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It's Coming Home

At about seven pm yesterday, I made my way across the grass of Dublin's Phoenix Park to witness the homecoming bash for the Irish World Cup football squad. For much of the day, I'd been in two minds about whether to go. In the end, my tiredness and laziness were overcome by gratitude for what the last few weeks have given us. Unforgettable moments, many of them: Robbie Keane's ever more elaborate goal celebrations, Damien Duff's streaks down the wings, that glorious 30 minutes of extra time against Spain where we owned the match, where we really, genuinely believed that our Golden Goal was coming any second now. Almost as good were those moments off the pitch. Mick McCarthy's dropping jaw, so cartoonishly comical that if you haven't seen it, then I simply can't describe it adequately to you. Or Après Match's Tommy Gorman­Eamonn Dunphy interview ("Of course I want to analyse for my country" said Eamo, eyes welling with tears, "no-one wants to analyse for their country more than I do"), all the more savagely funny because it was so close to the bone. Or the by-now usual footage of people going mental all around the country.

We'll all have our own personal memories of course, of games watched in pubs and workplaces and homes, scenes similar to those we saw on the news. With only a few seconds of normal time left in the Spanish match, I had managed, in an effort to cushion the blow of the final whistle, to give up most of my hope. I took the opportunity to go to the pub toilets before the rush, and heard, as I stood at the urinal, an almighty cheer. "Goal or penalty?" wondered the guy beside me. "Peno. A goal would be louder." Problem was, by now we'd both started peeing, and had to wait until we were finished, before running back into the lounge, to throw ourselves in positions of supplication in front of the screen. I will confess that I did not wash my hands.

Fintan O'Toole suggested in yesterday's Irish Times that, though the past few weeks were, rationally viewed, a taking leave of senses on the part of the nation, they were in another way a coming back to our senses, a recommunion with our essential selves. He may have a point. If nothing else, we have been shown how far we have come.

In 1990 Ireland was pretty much a solid monocultural block. In 2002 there are resident here representatives of every one of the 32 nations in the competition, and then some. Moore St. and the Liberties, not long ago, the very symbols of old Dublin, now thrilled to the heroics of Senegal, or ­ imagine ­ shouted for Cameroon against Ireland.

The Irish flags fluttering almost everywhere the past weeks are taken for granted now, but its worth noting that in the late 80's, patriotism, nationalism, republicanism and provo-ism were conflated by many into a single politically incorrect entity, and the waving of the national flag only slightly more acceptable than having a "Tiocfaidh ar La" tattoo on one's forehead. In the end, it was football that took the flag from the provos, and its not giving it back. Now that the team is home, those flags will come down, for we are still at heart not a flag-waving people. Few people even wave the flag on St. Patrick's Day, you'll notice. Compare and contrast with Bastille Day, or worse, the 4th of July. But at least when we do feel like waving the flag, we can do so without sending out dodgy signals.

So, since our last era of football success, we've become multi-cultural and we've become confident. But most obviously, we've become wealthy. Seen the footage of Ireland during Italia '90 recently? I always remembered those weeks as a time when all was right with the world, but I saw that footage recently and was struck by how, well by how crap everything looked. Crap clothes, crap haircuts, crap cars on the street, crap streets. 1990 was very close to rock bottom for the modern Irish economy, so it's just as well we had something to celebrate. Now look at the place, the Penney's "Jack's Army" t-shirts replaced by …50 official jerseys and FCUK retro shirts. Mobile Phones! Shiny Buildings! Garda cocaine seizures ­ some people can afford cocaine! That means we even have yuppies now! Great Little Nation, eh?

In the RDS, the weekend between the Germany and Saudi games, I went to see a World Cup Special bill comprising The Proclaimers, The Sawdoctors and The Pogues. There seemed something anachronistic ­ more sentimental, less painful ­ about their ballads of emigrant homesickness. Though no less great, the music was less vital then when it was performed to full Irish houses in all parts of the world, back in the 80's and 90's, and thank God for that. Either my memory or my imagination tells me that "Dirty Old Town" was played over a montage of run-down urban scenes as part of one of the Today Tonight specials on emigration or unemployment that seemed to be on TV every other week in the 80's. Even if it wasn't, and even though it was written by a Scotsman long before, this is what "Dirty Old Town" will always summon for me ­ the factory wall, even its graffiti half-heartedly scrawled, streets deserted save for some groups of bored teenagers, smoking and kicking the kerbs. Shops boarded up, once-proud GAA clubs that could no longer get together a senior team, buses and trains bound for boats and planes. An Irish provincial town, rotting from the inside. You knew, when towards the end of the song, McGowan snarled "I'll chop you down like an old dead tree", that it was the town he was singing to.

In the RDS though, all that was long ago. A different era really, for me and my friends, because we are of a generation that approached adulthood as that dreary world began to be banished. Today that town has four or five coffee bars and a branch of Hobo. Talk to its schoolkids, they probably don't even know what "prefab" means. So we put arms around each other and swayed from side to side as we sang along, an elegy for days we were lucky to escape.

All this change hasn't come without a price, of course, but that's a whole other story. Recent weeks have shown us that we're still not above a bit of silly fun and shared experience. Hopefully Fintan O'Toole is right, and after a few years of the often frenzied pursuit of status, Ireland's got its groove back, learned to have real fun, rather than the frantic, hyperactive, glossy version of Temple Bar and the superpubs. When the Roy Keane story broke, I thought, "Oh God here it comes". I expected backbiting, cynicism, argumentativeness, bad temper. But once the games began, all was right with the world. While the naïveté of 1990 was never going to return ­ which was probably for the best ­ I found that we had not become so cynical that the "normal service will return after the World Cup" attitude could not be rekindled. And this time we had a team of real skill and invention to shout for, not a group of talented players reduced to a hoof-and-hope game as before. We left for Japan with only one world class player, sent him home before the tournament began and yet managed to return with four or five of them. Somewhere within themselves the team found a reason to believe, and passed that reason on to us. It was no small gift, and it was the reason so many of us came to the Park yesterday.

The whole evening had an air of organised fun about it, but there were some good moments. Après Match did a great job warming up the crowd. As a comedian, I have found it draining to MC a show in front of a mere 100 people, so I hope they were paid a fortune for their efforts. Picturehouse's "Sunburst", with its "Oh What a Day" chorus was perfectly chosen. Adding some star quality, Westlife took to the stage in green, white and orange suits. The effect was less evocative of Pete Townshend than of five dancing blocks of Neapolitan ice cream, but top marks for effort. Before the team's arrival, we were introduced to our hosts, Peter Collins and Joe Duffy. It probably makes me a nasty person, but I must admit I found it funny when Joe Duffy was booed onstage. While his Rare-old-times schtick can be wearisome, I think the real reason for his unpopularity is his irredeemable toolishness. You want him to shut up as soon as he starts, like the guy who's always trying to be funny, but never seems to notice that nobody laughs.

We weren't there to be entertained though, but to cheer when the team made their way on stage. When the cheer came, it was colossal and accompanied by a mass waving of flags, scarves, silly hats and inflatable hammers. There they were, those faces we've come to know so well. Niall Quinn, the most affable man in football, Steve Staunton its most trying interviewee. The younger lads, awed by the crowd, almost embarrassed. Damien Duff, unable to stop himself from making "what's this guy's story?" faces at Joe Duffy's idiotic comments. Shay Given looked for all the world like a GAA player receiving his All-Star. A good solid bloke probably, one thought. Poor Jason McAteer, on his 31st birthday, looked more embarrassed than anyone I've ever seen, as Given led the 100,000 in singing him Happy Birthday. Gary Breen said he couldn't wait for the European Championships. Not playing to the gallery but entirely realistically, in a matter-of­fact tone he added "and hopefully we'll win it". That's the real mark of how far we've come since 1990.
A lot done. More to do.

by
Fergal Crehan
19th June 2002

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