September 1979

I don’t remember much of the actual Papal mass in Dublin 25 years ago. Our vantage point in section '24 purple' was only about two miles from the altar, and squinting through eastern health board spectacles didn’t reveal more than a huge cross. If you throw in the barely decipherable tannoy system coupled with the Pope’s broken English, the mass becomes a lot of “what did he say Ma?” But I do remember the build up for different reasons. I was only just entering double figures, but on that day I realized I could annoy the bejesus out of people.

September 1979, and for the entire month all the talk in the shops was about him. He was coming, himself, to Ireland, isn’t it great? It took a while for a 10 year old to assimilate what exactly was happening. My mother was not overly religious; she kind of pretended to be. Mostly out of fear that myself and my younger brothers would grow up to be godless anarchists or even worse, communists. But our next door neighbour, Missus Hartigan was just short of being God’s special envoy to Finglas and her boss was on the way.

Missus Hartigan was older than my thirty five year old mother, probably only in her early forties but she always seemed old. Her shock of silver hair was either in curlers or in some kind of permanent Don King-esque afro, she was small in stature but big somehow, robust is the best description. When it was announced that John Paul Deuce was coming to Ireland to say mass in the Phoenix Park she must have thought that God was personally rewarding her with the holiest of masses in what was virtually, her back yard.

Apparently getting to the Phoenix Park (which is roughly a half hour walk from our house) for a twelve o’clock mass requires a ten year old to be awoken at 5 am. Missus Hartigan had taken over our pre dawn kitchen and with the efficiency of Colin Powell was going about organizing my fear stricken mother and her own twelve year old daughter to prepare more sandwiches than ‘Father Teds” Mrs. Doyle could even imagine.

My mother had dumped me on the sofa in the living room with a bowl of Weetabix next to David Hartigan aged 8 ½ . We did our usual swapping of eastern health board glasses to confirm how screwed up each others eyes are and argued whether his cousin, John, would ever be any good as Arsenal’s full back. Our house was a Man United house, his, by virtue of his mother’s adoration of Dave O’Leary and the fact that her own nephew was on the books, was an Arsenal house. They had beaten us in the cup final that May and the wounds still smarted.

I wandered into mission control to slip my empty Weetabix bowl in the sink when I caught sight of what was going on. The magnitude of this was far beyond my comprehension. Huge yellow flasks were being filled with boiling water from three simultaneously boiled kettles (two electric ones and the backup one for the gas cooker in case of a power cut, which in the seventies was almost an everyday occurrence). Brown soda loaves were being carefully wrapped in tea towels. Tins of ‘Picnic’ pink salmon were being drained and spread onto buttered batch loaf. Even at such a young age I couldn’t help making a smart remark about loaves and fishes, “Is the Pope going to use these sandwiches to feed everyone?” One sore ear later I was ordered to get my duffel coat on.

My youngest brother was only 2 at the time, so his go-car pram was used for transportation of toddler and foodstuffs. A square sticker bearing the number 24 and the colour purple was slapped onto my duffel and out into the darkness we went to see the Holy Father.

It was bloody freezing outside. I don’t think my mother was fully awake because I can’t remember her saying anything, but then again Mother Hartigan was in full control. This was her gig. No two ways about it. We walked, teeth chattering down to the valley by the River Tolka to take the back road to Cabra and down to the park. I’ll never forget the scene when we came down into the valley from our estate. The sun was just coming up and a heavy mist was rolling in off the river, David and myself were walking behind the two women. As we descended to the valley hundreds of Catholics streamed in great lines out of the housing estates all headed for the valley. It was like a mass baptism, and unbelievably, on looking behind us, it was Missus Hartigan who was leading about 3 hundred people (mostly women and kids) down to the river! And I swear, as I live and breathe, when the sun came up and shone through her grey Afro, you could just about make out the halo.

By the time I was ten it had already become evident that Missus Hartigan and myself had a distinct personality clash. She loved structure and organization. Schedules and order. Her house was timetabled. Her husband was a probation officer so he worked regular 9 to 5 shifts and everything revolved around that. Dinner was on the table at 5:30pm. Everyone sat down every weekday for dinner. David was called in from being in goal at 5:25pm. And that was him in for the night. The Angelus was on at six. News at 6:01. Tea was at 7:30pm. Kids were in bed by 9 at the latest.

My father, on the other hand, drove the 37 bus and was on either “earlies” or “lates”. “Earlies” meant he started at 5:30 and finished around half two. “Lates” meant he started about 3 and finished at midnight. In those days, those were the only two shifts on route 37 and they floated through the weekends as well. On the day of JP2’s visit, my father was on “earlies” so he was driving his bus up and down the Navan road while his holiness was kissing the tarmac at Dublin airport. This alternating shift pattern meant there was no real routine in our house and this antagonized the hell out of Missus Hartigan.

I’d be eating my dinner with a Famous Five book in one hand while I was walking around the kitchen table. I never sat down. Ever. Even watching television I’d lie on the floor. I broke hundreds of chairs in school by either swinging or slouching on them till they gave way. I never closed presses or doors after me. Ever. I had too much going on in my head. I had homework to do, that half of Finglas was waiting to copy. I had books that had to be finished. I had football games to play and this weeks Roy of the Rovers comic to get through before I swapped it with Will Deasy for his “Victor”. I hadn’t time for little things. I lived on questions and solving mysteries and this is what annoyed her the most. Her beliefs were based on blind faith while in my world everything had to have a logical explanation.

The walk to the park was amazing. Once you got past the freezing conditions, even a ten year old could see that something was up. The leaves along Nephin road were all crispy and brown and the procession grew even more as we left Cabra, the singing of hymns had started, and my bet was that Missus Hartigan had instigated them. My old man drove by us on the Navan Road in his bus and beeped the horn and waved. It was weird seeing him at work, but everything about that day was surreal.

It was easy to find out where to go once you were in the park. They had marked the altar with a huge cross. It was getting more surreal by the minute. We were herded into little compounds that were associated to the colour and number on our stickers. The little compounds were wooden pens that were a cross between animal enclosures and a concentration camp. The two deckchairs that were hanging on the back of little Andrew’s go-car were unfolded and the women sat down for a cup of tea. The mass wouldn’t be starting for hours. The pope hadn’t even kissed the ground at the airport yet.

It was a good job I skied a ‘half-read’ Famous Five book in my duffel. This kind of boredom, waiting, was my worst nightmare, without that mystery novel I would have been sent of to an asylum before noon, and Missus Hartigan was reveling in this. “Now sit down on the blanket and be good”. For eight flipping hours! Then it happened. Not the arrival of the Polish Pope. The inevitable boil over of the years of simmering frictions between Missus Hartigan and myself.

She pulled out a small leather purse. “What’s that for?”. She was getting holier by the minute, “These are my medals, David and Maire’s communion medals, and my rosary beads”. “Why did you bring them?” seemed an innocent enough question. “To get them blessed of course,” any more pious and we were going to have to ordain her right here. “But aren’t they blessed already?” Again, a straightforward enquiry. “Ah! But only by the priest, not by the Pope”. Hmmmmm! “So, how do you get to be the Pope?” She took the bait. “Well, after you’re ordained you’re a priest, then you can become a Monsignor, then a Bishop, then a Cardinal and then The Pope. That’s the way it works”. She still didn’t see it coming. “So what you mean is, The Pope was a priest first, and the priest that blessed your medals and rosary beads could someday become Pope, so what’s the difference who blesses them, they are all only priests and the priest that blessed them could someday be Pope and unless Jesus blessed them it doesn’t rally make a difference, and…”. Halfway through this sentence, my mother moved her hand in vain towards my mouth, almost in slow motion. Her head shook from side to side while her lips were mouthing the word “No” but no sound was coming out. Missus Hartigan was purple, like Violet Beauregard in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. God knows what would have happened if my mother hadn’t whisked me away for a time out.

I was picked up by my mother and we walked towards the toilets. “You shouldn’t upset Missus Hartigan, this is her day”, my mother said in her soft disappointed way. “I’m sorry Mam, but I just wanted to know why she brought her medals, did you bring my communion medal?” I offered as way of a truce. She couldn’t resist smiling down at me with my dog eared paperback when she knowingly gave me ammunition for the future “Nope. But ‘Famous Five go to Smugglers Top’ is going to be a hell of a lot holier than the Bible in her house”.

A true life lesson as Art triumphs over Economics

Last night Barcelona handed Jose Mourinho's Chelsea FC their dinner. In every single aspect of the competition FC Barcelona gave the economic might of South London their biscuits and sent them off to bed. Good night and good luck!

This was the biggest advertisement for the beautiful game in all it's purest forms anyone could have hoped for, and I for one, went to bed smiling.

Let's look at the two teams, their tactics and the outcome in a little more detail. This is more than a football lesson, this is a life lesson.

Barcelona are the only top flight European football team without a shirt sponsor. They are a football club in every sense of the word. The fans elect the president. They are not listed as a plc on any stock exchange and they don't hawk the latest airline company or electronics multinational on their player's chests. The president is voted in based on how the club is performing on the pitch, not based on the stock exchange figures. Their ethos is grounded in football and fandom and as a reult they continually attract the style of player who revels in the atmosphere of the passionate Catalan crowd. Ronaldinho, Messi, Deco and Eto'o could have their pick of any club in the world. Much wealthier clubs like Real Madrid have all vied for their services but they play their football in Barcelona because of the structure of the club. They play for a football club not a team that is fronted by a football business. As a result, Barcelona have only one thing on their mind (because the president wants to get re-elected) and that is to play football!

Chelsea, on the other hand, are not a club built on the backbone of supporter power. They were quite literally bankrupt three years ago when their Russian benefactor, Roman Abramovich, bought the ageing whore and sent her to the plastic surgeon. With Abramovich's billions, Chelsea assembled quite literally a team of mercenaries from around the globe. Players who's principal motivation was the lure of the almighty Euro. Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, Aarjen Robben, Assier Del Horno, Ricardo Carvalho, Hernan Crespo, Shaun Wright Philips and Petr Cech all clambered aboard the good ship Abramovich, enticed by the soulless and single minded Jose Mourinho. The greatest evil ever unleashed on the game of football.

Jose Mourinho is an opportunist. A man who rose through the ranks of the football business from being an interpreter at Sporting Lisbon. He was marched out of Barcelona at one stage in his career for his attitude and arrogance. He is a man who has a single minded vision to get the result at all costs. He has no conscience. His tactics against the artistry of the Catalan visitors last night showed the depths of how low he would sink to get his precious result.

Firstly, he sabotaged the pitch. He continually watered a rain soaked Stamford bridge playing surface turning it into a quagmire. He felt that by turning the pitch into a mudbath he couldn't force the Spanish into mistakes. When the two teams took to the field of play last night, there was no field, just mud. He clearly instructed Assier del Horno to physically intimidate the young Argentinan magician Messi. In the first ten minutes, del Horno had physically abused the winger on at least 3 occasions. The fourth time saw the referee rightly send Del Horno to the dressing room. Barcelona were still too good for the bully boy tactics and even after going one nil down against the run of play, the artistry of Messi, Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o shone through against the hod carriers of South London.

Mourinho has taken away all individuality of the players in his team. he instructs them, not in football, but in his dour version of the game. He plays them as a collective instead of nurchering the individual talent into a greater vision that infects the entire team. It is Team Mourinho, a team built around one man's ego and another man's deep pockets.

He is ruthless in his criticism of defectors. Carvalho, Crespo and Robben have all suffered indignities at the merest hint of revolt. It is his way or the highway. He is a man too rigidly true to a system. He, has in effect, no plan B. Plan A, works against his week in, week out premiership opposition in England. But take the team to a different level. a stage where football is played at the highest level and he fails to step up to the mark.

Football like life is best played honestly and within the rules of the game. The arena is a metaphor for life and not always will honesty and style and grace prevail. More often than not the guttersnipe tactics of intimidation and brutality will edge the contest. But when the cream rises to the top and achieves something of beauty it is revered and admired throughout the world.

Last night we saw what can be achieved, and damn, it felt good

Poppycock or BS?

Word of the day on Today FM on the drive into work this am was poppycock. I was rather amused by the origins. It's a word that's mostly associated with the more genteel crowd. The gentleman of breeding. Use it in a sentence and you'll immediately think of something like...

"Why that's pure poppycock Algernon!", exclaimed Lord Helmsbury, when his brother, the fourth Earl of Leicester, informed him that his wife, Lady Helmsbury, had been sleeping with the stable lad.

It's that kind of word. No, not really. It has, believe it or not, American origins. It was borrowed by the Americans from Dutch settlers. It was originally introduced as 'pappekak' which literally means 'soft-shit' in Dutch and it then presumambly entered the english vernacular via Dutch settlers in the USA. It's as much a cuss word as 'shit' is.

But you can't say shit on the radio.....

Gobshite Nation

Somewhere between my stint on a Russian Trawler and Manchester United winning the treble, Ireland got rich. Stinking rich. And as a result everyone, overnight, turned into a gobshite!

How did it happen?

Socio-Economics is not my area of expertise, but it seems that everyone in this country nowadays is a bloody expert on the subject. Don't ask me how. I don't remember there even being a class in socio economics at any school I attended. One noted commentator, who's only talent is stating the obvious, even moved his area of expertise from financial advisor to socio-economic commentator, when his prediction that the property market would crash left him with egg all over his face. But, seeing as though everyone is having a stab at socio-economic commentating, the following is my 2 cents. Be warned though, this ain't gonna be pretty....

I grew up in a working class suburb in the 70's. My schoolteachers were 60's idealists who were held in a position of respect by parents who didn't have the advantages of the kind of education system offered now to their children. If you treat an idealist with respect, you will inspire him or her to be the best they are. So my generation have probably become the best educated generation in the history of the state. The only drawback in our education was the lack of diversity and multi culturalism and this, sadly is being reflected in the country today, as our uneasiness with immigrants is seriously impacting the way we live.

When we came out of second level education at 17 years of age in the eighties, there was NO future. Ireland was a far cry from what you see today. It wasn't a country of endless shopping centres and high rise IT companies. It was an urban wasteland of glue factories and boiler makers all laying off staff on a weekly basis. The country was finished. So everyone went to college. Everyone was poor enough to qualify for a state grant so you didn't pay fees. I was lucky enough to get part time work as a bus conductor to finance my living expenses, so we went to college to get more of an education.

Then when we came out and stuck our big toes for that summer in the big pool of the real world, and there was still nothing happening but doom and gloom. So some of us went back in to the collegiate womb. I eventually emerged from my education as the nineties were dawning. 1990, a bleak, bleak year. The only queues in the country were for Unemployment benefit. Cinemas were closing down. We were a dirt poor country. Everyone was emigrating. Then something happened.

Ireland qualified for The World Cup in Italy.

People who had been living in a grim day to day existence simply said "Fuck It". Ireland had qualified for the first world cup in it's history, and folks were going on holiday. For many it was their first time out of Ireland. But they went and they endeared themselves to every nation on the planet and the euphoria that gripped the country for those three weeks had a ripple effect. People began to feel good about themselves. Tourism went up and up, when Irish people go away they bring everyone home with them. There was working class families in Coolock hosting German families one week, Dutch the next and Italians for Christmas dinner. There was a sense of community. The media had a field day. This attracted the attention of huge corporations like Intel and Hewlett packard, who invested heavily. The workforce was the best educated in europe, the media spotlight was on the Irish travelling support in Italy, the government, in fairness to them, used this as a way to source foreign investment. Within 10 years we would become the jewel in the EU crown. But the downside is ...

The downside is, that it happened too fast. The average price of a 3 bedroom house in Dublin went from 40,000 pounds in 1990 to 400,000 in 2006. People had new cars. Disposable income. Credit cards became the norm. We couldn't take it in our stride. We started behaving like caricatures of rich people. We became class focused and would try to play golf. We were like the pigs in animal farm. We made, in short, arseholes of ourselves. And we continue to do it.

In short, unless this country hits a serious recession, there'll be no real Irishness left, we will become another corporate sponsored territory in the global multi national universe. We will be expected to behave like our corporate brethren accross the globe. Our political correctness will have to be aligned with the manual for GLObalCorp. We will have the same policies and procedures for everything. You will be able to travel from Dublin to Los Angeles to London without noticing a difference.

The future doesn't look bright for this country. You can't stand on the terraces at Lansdowne Road unless you have a corporate admission. You can't get up front at a concert unless you are a member. Membership, they say has it's priveleges. Me, I'm with Groucho Marx. I want out. Out of this soulless excuse for a country that keeps digging itself into a bigger and bigger cultural void. Out, of this smoke free, self gratuitous, avarice ridden cess pit. Out, of this logo-ed up society.

You see most of the corporate recruits don't remember it any other way. I do.

I want the old Ireland back. I want to be a poor country again. I want high taxes and butter vouchers. I want buying a record to mean something more. I want it to be a sacrifice again. I especially want it for the younger generation. I want the eighteen to twenty five year olds to be poverty stricken. I want them to wear secondhand clothes. I want them to have to walk to work on the morning before they get paid because they have no bus fare. I want them drinking generic brand lager from cans instead of designer alco-pops. I want them with a packed lunch. Because, let's face it, there's nothing more annoying than a rich twenty year old....

Solo-Electric?

I saw Bob Mould play last week in Vicar Street. In fairness the only record of his I had really heard was 'Workbook', which was kinda okay. I was not familiar with the Husker Du or Sugar end of his career, so I went in blind.

I left after 50 minutes....

A solo performance started out with rudimentary strumming and shouting by Mister Mould, blending one song into another, crashing his acoustic guitar in a fashion not unlike the busker we passed outside on the street. A baldy angry middle aged man just didn't ring true. A distinct lack of honesty.

It descended into awfulness when his acoustic guitar was subsituted for a Fender Stratocaster. Now solo acoustic works. Sometimes. Folks like Beck and Bob Dylan and a few others can carry it off. But Solo Electric? Mental pictures of Billy Bragg keep popping up and they are not very pleasant.

We skulled the dregs of our beers and did a Snagglepus...

A truly dreadful show.