From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

On this day, nine months ago, Grace Violetta was born, in Bath, UK.

The significance is immediately obvious: she has now been out for just as long as she was inside in the womb. So I took the opportunity to interview her this morning, before she was whisked off to her other creche by her mother.

“Grace… Grace… over here… Grace”

“Now little treasure, which do you like best, your bottle or the womb?”

Grace looks up with a huge beaming smile.

“Are you glad you’re out. Wasn’t it very tight in there?”

Long continuous smile.

“Do you remember dancing to Amarillo, the Tony Christie song? Go on, you used to love that one. Amarillo… Amarillo… you remember?

Frowning now, the centre of attention is trying to get her mouth around a teddybear’s neck.

“You remember climbing the hill? All that lovely kicking Mummy. You used to love that…”

Teddybear rejected now. Replaced by a lever. Grace moves backwards in her playstation.

“Bahbahbahbah… blahblog blahblug.”

Silence. I can see pressure building up all over the face. A movement is about to happen.

“So would you say you like Cork more than Bath? Is it better over here? Do you like swimming in Bishopstown more than in Mummy’s womb?”

Stronger silence. Definite movement.

“Thanks Grace.”

After that searching interview I was left to ponder the significance of birthing.

What is the lasting influence of pre-birth conditioning? How quickly can you undo its effect? How genetic is a child’s smile? How random are those moods? Why do we divide life up into 12 month slots, rather than 9 month ones? If each year was nine months long, wouldn’t it be great because no two consecutive years would be alike.

I have to go off now… off to England… like so many of my fathers.

I have to go to see to my affairs over there.

There’s the house (bless it, in case that’ll help it sell), the agents (bless them, in case they sell it), the golf club (bless it, in case that’ll help me beat Pete McCaffrey when I play him there tomorrow afternoon), the loft (where the books, the wiffe’s wedding dress, and the British & Irish Communist Organisation papers are stored), and Bradford-upon-Avon to attend to.

I have 59 hours with which to visit our old stumping ground

That was a deliberate choice of words, Blank Paige, with which to renew my sensitivity for UK culture. 59 hours with which to combat the hypnotic induction that Ireland imprints on all returning souls.

By the time I come back, it’ll be clear whether the government is able to lead it’s employed lawyers through the challenge to draft legislation that will stand up to public opinion. I’ll have remembered that it is not only in Ireland that one mighty department of state can’t talk to another.

I’ll have tapped in to John Reid, ace department runner, and his efforts to run the Home Office. I’ll have picked up some tips that might work in this house.

I’ll have witnessed two Jaguars on their way out, I hope.

Did you hear the latest: John Prescott has been a Tory agent for the last twenty years. It seems he has been in the pay of the Conservative Party from way back, since he was working on the ships. How else do you think he could have remained untouched for so long? He used to be the hero of Bogside…

Dean Swift managed it. He straddled Dublin and London. Like a collossus. Some day I’ll write our own “A Tale of a Tub” and “Grace’s Travels“.

While I’m away, I expect you to be ready for a recall.

You need to be flexible and creative. If you need a make-over, you know where in Limerick, Castletroy, to go for it. I’m leaving Mary in charge again. Willie was fine last time, but there’s a place for Willie when you need him. Mary’s the man this time. She knows how to do an O’Gara. So if you need anything kicked into touch, you can be sure she won’t be playing croquet on the lawn while she’s in charge of the country.

Grace’ll be back later.

She’ll find me gone. She won’t cry. She’s a big girl. And, if she does, hasn’t that nice doctor given her her own syringe.

I’d like a quickie.

A fast tumble with this issue. There will be time for more than a fumble later. The cabinet said it would do the same today because it made it known that the minister for justice was going to report on developments this morning. The cabinet has also made it know that it is not going to rush to legislate.

If only “Mental Meanderings” were alive, I’d know so much more about the legal stuff.

The only point I have time to make today is the we live in quaint times: the age of “consent”. Isn’t consent the thing a man needed to request from a girl’s father when he was about to propose marriage?

Consent isn’t the right word for what goes on between two people when they have the hots for each other and can’t hold back. I’m not sure what is the right word but ‘consent’ is too cerebral.

It used to be fashionable for boys to propose and girls to dispose. The boy pushed as hard as he dared and the girl let him go as far as she was up for. Always a difficult issue. Always a thrilling issue. Always a fraught experience in the early days.

Now it seems that girls are even more up for sex than boys. I can hardly believe this but there was a recent survey.

Everything to do with sex is so much more complicated these days, thank goodness. It was awful when it was totally ‘black & white”, when there was only one thing you could say in public - unless you wanted the god squad on to you.

I hope this debate over when sex should be legal runs and runs for a while, so that we have time to register the enormous changes that have been completed. Clearly there is no way back to the time when it was legal for a woman to seduce a 13 year old boy and illegal for a man to do the same to a girl.

Like all quickies, I’m left a bit dissatisfied with the result, but at least I’ve lost my virginity on this one.

We have an extension and enrichment of the family to celebrate.

No longer is Grace the youngest.

The brother (P3) and his wiffe (H1) have produced a most fetching daughter, hopefully a close cousin for her nibs.

It is fitting to mark the occasion (which was last week) here, because, as you know, the main purpose of this blog is to record for Grace what life in Ireland was like through the eyes of her father.

This father’s delighted, and can’t wait to see the wee thing. Called after Faye Dunaway, no doubt. Wasn’t that Bonny & Clyde?

So, if Grace is called after a pirate, and Faye is called after the woman who played a bank robber in that great film, isn’t that enough to turn Grace & Faye into a gang to reckoned with?

I went out for a short, eventful walk yesterday afternoon, about 3pm.

The time was significant, as will be revealed below. The purpose of the walk was as much to test my legs as to give the child some fresh air and diversion: she was in moany humour. Grace is almost never crotchety. Usually the only thing she needs is variety. Give her that, and fair wind on her cheeks, and you have the most sublime, smile-laden, pre-toddling infant.

I couldn’t face the hill, so we kept to the flat.

This meant going round some houses we hadn’t passed before, seeing a horsebox outside one, and remembering the travellers in Limerick who want their horses provided for. (Limerick City Council has built some housing for travellers. It remains unoccupied because nothing has been sorted out for the horses. The travellers won’t move in; the Council won’t provide special field for the horses; impass while people on the housing waiting list look on, presumably enviously. For all I know this may be sorted by now.)

There was a child’s birthday party going on in one corner house. Looked as if that was a popular child, or else the parents had lots of friends. I saw two presents going in. Most of the other houses were quiet on a Sunday afternoon. But this was a special Sunday afternoon.

The games we played:

Further round, the developer has left a good open space suitable for games. In my day, this would have been ideal for football (soccer), and that’s the only game we’d have played there. We played rugby at school. It was compulsory to play rugby. But at home it was all soccer. On the streets in Limerick in the late fifties, early sixties, it was all soccer - even though I don’t think Ireland ever won a serious football match in those days, nor Limerick ever beat Shamrock Rovers (who were always the best). We never saw Man U, Spurs, Real Madrid on TV. (This was before I got into listening to matches on SportsReport, BBC Radio on Saturday afternoons, when they used to broadcast the second half of a first division match, followed by all the results and reports from five to six.)

Ash to ash:

Who was playing in that ‘field’ yesterday? Seven little boys, and a dad who went off to get something and returned just as Grace and I were moving on for close observation. Six of the lads had hurleys, one had a plastic baseball bat. The boy with the bat was on the periphery; he spent his time swiping at grassheads. But of the other six, two were dressed in club jerseys, one even had an elbow protector. There were great clashes of the ashes and the slitter must surely have been softened. I was very impressed with the goalkeeper’s ability to puck (hit) the ball out, and how the smallest defender seemed able to frustrate two tall attackers at the same time. They had great fun. I don’t suppose they were more than 10 years old. The hurleys looked long and big and lethal, but they had no trouble swinging them or bashing them. These weren’t rural kids; they were playing on an upper middle class housing estate in suburbia. We’d never have considered hurleys. I don’t think I ever owned a hurley in my life until I got two as part of the wiffe dowry signed by TJ Carey. (I think he’s famous from Kilkenny)

In case you’re wondering, there was an accident. One lad got hit in the chest and cried, just as his dad returned. But the others didn’t seem concerned. Grace took it all in and it was me who decided it was time to go home and watch the match.

Why was yesterday special?

Because Cork were playing Clare in the Munster hurling semi final.
I got the thought that this was the real campaign for Cork. Heineken had been froth. Exciting indeed, but here was the important stuff as far as Cork was concerned. 40,000 people in Thurles (”backofbeyond Thurles” I might have called it before I learned respect).

So Grace and I watched.

Bewildered at the ability of those guys to turn and hit the slitter through the posts from any angle…

Bewitched by the ability of some guys to run faster than all the others while balancing the slitter on the end of the hurley…

Bamboozled by the pace of the scores: if you coughed the ball might be over another bar

Bloody amazed by the Clare goalkeeper’s save when he dived to stop a shot at goal and, not only intercepted a sure goal, but cleared the ball in the resulting ‘rummage’ for possession.

This was serious athleticism. Something all Irish native dwellers probably know already, but to me it was a bit of a revelation. These guys don’t waste their time drinking and doing drugs. Probably stay off the women too. They were so fast. None of them looked tired and when they were substituted, I couldn’t see why. They just went on and on. I do remember one Clare guy who was brilliant in the first few minutes and then looked past it in the second half. Cork looked fit enough for back-to-back matches.

I wonder whether they have extra time and penalty shoot-outs in hurling? Or do they just make money out of replays? Some of my informed readers will enlighten me please.

Anyway, all this suggests that I have no business buying a soccer ball for Grace.

It’ll have have to be a rugby ball or a hurley. But before making that decision, I better watch a Gaelic Football match, in case I’m just as impressed with that game. It might be a good thing if I was taken with Gaelic football because you could use the same ball for soccer, couldn’t you? Or are the balls very different sizes?

As for the chance of interesting Grace in the noble game of cricket, I see an Irishman called Joyce was instrumental in Middlesex’s demolition of Ireland yesterday. Would he be called a turncoat now?

Now the child is ill, running a temperature.

At least that proves I wasn’t making it up. I did have something. And I didn’t give up over two days of my life for nothing.

I’m so unused to being ill that I wondered whether I might be imagining it all. There I was unable to find enough enthusiasm to be bored, sufficient energy to lie down or motivation to eat chocolate.

This morning’s waking was different, altogether different. There was earth, not sand, in the legs and minerals in the mind. I’d recovered. So I went shopping in the supermarket, swimming in the hotel, steaming in the Maryborough and pushed Grace round the estate while I tested the legs out in the fresh air. I consumed the Sunday Times, where there was some corporate news of interest to the wiffe, and then invested in The Sunday Business Post where I found an interesting piece on the corruption of politicians by Vincent Browne.

Hopefully the child’s fever isn’t serious. If it gets bad, I’ll go for the ice, and the cold bath treatment. At least I have the motivation to care for her.

I’m probably giving the impression that I’m not responsible enough to be licenced to be a dad. That may be so. But I aim to prove that wrong.

I’ve been blown out of the water.

The last couple of days have been awful. No energy. Waves of nausea. A stomach unable to hold food. Listless legs. Eyes yearning to close. The diarrhoea was stopped by ‘Arret’, and ‘Mautilium’ taken in an effort to achieve relief from debilitating tummy.

I’ve been imagining a twisted gut and a gallstone.

The worst thing has been the total exhaustion. That sent me to sleep at 21.30 last night. And getting out of bed this morning was like excavating bog oak. I tried “the cat” on the carpet, just to stretch out the back. Nearly killed me.

So I am up, but I don’t know how much of me is present. Herself is gone into town with the wiffe. Just as well because I’m not much fun to be around. I couldn’t bring myself to look after Grace this morning, and the rain, which is down (or in) for the day, seemed to encourage me to feel on-going gloom.

All of which made me feel rather vulnerable. One day you’re energised, creative, passionate and celebratory - and then the opposite. So opposite that you can’t remember ever being alive. And the road back to health seems hidden behind endless corners.

Self-employed people never get sick.

Only if you’re an employee can you afford to be ill. But, if you’re a journalist with a column wanting, what do you do when you are throwing up? I suppose you open up your store of pre-written pieces and present that. Alistair Cook comes visiting: that magnificent man who went on writing and broadcasting all his life. Reminds me of Nelson Mandela who goes on being himself all his life. He doesn’t need to say or do anything now because he simply stands for something brilliant. He’s a beacon around which others can measure themselves and design their own programmes for living authentically.

Doesn’t distract me from still feeling ever so vulnerable this minute. I couldn’t even sustain the energy to watch the whole of the interview with Brian Kennedy on Ulster TV last night. And you know how much I admire Brian.

I’m hovering on the edge of publishing “Slattery’s Mounted Fut“: new words I’ve been writing to that tune. Percy French’s song. My dad used to listen to Percy French all the time, when he wasn’t listening to Chopin or Beethoven. Maybe it’s only old people like me who know the tune to that song? It seemed like the ideal song to celebrate Munster. So I found all the words on the internet and made up a table with Percy’s lyrics on one side and my bowdlerisation beside it. (Do be sure you read this link. Bowdler was from Bath.)

The Chorus goes this way:

Chorus
And down from the mountains came the forwards and three quarters
Eight and fifteen fighting men and couple of stout half backs
When going into action held each Frenchman by the seam,
We sang a song and march’d along with Kidney’s Munster team.

I think he also wrote “The Mountains of Mourne“, which reminds me of climbing Sliamh Donard in 1995.

All this jumping around from topic to topic is good for me. It’s like going to the gym. Exercise without intention. Letting whatever words come up come out and simply express. Anything to prevent myself thinking about my body. The hardest thing is stopping because there doesn’t seem to be any natural end.

Which is probably a good place to stop for now.

I went to Schull yesterday, with Adrian, my new friend.

We took the 1120 departure from Cork and got to Schull in time for lunch at 1335

It was rain all the way. Rained all day. Mist right down. So we sampled two pubs and a delicatessen for coffee. I was delighted with my “spicy mixed veg and black eyed beans with corriander and chilli oil” with white bread roll from Hackett’s.

Met a couple from Darwin, Australia, who told me about Japanese people who fly down to see Ayers Rock in 24 hours. Met a couple of French girls on their way to Mizen Head, after flying into Dublin and on to Cork. One of them even knew Vierzon, Department de Cher, where I spent time learning French in my teens.

Saw a great painting of a woman drinking a pint of porter, in a shawl. with a grandmother also drinking porter in the background.

But most of all I got a short story drafted, while sheltering over coffee. I might put it in for the “Bealtaine” competition being run by Cork public library. Any topic, so long as the main character is an older person.

We didn’t miss the bus back to Cork.

I had a shower this morning.

Washed my hair as well. And I went to condition it. That’s when the trouble started.

I need two essential ingredients for my hair to survive: “Head & Shoulders” shampoo and any old conditioner. But, if I don’t condition my hair, I have a dry, frizzy greying, fuzz on top.

Dripping in rinsed shampoo, I reached for the conditioner. It was gone. I’d forgotten that it had run out yesterday. Obviously the wiffe had a tidy-up because the empty plastic bottle I’d left on the floor of the shower was disappeared. I’d hoped there was a dribble left in the bottom.

Without my glasses I am very myopic.

Even if I put the writing right up to the eye, words are still blurred. But if I put the forefinger and thumb of each hand together, in a diamond shape, and squint through the gap, I can sometimes distinguish letters. That was how I came to familiarise myself with the wallpaper in our en suite.

Our wallpaper:

I call it ‘wallpaper’ because all those plastic and glass containers on the tray under the showerhead are just like wallpaper: they make no impression on me. They are there in the background. I never notice when they expand or contract, or when they change colour. They are a constant presence that never gets noticed. As I’ve said, I only need two bottles.

I discovered 10 other containers in what is a tiny shower area. I must stress that there are other cupboards, presses, bathroom and toilet areas in the house, so these 10 are but a fraction of the whole picture.

What an education! This is what I found:

Clarins Gommage “Tonic” Corps Aux Huile Essentielles Toning Body Polisher

A shaver attached to the tiles.

Made me feel so inadequate, scruffy, rough, foliating… and frustrated. Not a single drop of conditioner. Reminded me of “The Ancient Mariner” (’Water, water all around/ nor any drop to drink…”‘)

Help, men… How do you cope with all this stuff surrounding you?

“Shure why, Omani, would you want to join a writing group?”

Marcin, my mate from Krakow, ran into me on my way back from Carrigaline last night. He was heading for one last pint in Barry’s and needed company.

“Didn’t you learn to write in school? In Poland we have a good school system.”

“I know that. Don’t I know you speak at least five languages. Have you learnt any Irish yet?

Marcin got to the bar first, but I knew the pint was on me.

“Go on, you’re well out of school. Why would you be learning to write? Don’t you write many poems?

“A load of poems, Marcin. You say ‘a shitload of poems’ in Ireland.”

” I still don’t understand.”

“Anything else?”

He had half his pint drunk and I’d hardly started. Barry’s was quiet on a Monday night, and it was already 11.05.

A long pause during which Marcin picked a bit of his nose and scratched his ear. “When my uncle died, I wrote a letter to my aunt.”

“Go on. What sort of a letter was it?”

“Twas long. All about how much I’d miss him. About how we use to go fishing in the old days. I remember he had a wonderful fishing rod.”

“So you wrote this letter all about your favourite uncle and how he used to take you out with him. Did you ever buy him a fishing rod?”

Marcin’s glass was nearly there. I knew he’d need another pint. Knowing him he was just back from his third job. He’s a complete slave to the emigrant’s remittances.

“What this got to do with a writing group?”

“Do you think you’re the only one who went fishing with his best uncle? Don’t you think there are loads of Poles who have had that sort of experience? Loads of Irish too? Marcin, you’ve had a universal experience.”

He looked at me straight in the face and frowned.

“I never thought of it that way.”

“Selfish bastard. Are ye all like that?” I joked.

“Will you feck off. So what if I’ve had a … what you say… universal experience?”

“You could put it like that. How else would I find out whether my experience was like other people’s? Have you ever heard of ‘Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather‘, by Gao Xingjian?”

“Jesus Omani, is the writer from Finland or somewhere?”

“Aren’t you going to finish your drink?”

“Can’t you forget about drink for a minute and be a writer? Can’t you see that letter to your aunt as pure writing, as something you share with so many others? What’s wrong with going to a group to see the connection between you and rest of humanity?”

“Jesus, Marcin, you get more Irish by the day. You start something serious as if it was a joke, and when it gets serious you turn it into a joke. Would you say that’s universal?”

“I’d say you do my head inside out.”

“Feck off you old bollicks… how’s that?”

I left him 12 euros for his trouble, knowing he’d never been late for work in his life.

I haven’t been the same since Saturday’s victory and its aftermath.

I’ve been difficult to live with. I’ve had a secret compulsion that can’t be spoken about. I’ve been flatulating for Munster. Yes: breaking wind all round the house as a consequence of the match.

This is the full story:

I left Cork on Saturday morning at 1015 with my system intact. I passed Blackpool and noticed the huge Munster rugby shirt pinned to the outside of the shopping centre. This was the first extravagant gesture of support that I’d seen in Cork. There had been a rush of flags on Friday, designated “Red Day”, an exponential rush: in Douglas shopping centre flags on cars went from one to four and inside about one shop in six sported the colour. Only the Irish Examiner, a Cork produced newspaper, stood out from the crowd of restrained, modest rugby support for which Cork is renouned.

The twisty road to Limerick

(”The rocky road to Dublin”) had its usual processions. (Those who say that Irish roads are haunted by speeding drivers must be on roads I don’t know. Every time I drive I find myself in behind a long line, in behind a lorry, tractor, or someone who feels safer out in the middle of the road preventing anyone from passing.)

But I got to the brother’s house just in time before 12. The taxi to take us into town was ordered for 12. It couldn’t come until 1220 because of the traffic around town. We knew O’Connell Street was pedestrianised for the big screen that proved a match winner. Brother No 2 directed the driver to pick up two other lads and we four hit town in good time for a meal by the river. Three beef stroganoffs, one pork, one pint of guinness and bottle of “red” wine later and we were primed.

Of course we were each in our personal red

There were people settling down to stay in the restaurant for the duration; there were others, notable one georgous woman, passing through, loading up the soakage.

The most important matter was to make sure we had prime position in Myles Breens.

If anyone had commandeered that spot, there was likely to be not so much a stand-off as an early Munster ruck. Our little group possessed a formidable front row, and I’m good at putting it in like Stringer. And brothers No 3 & 4 would be on hand to pile in, because this was a real male family affair.

Strategy is key. Kidney the influencer. We got one person to occupy five stools, so that we could survey the action. I was intent on joining Magnum for the day.

You can see plenty of photographs of what it was like by clicking on to “The Limerick Blogger” site. I focussed on “dogs for Munster” and the guards, and the inside of Breens at key eruptions.
Eventually they’ll appear on “Flickr”.

A couple of pints went down well before kick off.

Fortunately I didn’t get into a round, so I was able to speed ahead and be totally blotto by half time and slept through the entire second half.

Alternatively, I was able to pace myself nicely, drink a pint for every Munster try, and two for Stringer.

Suffice to say that I photographed myself with tears rolling down my cheeks, highlighting my double chin. I had no shame. I shed tears with the best of them.

When my first marriage was ending, I wasn’t able to cry.

I craved the release of tears. There have been other times too when I’ve been so miserable that it would have been a blissful relief to have cried like a baby. Oh, if only I could have cried like a woman, I’d have been a better man.

But, without inhibition, I cried for Munster, I cried for the dead generations of supporters and players, I cried for the little ones who were there today, for their futures, for their pride and inspiration. I cried for my own joy, for all the reflected glory that I could muster. I wept with strangers: I remember gripping the hand of a man I’d never seen before, as if we were blood, and squeezing my joy with his in an orgiastic celebration: we are the champions, we are all champions… Whether you be in Cardiff, Limerick, Cork, Dublin, Moscow, Biarritz, Brisbane, Scottsdale… we are the champions. Breens the venue, pints your only man.

From there it was onwards and upwards.

Out of Breens onto the streets. On the streets until they emptied enough to reveal litter by the bucketful.

A parish victory. This was no passive crowd. Everyone felt revived, renewed, relieved. If it had gone the other way… doesn’t bear thinking about.

One of the guys dropped back to go drinking with another crowd while we went on to the other screen, out in the suburbs, a pub where there was a band playing and loads of people , supporting both Toyota and Bank of Ireland. There was no discrimination. It didn’t matter when you got your jersey: you were all Munster, all Ireland, all Europe.

The word was that MUNSTER EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD, that phrase the catchcry.

Pints for O’Gara, pints for Horan, pints for Stringer… these were people honouring heros, drinking fatted calves to Chuhullan’s sons. (You better check that spelling.) Brian Boru was risen again. All the myths and mythmakers were abroad loose and thriving. I can tell you that there were 150,000 Munster supporters in Cardiff Millenium Stadium, at latest count in 2007. People who weren’t there were there. This was the mightiest dream imaginable.

One last pint for the road.

One more hug. One more bit of mad passionate love in the corner with a complete stranger. Oh, it wasn’t bad. I suppose you could say it was OK. I must not forget the art of understatement that I spent 30 years learning in England…

Back to brother’s house for soakage and nothing better than a superb fillet steak that could have been cut from O’Connell’s arse. I remember how juicy it was and how the juice of the steak mingled with the juice in the mouth of victory.

Brian was on in the background. Brian Kennedy for Ireland in Eurovision. I watched him sing. Watched him strive to summon up that same committment that had driven “The Fields of Athenry”.

Then I fell asleep and woke up when it was all over.

Clueless as to how many votes he got. I felt it was only fair to let some others win.

After you’ve won the Triple Crown and the Heineken Cup, you need the generosity of heart to let Finland win something at last.

Today, a cloudy but dry Cork day, I still have that memory. Reinforced about every half hour. It was indeed an extraordinary, flatutabulous event. And I must admit to a private peccadillo: all these farts for Munster are sacred to me. I will not fight them.

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the
journey-work of the stars…”
Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’, (1855)
________________________________

In 1968 Ken Lyons played on the wing for Crescent College, Limerick.

I was in the second row. He didn’t get much service because our pack wasn’t dominant. In those days, the outhalf used to kick to touch, endlessly. I just wasn’t tall enough, or good enough.

Today Ken Lyons is chairman of Munster Branch rugby. He’s in Shannon Airport with a sea of red. He’s just been interviewed on RTE radio.

We weren’t friends at school.

We belonged to different camps. This didn’t stop us playing on the same team but I don’t remember ever having a friendly conversation with Ken. Maybe boys didn’t do friendly conversations…

38 years, I think, since I last suffered defeat with him, since we last spoke.

But I was so impressed with his interview.

Nothing but measured thoughts about the prospect for Munster against Biarritz. “It’s just another game… Biarritz are a very strong team… It all depends on what team turns up…”

No mindless enthusiasm. No putting down of the other side. No over confidence. Nothing like “The trophy is ours… we are destined to win… it’s ours by right…” Remember Kidney, the Munster coach, saying that Munster were lucky to beat Leinster? Ken Lyons was so down to earth, so realistic about Munster’s prospects.

So unlike the average football supporter, so unlike the average football manager…

I was proud of Ken this morning

and I suppose there’s a bit of wishing for reflected glory in this post. It would be good to meet up with him again.

“Oh Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.”
Walt Whitman, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ (1871)
__________________________________

I found this in a corner of Cardiff. It looks like the text of a speech.

“Eleven years ago, a great Limerickman, Richard Harris, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Heineken Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to thousands of Munster supporters who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But 11 years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Munstermen are still not free.

“Eleven years later, the life of Munstermen is still sadly crippled by the manacles of disappointment and the chains of desolation. Eleven years later, the Munstermen live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Eleven years later, the Munsterman is still languishing in the corners of European society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

“So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to Cardiff to cash a check. When the architects of our province wrote the magnificent words of “Men of Munster” and “Stand up and Fight”, they were signing a promissory note to which every Irishman was to fall heir.

“This note was a promise that all Irishmen would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of victory, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that Ireland has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of red are concerned. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, Ireland has given Munster people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this rugby loving nation.

“So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of the Heineken Cup and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind Europe of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of disappointment to the sunlit path of rugby justice. Now is the time to open the doors of success to all of God’s Munster children. Now is the time to lift our province from the quicksands of rugby injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

“It would be fatal for Europe to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Munstermen. This wind swept drenching winter of the Munstermen’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating spring of victory and equality. Two Thousand and six is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Munstermen needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if Europe returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in Europe until the Munsterman is granted his Heineken Trophy rights.

“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for victory by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative forward thrust to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

“The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Munster community must not lead us to distrust of French or Leinster people, for many of our Irish Leinster brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their hopes are inextricably bound to our victory.

“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall ruck ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of fair play, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of the maul, cannot gain lodging in the hotels of South Wales and the hotels of Cardiff. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Munstermen’s basic mobility is from a smaller pitch to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Munsterman in Dublin cannot celebrate and a Munsterman in London believes he has nothing for which to celebrate. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from farms. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for victory left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of opposing brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to follow with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

“Go back to Shannon, go back to Cork, go back to Young Munster, go back to Garryowen, go back to the highways and byways of our southern towns, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Munster dream.

“I have a dream that today Munster will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all Munstermen are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the green hills of Munster the sons of former packs and the sons of former backs will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the county of Limerick, a desert county, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of celebration and justice. I have a dream that my children will one day live in a Munster where they will not be judged by the colour of their jerseys but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

“I have a dream that one day the county of Cork, whose lips are presently dripping with the words of desperation and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little red Cork boys and Cork red girls will be able to join hands with little red Limerick boys and girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

“I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of all Munster shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see the Heineken Cup together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to Thomond Park. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our province into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to ruck together, to play together, to struggle together, to go to sin-bin together, to stand up for victory together, knowing that we will be victorious today.

“This will be the day when all of Munster’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My Munster, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let victory ring.” And if Ireland is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let victory ring from the prodigious hilltops of all Ireland. Let victory ring from the mighty mountains of Kerry. Let freedom ring from the grasslands of Tipperary! Let freedom ring from the sacred banks of the Shannon and the Lee! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of the Cummeraghs! But not only that; let victory ring from the Island Field of Limerick! Let victory ring from the lanes of Angela’s Ashes! Let victory ring from every hill and every molehill of Munster. From every mountainside, let victory ring.

“When we let victory ring, when we let it ring from every village and every townland, from every county and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of Munster’s children, Clare men and Tipperary men, Waterford men, Kerry man and Cork men, Shannonside and Leeside, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Munster spiritual, “Victory at last! victory at last! thank Munster, we are free at last!”

I wonder who wrote that? And does he have another copy?