The Strong Counties: The same three or four strongholds rich in people, land, tradition, ballads, nicknames, eccentric radio broadcasters, boarding schools and the kind of collective bloody-mindedness required to keep on winning All-Irelands.
Always careful about how they speak about the counties whose asses they have been kicking since Michael Collins was chasing Kitty Kiernan because they don’t want to appear smug – which makes them seem even smugger. Have an inkling but not the full picture of just how much they are hated by the nation at large.
The So-Called Weaker Counties: Hopeless places filled with the kind of deserted villages that Goldsmith banged on about and mired in problems like emigration, ghost estates, corrupt planning and country music.
Bronchial of chest and lily of liver, they issue periodic statements declaring their fears that they won’t be able to field a team “the way things are going”. Forced a redraft of the championship format to give them a second chance but rarely take it. When they do, they bitterly denounce everyone for “writing them off”. Produce one genuinely brilliant but temperamentally-troubled young forward every decade who plays just long enough to lift the hopes of his county men before rowing with the county board over expenses and absconding to Yonkers where he can make a pretty penny during the week and watch the So Called Weaker Counties get their asses kicked on Sunday morning while he hammers pints and enjoys other expatriates telling him that he is dead right to stand on his principle.
The Soldier’s Song: The Irish national anthem currently under attack from those who want it replaced by something less bloodthirsty and vengeful and something that sounds better. But the most eloquent defence of Amhrán Na BhFiann can be found in Croke Park on the first and third Sundays of September. Stand inside (or outside) the ground and hear it without getting the shivers. Peadar Kearney dares ya.
Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin: The Voice of Summer who could make a blind man see won’t be calling championship games on RTÉ radio for the first time in 50 years. It may turn out that the games were rubbish all these years and Ó Muircheartaigh just made them sound brilliant. Also, the Voice of Sunday Nights won’t be calling the championship results for the first time in 63 years. When those cats spoke, you listened.
Scarlett Johansson: According to a memorandum released by Croke Park, the Lost in Translation star has replaced Angelina Jolie as the most popular nominee in the “Ideal Date” category that GAA stars sometimes fill in, ignoring the fact a date between a typically 20-ish Irish lad studying Mech. Eng. and obsessed with Sigerson/Fitzgibbon and a voluptuous millionaire Hollywood A-Lister currently linked with the notoriously volatile Sean Penn would almost certainly be a fiasco – unless it turned out that Ms Johansson’s idea of a swell time includes hanging out in the tunnel underneath the Hogan Stand while her date gets changed, having a few cocktail sausages upstairs with the boys of Central Council, staying in the Burlo, getting “free” into CopperfaceJacks until about 3am before demolishing a garlic cheese chips somewhere off Grafton Street.
Which would probably be more fun than the nights out in LA.
Shemozzle: Beautifully innocent sounding expression which covers anything from four to 30 GAA stars inflicting various levels of GBH on one another in the name of the jersey. Not to be confused with the “melee”, which is a downright free-for-all involving selectors, nuns, grannies and basically anyone in the ground whose heart is still beating.
Marty Morrissey: Forget about the manic work rate of the Kilkenny hurlers: here is the hardest working man in the All-Ireland championship. Suspicions that the Clare man is one of identical Morrissey triplets fronting RTÉ’s summer coverage are mounting. Like Phil Collins at Live Aid, Marty has the ability to appear in two places at once. Rumours persist that he conducted pitch-side interviews in both Thurles and Casement Park on the same afternoon last summer. Has a soothing interviewing manner which clearly helps managers in the traumatic moments after a defeat.
Michael Lyster. Debonair front man who puts the “sun” in Sunday afternoons.
Effortlessly smooth talk-show style – the guy who does the Late Late would do well to study Lyster navigating his way through Pat Spillane with a bee in his bonnet. Gifted at subtly defusing the little rows and parochial misunderstandings that constantly threaten relations between Joe Brolly and said Spillane, Joe Brolly and Colm O’Rourke, Joe Brolly and the floor manager, Joe Brolly and the Make-Up Artist, Joe Brolly and the Canteen Lady . . . Can’t resist looking a bit gleeful whenever a Galway team does well. Has worn pretty much every shade of beige in the spectrum during his television years.
The Media: Hateful mob with appalling sartorial sense and nothing good to say about anything or anyone. Get “free” into all championship games where they spend their time wolfing sandwiches and bitching about how terrible the games are. Never participate in the Mexican wave in Croke Park. Appear as a Mafiosa-type rabble outside dressingroom doors where they insist on asking daft questions of managers. Regarded with suspicion and loathing by many managers who bestow a kind of voodoo power upon said media and fear nothing more than “the headline” which can be pinned by opposing managers on the dressingroom walls.
It all changes for players on the day of their retirement, when it suddenly becomes okay to join the despised ranks of “the meja” and pen a column or sit on the RTÉ championship sofa.
The Back Pocket: Used by everyone from James Dean to John Travolta as a convenient storage point for the comb and useful to Londoners for a quick retrieval of their Underground ticket but, in Ireland, the back pocket has become the favoured keep safe for All-Ireland medals. This arrangement is fine in the counties where All-Ireland glory is as regular as Haley’s Comet: one All-Ireland medal wedged between the leather wallet and the Durex in the rear pocket of the Wranglers causes no great discomfort to the young GAA hero out for a night on the tiles. But for those multiple All-Ireland medal winners from Kerry and Kilkenny, it is a different story. Next time you think Páidí Ó Sé is walking with a bit of a limp, just remember the man is probably packing the full eight Celtic Crosses. Kerry greats have severe back problems caused by the strain of carrying those precious hunks of metal in their ass pockets for quarter of a century. Paul Galvin may end this ridiculous practice by appearing with one or several Celtic Crosses worn on a medallion, a la Jay-Z.
Kilkenny: Fearfully brilliant hurling county whose teams seemed incapable of losing games for most of the last decade but suddenly looking terrifically vulnerable. Rumours that they are “finished” will almost certainly be proven wrong. Most of us will only believe it when Morgan Kelly writes it.
Kerry: The jewel in the GAA football crown, a rugged and beautiful land filled with natural footballers and people who talk at breakneck speed. Currently struggling with the new reality – that Cork has become better than them at football – and may be about to enter their later Elvis years. Then again, they might just win the damn thing.
The Captain’s Speech: It’s been a while since a winning captain has delivered a speech to make Barack Obama wonder about his talent for the public address. Those rare gems – Joe Connolly 1980, Anthony Daly ’95, Dara Ó Cinnéide ’04 – mask the fact that most speeches are extravagantly awful.
The adrenaline/exhaustion/nerves/delight leaves them in no fit state to compose their thoughts so most All-Ireland speeches end up sounding deranged, little more than a prolonged yelp of delight down the microphone. Should they be ended? Not on your life. They are among the things that make the All-Ireland championship great.
