screen for the international audience?

Well, those within the international audience who already know GAA will recognize it, but those who don't will have no clue what's going on from those few scenes. And for someone who doesn't know GAA, the scoreboard that's briefly shown (1-13 to 2-11 or something like that) also has no meaning because they won't know what the result means. In that sense, I don't really see much of an advertisement for GAA to a wider international audience in there because you already have to know the game to understand what's going on.

[NeverFeltBetter]

This was brought up on another site I frequent, Cedar Lounge Revolution, where a guest poster reviewed the show: https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/may-the-revolution-be-swift-and-brutal-class-and-left-politics-in-normal-people-by-sally-rooney/


Now, slight tangent here but here goes. The stuff I’ve heard and read about the tv series keeps saying that Connell is a GAA player. But he’s not, in the book. He plays soccer for the school team. He scores the goal in a 1-0 win. He has a poster of Steven Gerrard on his wall. And his teenage cousin follows United. The GAA isn’t mentioned once in the novel, that I can recall. They live in Sligo, okay south county Sligo apparently and the GAA is played there but, as we know on this site, in Sligo there’s only one red army and Dublin’s SRFC aren’t Rovers, they’re Shamrocks. So, anyway – danger here! I’m calling out the tv script as selling out on this point – the GAA is representative of safe, official, middle Ireland, soccer is very predominantly a traditional working-class game. Declan Lynch is good on this periodically in the Sindo – in terms of both playing and supporting, soccer is Ireland’s number one sport, but the bourgeois nationalist state loves the cross-class alliance GAA. End of tangent.

I commented wondering how such a seemingly unnecessary change was made, especially given the show was produced by the BBC, and did posit it might have been to sell it as more "authentically Irish". Seems I was at least partially correct. Abrahamson's comments do rub me the wrong way though. That classic GAA-head defensiveness about "the national game".

[Nesta99]

'Dragging him over to soccer' !?. It'd be a bit worrying if even a GAA player couldnt look competent with the ball at his feet.

[Red Star]

Spot the Sligo Rovers poster?
https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB14bKTW.img?h=200&w=300&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

You can see a Rovers sticker on his bedroom door when his mother pops in to say hello in one scene and loads of Rovers pictures in the pub in one of the scenes this week. Don’t really see what the big deal is. Filmed in Tubbercurry which would be more of a GAA area then say Sligo town. Also it’s Shams not Shamrocks.

[The Lilywhites]

The most boring thing I've ever watched. Suffered through a couple of episodes. It's awful.

[CuanaD]

The most boring thing I've ever watched. Suffered through a couple of episodes. It's awful.

Absolutely agree with you, and glad that LOI isn't associated with that boring pap.

[redarmyfaction]

The most boring thing I've ever watched. Suffered through a couple of episodes. It's awful.
Ya, heard it's boring all about kissing and ting.