Susan Hated Literature

So Clare hurling is in an uproar. Still.

For those of you that don’t know^[1] there has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the county of Clare recently. Clare is a hurling^[2] stronghold. Hurling is an Irish game, played with a sliothar^[3] and a hurl^[4] and the scoring of goals and points^[5]

A short while ago Clare held an awards ceremony. Where they celebrated their players of the past. Only not everyone was happy. Not everyone got an award.

Enter Ger Loughnane

Now Ger will be well known to any of you who watch the GAA on the telly^[6] what with his outspoken comments and mini rants and raves that are so entertaining in a telly pundit. But Ger is also a hurling great. And he is from Clare. But (you can see where this is going) he didn’t get an award. Instead his arch-nemisis got one. Some priest called Fr. Harry Bohan. He is a Clare selector, but I know nothing else about him, I’m not a huge hurling-follower.

Okay, so all that is the background. Clear is it? As mud? Good.

Now, after the awards ceremony Ger was on the phone to the Clare County board chairman Michael McDonagh. I enjoyed In Fact, Ah’s description of this so I’ll quote it here:

To let off some steam, Loughnane telephoned the County Board Chairman Michael McDonagh to make known his displeasure about the awards. He said he used colourful terms to describe his annoyance (this can be most definitely read as fucking him out of it from a height). Loughnane made the call on speakerphone and forgot to hang up properly. He then called his friend Colum Flynn on his mobile, the team doctor who was being accused of all sorts by the team management at the time, to console him. He did so by detailing how he’d imagined shooting a certain person’s head (Fr. Bohan his arch enemy) that was on top of an oil can while out hunting.

Heavy breathing emanating from the speakerphone alerted Loughnane to the fact that he failed to terminate the call to McDonagh who happens to be a Garda. Unbelievably, McDonagh reported the matter to the Gardai.

Jayzis lads, it is like the Roy Keane affair all over again, only instead of an Irish footballing civil war we are going to have a Clare hurling civil war.

Let’s hope that the Irish Blog Awards don’t suffer such a fallout.

And I haven’t even mentioned the Welsh rugby saga. looks like the sporting world is going insane

As you know, I was home at the weekend. And if you don’t know why don’t you know? And home, as you all also know^[1] is Sligo. And it struck me, as I was journeying on the train, how when you live in the city the seasons don’t really make an impact. Apart from having to wear a heavier coat^[2] or bring an umbrella with you. Actually, I suppose it’d have a bigger impact if you lived somewhere with huge seasonal variation, you know, like America and its huge falls of snow. So what I’m saying is, living in a temperate climate, in a city, the passing of the seasons doesn’t have all that much of an impact on your life. You get disconnected because it doesn’t really matter that Spring is here because the weather is still cold and a little on the rainy side, and pretty much just like it was last month.

But on the train, looking out the window it was clear that the season has changed, and that spring is here.

Now I know that with modern farming you’ll get calves born in September, but seeing a whole herd of lickle calves out and about in the field means that it is spring. Being home and seeing the normally mountain-living sheep down in the nearby fields means that it is spring.

Okay, so I didn’t see any bouncing lambs about^[3] but there were snowdrops and daffodils, and the cat catching birds again for the first time since last autumn. Okay, maybe that last example isn’t really spring-like and bursting with new life, but you know what they say; you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette.^[4]

So I have decided, that from now on, this blog shall adopt the month of Feb. as the month of the new year. Enough of this end of Dec nonsense. Let the rest of the world’s population^[5] celebrate 1st Jan as the new year, I think that the start of spring is a much more sensible thing. Them olden days people with their Imbolc had the right idea.

Please note, me stating this does not mean I shall remember it next year. Nor does it mean that the end of Dec will not be marked. After all, I’ve never really brought up the digestive biscuit again now have I.