QuoteI was born in Dublin (twist of fate) but I am a Corkonian.
Tom Humphries
LockerRoom: Old Firm weekend and it strikes you that there can scarcely be a more curious Irish social phenomenon than our smouldering relationship with Celtic Football Club. I've never been religious apart from this weird, mainly latent, devotion to Parkhead - that observance gives an odd insight into what it must be like to live in a monotheistic culture.
I just assume that everybody I know likes Celtic to thrive, that we all have the same reference point, the same basic world view. Apart, that is, from the odd southside freakshow who'll make an ostentatious point of telling the world that being fully evolved as a post-colonial Irish person means being chuffed to bits when Engerland do well. Yawn. And to be a mature Manchester City fan is to take a delight in Manchester United's spiffing achievements.
It's a touchstone of Irishness that everybody you know has some sort of devotion to Celtic. Lapsed, staunch, casual, fundamentalist. Whatever. Celtic are as reliable a conversational fall back as the weather is. On a day like yesterday everyone you meet will have shared the same views on the Old Firm game.
Which makes the Aiden McGeady business odd and uncomfortable. Certain fans of certain clubs in Scotland have taken to giving Aiden McGeady a hard time because famously, he has declared for Ireland (well he declared back when he was 15, people have just begun to care now) Having been reared in Glasgow, many people would have assumed that McGeady would declare for Scotland.
A few preliminary points.
Firstly, the Scottish youth system is a tangle of silly rules and regulations which practically steered McGeady into a green jersey all on its own.
Secondly the kid has, like so many Scots, a deep affinity with Ireland. As Packie Bonner has explained about the whole thing: "Aiden's family comes from my part of the world, Donegal, and like a lot of Scots boys with roots from there he has a strong link with Ireland." Simple. Well for us it is.
And then there's the fact that if a club produces a great young player, possibly a genius, it is virtually the solemn duty of the fans of other clubs to barrack and belittle that player. The young genius will be well rewarded for enduring the taunting of the masses. That's entertainment.
Those few points should all mean that the Aiden McGeady business is no big deal but somewhere in the heart of Scotland the fact of a young fella choosing his nationality by inclination rather than by accident of birth has caused a wound. All sorts of sly comment sneaks into the Scottish media concerning McGeady. Take the following cuts from recent opinion pieces in the Daily Record: "I actually hope McGeady has a miserable career as an Irish internationalist. In football you reap what you sow and I suspect that McGeady has naively planted the seeds of his own self-destruction . . .
"The word that immediately springs to mind is patriotism - the commitment to the country of your birth - a value McGeady has chosen to throw away like the joke in an old Christmas cracker . . .
"On the day he made the decision to play for Ireland and snub Scotland, I think he made a profound error of judgment."
"What I cannot accept is that playing international football has descended to the level of a Woolworth's pick and mix and that McGeady and his generation have the right to cruise around looking for the strawberry creams . . .
"But I can see the point of those who believe he is nothing more than a self-serving opportunist who has snubbed Scotland at their greatest moment of need . . .
"It's time all Scottish Celtic fans got over their obsession with Ireland.
"The fact that Glasgow sports shops sell as many Ireland football tops as Scotland football tops is both pathetic and ultimately unhelpful. This isn't sectarianism, this is about being Scottish and proud of it."
These are harsh, mean and uncomfortable things to be writing about an 18-year-old footballer who when he was 15 made a decision based on emotion and intuition and love. Again it's worth remembering that Aiden McGeady is going to be a superstar, he'll rise above the clamour of small minds. And yet . . .
The whole business pushes some buttons which we'd rather not see accessed. There's an instinct to retaliate glibly by listing off a ream of English-born players who have represented Scotland and then to ask more saliently why any view of Scottish patriotism or nationalism can't include the huge strand of Irishness which runs through it just as any large-scale view of Irish nationalism is going to have to respect and embrace a dour strand of Scots presbyterianism which seems alien to our beery selves. And what about this business of all patriotic duty being to the country of your birth? Childish nonsense.
Those buttons, though. Aiden McGeady will be a star and he'll be our star and knowing that he has chosen us, doesn't it deliver just the slightest frisson of triumphant pride, that external validation we crave? It's an uncomfortable area and as a nation who boo and barrack opposing international players if they have ever been, as we see it, contaminated by contact with a Rangers jersey we are barred from taking the high moral ground.
Remember Saipan and that vicious and unfounded rumour that Roy Keane, in mid-rant, had questioned Mick McCarthy's Irishness in a rather crude and direct way? It never happened but even the whisper of it sent a shiver of discomfort down the national spine. Mentally we divided the team into two categories. Those who would be uncomfortable with the issue being out there and, well, those who were born here. There was the awful possibility that the rock had been lifted on that whole mess of worms.
We're as inept as the Scots are at understanding the nuances and ramifications of race and nationality issues. Do we love all English-accented players who play for Ireland as steadfastly as we love the home-bred boys? Honestly?
Who do we love more, an Irish player who was raised in England listening to The Clancy Brothers, being dragged to mass every Sunday and being forced to spend long summers with the relatives in Ireland during which time he tried his hand at Gaelic football or the fella who got a few schoolboy caps for England, saw nothing developing and ransacked the attic for his granny's birth cert? Do we cherish them both equally? Or are we just nodding insincerely at this point.
And the Kevin Nolans and Kevin Gallens and others who have dithered about their Irishness and then declined to come on board, do we not have a special cold storage place for them in our resentful hearts? Do we not take a little satisfaction in seeing them struggle in their careers? I know many, many people like me who were born in England of Irish parents. There's always something coming down the track which will make you feel a little less Irish than somebody who first saw the light of day in The Rotunda.
We're not broad and accepting. There are degrees. I remember Mick McCarthy once saying that his late father, Charlie, who hailed from Tallow in Waterford, had tried a few times to teach him how to hurl and thinking to myself happily that made Mick more Irish than he was before I knew that piece of information.
The lesson is that there are no easy lessons. We are coming fast towards a time when there will be kids born and raised beside me here in Marino who will be declaring to play soccer for Latvia or Lithuania or Nigeria.
Good luck to them. We should be as happy for them as we wish Scottish fans and journalists would be for Aiden McGeady. The only universal application of patriotism is what's in a person's heart and head, not where they got their first nappy changed.
------------------
Tom clears another Saipan incident up, 2 and a half years later. We're nearly there now.
I was born in Dublin (twist of fate) but I am a Corkonian.
I was born in....Drogheda
Sorry to hear that.Originally Posted by holidaysong
I was born in....Drogheda
"Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe." Dillo
interesting piece
Very interesting. Humphries can talk a good bit of sh*te at times but when he streamlines it, he's one of the best out there.
Interesting piece but a puff piece all the same. He didn't actually say anything other than "let's all get along".
There is no such thing as a miracle cure, a free lunch or a humble opinion.
I see what you mean but there aren't too many other things a respectable journalist can say as a conclusion, are there? While he can talk himself into the ground, there isn't enough comment like this in the Irish sports media. Most of it is based around endless match reports and tabloid adoration of overrated players, not enough examination of the game itself.
No disrespect to the man for this IMO good piece of journalism - I've not been a great fan of his since Saipan - but he may well have been born in Britain but it's having an English accent that makes the difference in my opinion to the 'real' Irish these days, not where you were born.
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
Born in Limerick Hospital 1977. Lived in Clare until 1986. Then Dublin til 1988. Then Perth, Australia until 2001. Then Dublin until 2002, then back to Perth until current date.
You can't imagine how my accent sounds!
I still consider myself Irish and if good enough would not even consider playing for any country other than Ireland. Still follow Clare in hurling, Munster in rugby.
So where does that leave Ronnie Whelan, with his weird half-scouse half-Dublin accent? Half-Irish?
Well said. Couldn't agree more.
[QUOTE=Stuttgart88]So where does that leave Ronnie Whelan, with his weird half-scouse half-Dublin accent? Half-Irish?
I think it's the smart ass coments that fans with inguurlish accents not players get, that he's meaning.
Its crazy to see people be what society wants them to be but not me.
Today i feel fijian!
Tomorrow i will feel ugandan
Friday i will feel like a Hungarian.
Saturday & Sunday I'll be Irish
I was thinking more of Steve Finnan and Gary Doherty. Both came to England very young - part of Brian Lenihan's declaration that Ireland wasn't big enough for 5million people - and both have English accents. If they were to go Ireland matches as spectators rather than footballers, the first thing asked was why they aren't at Wembley? (or wherever). Humphries on the other hand has (I presume) an Irish accent even though by his admission he was born in England. I'd bet he would never be asked such a question, even if he admitted where he was born.
Too many Irish people out there - and sadly on this board too - who haven't heard an Irishman with an English accent. That's the response I give now to why I'm not at Wembley. Bit of a sheltered life we've led haven't we? I mean half the side you're going to see will have English accents - a couple of whom were born in Ireland. You've even had a president (within my lifetime at least) with an English accent, FFS.
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
You mean like this?
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
Yes, Lopez but thats a joke. I dont need to put up a
I totally except that people born outside of Ireland with Irish ancestry are Irish (except for Wolf Tone fans, of course).
I do have a problem with poeple like Houghton though who play for Ireland from a pure mercenary position.
BTW on a sidenote Hungarians voted last month to deny citizenship to hungarian speakers born outside of Hungary (there are millions of them apparently).
sigh... as much as i wish that were true...Btw,so anyone who ever counted themselves as a 'Wolfe Tones' fan is notIrish..........
"I don’t want to tempt fate, but Thierry Henry is not having one of his best nights." - RTE co-commentator Jim Beglin, minutes before TH struck the stunning winner.
Funnily enough we voted last year to deny many people born in Ireland the right to Irish citizenship.
This is going to bite us on the arse in years to come when some young Romanian who started his career with St. Pats scores in a penalty shootout against us.
The article does turn out as "it is good to be nice", but there is a lot of ground being examined before the conclusion, and I cannot really see any other professional sports writer in this country (except possibly Con Houlihan on the odd day) daring to write something that goes beyond mere information and attempts genuine investigation. It is a reasonably well balanced article and it treats of the matter a little finer than it might be by many of the "commentators" on the issue in the political sphere.
That question was less stupid, though you asked it in a profoundly stupid way.
Help me, Arthur Murphy, you're my only hope!
and....
"I don’t want to tempt fate, but Thierry Henry is not having one of his best nights." - RTE co-commentator Jim Beglin, minutes before TH struck the stunning winner.
I'm glad to see that your unfunny quip was a joke, because the waking up and feeling a 57 variety of identities is the privilege of just a few people. What is the 'mercenary' position concerning Houghton? People's nationality/identity are gauged on 1. blood; 2. their birthplace; or 3. where they have moved to. Houghton turned down item 2 in favour of item 1. What's mercenary about that? If he chose to play for Qatar I'd think you had a point.
During the World Cup I got collared - along with Sylvo - in Saipan by a Spanish woman and a cameraman doing some vox pops for a US Spanish Language station. I mentioned the fact that I spoke Spanish was down to being half Spanish. She seemed a bit disgusted that I chose to follow Ireland (she didn't ask where I was born) instead of Spain, despite the fact that only in the same year had Spain allowed the maternal offspring born outside the country automatic citizenship.
It's odd that I don't get asked why I'm not at Wembley?, why don't I f*ck off back to where I come from? - or some other stupid question e.g. In a Boston pub by a Corkman that I should be good at Darts being English - when I meet my Spanish relatives. They ask me why I don't speak Galician and why my Spanish isn't perfect. That's the difference with Ireland where emigrants children are often treated like they're the half-cast illegitimate children of a wayward daughter.
According to the BBC the vote to grant citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in bordering countries was carried although a low turnout may have made the vote invalid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4069625.stm
For all the talk about fellow ethnics 'swamping' Hungary and undoubted pressure from the EU (While Slovakia is in the EU, Yugoslavia, Romania and the Ukraine are not) the result was surprisingly positive. BTW, the reason for the large number of Hungarians living outside the state is that the country's area was reduced after its defeat in WW1.
I did laugh at the Romanian PM sticking his two cents in. Is this the same Romania that has irredentist urges to consume Moldova and discriminated heavily against its own Hungarian population for years?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4065095.stm
Has the Irish government stopped all foreigners from applying for Irish citizenship? AFAIK it hasn't, just the right to automatic citizenship being born in Ireland brings. As for the Romanian, who's to say he'd consider himself Irish in the first place? Another example of being born in a stable means he must be a horse. Either way welcome Ireland to the world of multiculturalism. I hope it doesn't hurt your natives too much.
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
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