Pour one out for the Irish dancers, Mac. It’s been a long week. Might be the week that blows the whole racket wide open. No telling where this thing could end up. Easy now, you best leave the bottle. We’ll be here a while.
They’re saying the fix was in, Mac. Can you believe it? All this time, they’ve been doing us dirty. Leaning on judges, greasing the wheels, making deals in hairspray-filled backrooms. How do you like that? We thought it was on the level but they had a thumb on the scale all along.
Guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. The game went corporate a long time ago. Remember the old days, Mac? Come on, don’t be like that. You know how it was. Used to be, you went to a feis on a Saturday and so long as you got a bag of crisps and a fizzy drink, you were happy. On the drive home, the mother used to say it wasn’t about medals or trophies or any of that old ding-dong. The father used to say it was just as well it wasn’t.
But that was back then. We didn’t know what was coming. How could we? We were just bums trying to get along. You put in a couple of honest nights during the week then you got up on stage on Saturday. You did your hAon, Dó, Trí and you did it like you meant it. You won some weeks, you lost some weeks. No beef either way.
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And then Riverdance came along. No, I won’t shut up about Riverdance, Mac. You know how I feel about it. Riverdance put the squeeze on everything. Everything! Oh sure, sure – the world loved it and didn’t it make the whole country rich? Yeah, everybody got well. Everybody who made it to the top, anyhow.
Now, look Mac – you know me. You know I ain’t bitter. No way. Some Yankee Mick wants to grease up his chest and mainline sequins till he sweats pure glitter, that’s his lookout. Way I see it, Riverdance was a good pay-day for anybody that was in on it and I ain’t the kind of louse who drags a guy for turning a buck.
But it changed the game. Don’t try and tell me it didn’t. Just like that, Irish dancing turned into a one-way ticket outta Palookaville. Those feis Saturdays got cold in a hurry. I saw a lot of friends turn their backs and ramp up the competition. They forgot about the rest of us and went all-out for the big time. Me, I wasn’t good enough to keep up.
That’s what I thought anyway. Only now I see it was all a big nothing. The dice were loaded from the start. I may as well have been breakdancing for all the good it was doing me. I coulda done the High Caul Cap in a pair of hobnail boots and it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have had the same chance of winning either way
Didn’t know it at the time, of course. Too young. Too innocent. What a dum-dum I was. That time up North when the mother put her hand on my shoulder and went: “This ain’t your night, kid.” I thought she meant no chips on the way home. I don’t blame her – I can see now that we didn’t have the right connect and she got what she could while the getting was good. But still, she shoulda looked out for me a little bit.
Pour another one, Mac. It’s all going to come out now. Looks like somebody’s been talking. You know how that old carnival goes down. Somebody somewhere can’t do their bit and they turn canary. A goon dad goes a bit too far and a judge wakes up with a conscience. Or a mom with a grudge breaks up with a friend group and decides to spill the lot.
Next thing you know, Joe Duffy is reading out anonymous letters on the radio and everyone dummies up. You see how it was this week, Mac? Guys would admit to stepping out on their old lady quicker than they’d spill about what goes on in Irish dancing. All I hear is that everybody knows about it and that everybody has always known about it. But turn the tape on and nobody knows nothing.
Still, it won’t take much for it all to come crashing down. You watch. There’s a kid out there somewhere today and she can’t live the lie no more. She knows she made it to the top behind some real dodgy shit. Every time she looks in the mirror, her ringlets are gone a bit straighter. The laces have gone hard in her pumps.
She’ll be on the Late Late next week, crying her eyes out. It’ll do Toy Show numbers. And look, maybe this is what Irish dancing needs. A reckoning. A showdown. Time to clean house, smoke out all the rats. Could take a while but this might be a good start.
In the meantime, we’ll carry on with watching the stuff we know we can trust. How about you switch on the boxing there, Mac? What time’s the ring walk for Eubank v Benn?
Mac? Where’d you go, Mac?
