Is Shane MacGowan Still Alive?

by Tim Bradford

  Sometimes at a match, of whatever sport, I love to just watch one person, see how he copes with the pressure of the game. By doing this you try and get inside his head. It’s best not to choose the stars of the team, who often do things instinctively and are not like you or me, but the lesser players, the ones who are operating at the peak of their ability all the time just to survive, the ones who really make an effort. The ones where you can almost see in their eyes the fear of making a mistake and the real desire to do well. These are the sports stars I’ve always respected, the ones who put their psyches on the line. The ones for whom it’s a battle. The ones who are no different from the people in the crowd. I choose to watch Mark Sullivan, the left-back for Waterford. He looks athletic but slightly frail and is marking a big powerful ginger lad who is obviously a bit of a star. Sullivan, I find out afterwards, wasn’t first choice for this game but came in at the last minute after the original player was injured. Even more reason to watch him. He’s new. It’s going to be strange for him. He does OK, but makes a couple of mistakes which lead to Clare goals. Can’t criticise him for effort, though, and he looks to be giving away about thirty pounds to his opposite number.

  Another player I start to watch is Jamesie O’Connor. I remember him from the game I saw on TV – he’s skilful and small. A teacher, in the various photos I’ve seen of him he has always got a different hairstyle from the others. They either have a crew cut or simple short back and sides. Jamesie must have been a punk or soul boy when he was younger or maybe even a goth – has shaved sides with a floppy fringe. You can tell he’s never quite happy with his look.

  There’s a part of the human brain which is specially designed for watching sports. After about twenty minutes warming up suddenly it kicks in and you get this mad rictus-like expression on your face and start shouting ‘raaay raaaay raaay rayyyy’ along with the thousands of people alongside you in the stands. It doesn’t matter if you don’t support either of the teams. ‘Aiieeeeeeeee. Raaaaay raaaay raaaay raaaay.’ Years ago I went along to watch a Manchester United game in the press box at Old Trafford for an article on what the press do and I just got caught up in the atmosphere. ‘Raaaaay raaaay raaay raaaay,’ I went, as the guy in the sheepskin frantically tried to get me to tell him who had just gone off. Back in the bar after the game I was still whispering ‘raaaay raaay raaay raaay’ to myself. No-one would talk to me because I wasn’t a proper journalist.

  It occurs to me that hurling is a bit like quantum physics. Then it occurs to me that I don’t know anything about quantum physics. So where did that thought come from? Spooky, huh? But it’s all those things bouncing around at high speed or something. I’m losing you here, aren’t I?

  Later that night I phone up my brother, Snake, who has a PhD in laser physics and a very large brain and say to him, after the usual how’s it going?, ‘It occurred to me that hurling is a bit like quantum physics. Then it occurred to me that I don’t know anything about quantum physics. Snake, tell me about quantum physics.’ Ten minutes later I realise why he is the one in a white lab coat polishing his cerebral cortex every night and I am the one travelling around being a layabout and scribbling things down on beer mats. So here’s my all-encompassing theory of the universe in a hurling match: the universe is all pingy with things flying all over the place and has a start and a finish and so does hurling.

  I have a quick pint at O’Connor’s bar and get chatting to the landlord’s daughter, who seems dead impressed when I know the names of some of the players.14 As the blue and yellow draped figures wave their flags and blend together in the streets I wander off into the night back to my drab world of public transport and Europackers.

  * * *

  1 That was a stupid thing to do. He cracked my nose, which now goes blue in cold weather.

  2 There’s something that I’d like to tell

  I stayed in Hanratty’s Hotel

  I watched too much TV

  And ate Chinese nightly

  (The chow mein had an awful smell).

  3 The Vikings have been getting some better press recently and it’s even been suggested that the raping and pillaging bunch of marauding Scandinavian baby-eating devil-worshipping sadists was all a myth and in actual fact they were all gentle, peace-loving eccentric uncle-type figures with leather elbow patches, who were kind to animals and adored anything to do with monks. The truth, as ever, possibly lies somewhere between the two.

  4 In truth he looked like the Austin Powers character, played by Mike Myers, in the film of the same name. Though Powers is more a Waterford name.

  5 You must know this one. Roll it up and stick it next to your outstretched palm, keeping both eyes open.

  6 Basic rules of the game: Hurling is played by two fifteen-member teams. The hurley (the stick used by the players) is a narrow-shafted stick about a metre long, ending in a curved blade. The sliotar (the ball) has a cork centre and a leather cover. At each end of the field are goals, formed by two posts with a crossbar, like a rugby goal. A net hangs back behind the goal. The object of the game is to catch the sliotar on the blade of the hurley, carry it, and then hurl it into the goal.

  Players can only pick the sliotar off the ground with the hurley – although they can then take it off the hurley using their hand, as long as they don’t throw it or run with it.

  The team gets three points when the sliotar is hurled into the net, and one point when it is hurled over the crossbar between the goalposts. Even though hurling, one of the fastest team sports around, is a pretty rough and dangerous game, serious injuries don’t happen very often.

  The game became scarce during and after the famine years, with the mass emigrations to America. Then in 1884 the Gaelic Athletic Association (or in its Irish translation – Cumann Luthcleas Gaeilge) set down a standardised set of rules of the game and a league competition was first put together. The first All-Ireland Hurling final was played in 1888 on 1 April in Birr, Co. Offaly, when Thurles from Tipperary defeated Meelick from Galway in a 21-a-side contest. The GAA was founded in order to promote and organise Ireland’s traditional outdoor games and set out the future of Irish team sports for the twentieth Century, emphasising Celtic culture at the expense of the Anglicised forms of sport available. They go back to more ancient ways and are more in tune with the times of Yeats and Lady Gregory and the Celtic Twilight. Some say the GAA has too much power and is too political, strait-laced and old-fashioned. Other praise the fact that it has stuck to its roots and not totally caved in to the power of sponsorship and bland late twentieth-century entertainment values.

  7 Actually it would have been a massive improvement if Out of Africa (the only film I have ever fallen asleep in at the cinema) had been about the Munster hurling final rather than a couple of upper-class types in Africa. They would obviously have had to change a few of the main scenes and set the film in Tipperary rather than Africa. Out of Tipperary, they could have called it. Redford a hurling coach, Streep the wife of a hurler who’s gone off the rails.

  8 I’ve thought about the times I feel like moaning on about things and have come up with a solution. In pubs, say, you could have an old pipe dangling from the ceiling so that every time someone wanted to give out about pop music, politicians, fashion, sexual mores, whatever, they could go and hold the pipe and come across as a bit of a crusty old cove. For the traveller, like me, a smaller pipe attached to an item of headgear with some wire might do equally well.

  9 Legend has it that the first hurling match took place in 1272 BC when the Fir Bolgs defeated the Tuatha Dé Dannaan in a twenty-seven-a-side game.

  10 Please don’t write in if you’re a lacrosse or hockey player and think you’re hard. It’s merely a comment about the presentation and culture of the game rather than a dismissal of the individual players’ physical prowess (though I bet you’re all a load of public school jessies).

  11 For instance, people who’ve only ever seen football on TV completely miss out on the angles of attack, running off the ball,
dummies, niggles, physical tussles, acceleration and all-round general skill of the players.

  12 Someone should do something about it.

  13 Hurling is, apparently, the fastest field sport in the world. Who measures these things? And why?

  14 If chatting up Irish women is your thing, memorising the names and stats of hurlers and Gaelic footballers is a handy way of getting in with them.

  Why is there Orange in the Irish Flag?

  East to west, Portarlington, Co. Laois

  It’s a question I have asked a few of my Irish friends. Why is there orange in the Irish flag? Is it something to do with orangemen and Protestantism?

  ‘It’s not orange, it’s gold,’ they say. ‘The green white and gold.’

  That’s not gold. Gold is shiny. That’s … orange. And anyway, where would gold come from?

  ‘Er.’

  Exactly.

  ‘Er, how about the Wexford gold rush of seventeen-something or other?’

  Hmmm.

  ‘Or 1820 when workmen found a hoard of torques and bracelets and melted them down.’

  OK, so they have a point. But is it enough on which to base one of the colours of the national flag? That’s like England having black and grey in the flag because of coal and tin. It’s highly implausible.

  There’s something about the Midlands. Quiet. Slow-paced. Big sky. Some of it is like the Midwest of the US, or counties like Lincolnshire or Norfolk. You don’t get too many American tourists in Portarlington either. (I’d come to the old Huguenot town of Portarlington in Co. Laois because it is where Annie’s family originally came to from the continent, along with other Protestants escaping persecution in the late seventeenth century.) Areas like this were called plantations. Protestants came over and were given the best land to farm, and the Catholics were driven off (as in most other parts of Ireland). Ownership of land has been one of the big issues in Ireland for centuries. What happens if Ireland is ever united? Will they give land back to people who had it seized, like in German unification? Portarlington was founded in 1666 and it became a wealthy town, centre of education, silversmiths and banking. The town has notable Georgian, Huguenot and Victorian architecture, and it hosts an annual French Festival.

  I just wanted to see if anyone remembered them and wandered around feeling like one of those TV historians, searching for clues and showing my best side to the camera. Unlike the more touristy parts of the country, where I could blend in easily with the Australian backpackers and German beer drinkers, here I soon began to be noticed by local people, who looked curiously at me and wondered what this dishevelled tinker figure was doing in their respectable little town.

  I went to the library and talked to the librarian, Marie McCraith, who got out some documents about the family and a couple of books with references. One had a photo of Annie’s grandfather, who had been a local magistrate, landowner, cycling champion, dog owner, shooting champion and Golf Club founder. A quiet lad who kept himself to himself, obviously. Marie told me that the family once had a house at the far end of the town, where the borders of Laois, Offaly and Westmeath meet by the river. I fancied a bit of a session but there wasn’t music on anywhere – Portarlington isn’t really a music town. Back at the hotel I flicked through the channels on the TV trying to block out my thoughts for a while.

  I phoned Annie’s dad. He told me to check out Roche’s pub, where some of his old cronies might still be hanging out. I went from one end of the town to the other. There were quite a few pubs, but no Roche’s. I asked a few people. No-one seemed to have heard of it. One lad suggested I investigate Paddy Finlay’s bar. ‘That’s where all the old fellahs drink nowadays,’ he said.

  The average age in Paddy Finlay’s bar was about sixty-seven, but went down to sixty-three when I entered. I asked the barman about Roche’s and he checked with the landlord, a big shuffling man in his seventies. ‘Ah it’s not been there for fourteen years. There’s an electrical shop there now.’ A few of them laughed. ‘Your guidebook must be a bit out of date there.’ I got a Guinness and sat down in a corner, slightly away from the action.

  A drunken greyhair was holding court in a rich west-of-Ireland accent, talking about his ‘ranch’ and his beloved animals.

  ‘It’s Southfork, sure it is. I’m a half a millionaire you know.’

  ‘Better get back to your animals then, John, watch your investment,’ said the barman.

  ‘Ah, no, I think I’ll have another brandy.’

  ‘I think you won’t there.’

  ‘Ah, now.’

  ‘Now yourself, John.’

  ‘What is this when a man can’t get a drink?’

  ‘You’ve had a drink all right there, John. More than one in fact.’

  Old John slumped back in his chair and went quiet for a while. A couple of blokes in their thirties at the bar (now you see why the average age is so young) were talking about hurling and discussing which was the best team.

  ‘Up the banner. Come on the banner. Clare forever!’ shouted John.

  ‘Now tell me, are they both on the same day, these games?’ asked one of the thirtysomethings, a flat-nosed fellow.

  ‘No they’re not, there’s one on each Sunday.’

  ‘No,’ said John, ‘they are both on the same Sunday. And Clare will be the best. The banner county,’ he shouted, ‘bann ner coun teeeee! We were the first to fly the tricolour, in 1914. It was Eamon De Valera, the Clare man. Clare, the rebel county. The first county.’ He then sang a song in a rich baritone, ‘The Rose of Clare’.

  The others smiled and enjoyed the song. ‘What’s the history of the Irish flag, then, John?’ asked the barman.

  Silence. They all looked at each other with quizzical expressions.

  ‘I think the white is supposed to represent peace,’ said the flat-nosed guy at the bar. ‘And the green must be Ireland.’

  ‘Why is there orange in the flag then?’

  Silence again. I presumed it was because of Protestantism, United Irishmen and all that, but didn’t say anything, just let them go on about Jaffa Cakes, vitamin C tablets, red lemonade, carrots and that mobile phone company.

  Old Paddy the landlord shuffled over and sat next to me for a couple of minutes asking how I was. He was obviously a little bit curious as to why a ‘youngster’ like me, and an Australian to boot, had come into his pub. I told him I was English. Then John piped up again. ‘The banner county. Home of poets, musicians and freedom fighters. 1914 it was. Did ye ever hear the banner roar?’

  They tried to calm him down. He asked one more time for a brandy then headed off into the night.

  The next morning I went down to Matthews’ coffee shop. Annie’s dad had mentioned the Matthews brothers on the phone the night before. Ronnie Matthews, an energetic guy in his sixties, was the local historian (there were a few books in the window). He got out a pile of old stuff, photocopies of newspapers and public records. He scanned through them, but there was nothing on the family. He sent his regards and gave me a local book to pass on.

  ‘Go to Sean McCabe, the barber,’ he said as I was leaving. ‘He’s the real local historian around here.’

  A hundred yards or so back up the main street was Sean McCabe’s little shop, with a tricolour in the window. Inside Sean was cutting a little boy’s hair and an old bloke was sitting on a stool waiting.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, ‘I don’t want a haircut, but …’

  ‘Well you’re no good to me then, are ye?’ smiled Sean and the old man laughed wheezily. ‘Aye, ye two’ve got off on the wrong footing already.’

  ‘I’m allergic to barbers usually,’ I said.

  ‘I can see that,’ said Sean, looking at my tangled mop.

  ‘I just wanted to ask you some questions.’ I told him about what I was up to. Sean put down his scissors and comb and took me out into the street, leaving the boy there staring at himself in the mirror.

  Out in the street Sean, a striking looking man with a prominent brown moustache, sniffed
the air. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘you may need to go out of town to find what you’re looking for.’ As we stood there two old men walked into his shop then walked out again. Sean grabbed my arm and led me back down the street. He saw someone in a car and said hello how’s it goin’? Had they heard of this family? Wasn’t there still one around here somewhere? The hardware store, said the man. I felt like a fifteen-year-old doing my local history project again. After making enquiries in the shop I walked through to the back and there was a fellow called George, standing behind a counter, a quiet-looking man in his early sixties with dark slicked-back hair. I chatted to him for a while. He knew some of the family but was from a slightly different branch. He drew me a map of how to get to the old family home, a big house out in the country which had been sold while Annie’s dad was away flying bombers for the RAF during World War Two. In the street again there was a buzz. People were looking at me as though they had heard something was going on and it must be exciting. Ronnie Matthews appeared in front of me from nowhere and pointed back up the street. He told me to go to a house where the widow of the author of a book on the golf club lived, who had a photo of some of the family. He thrust another paperback local history book into my hand. We shook hands and smiled. ‘Cut!’ said the director, and that was the end of the show. Standing there in the grey and unmagical main street, with its practical shops and mums pushing prams, shoppers bustling about, friendly people waving at me, already knowing who I was, for God’s sake, after me having been there only twenty-four hours, I felt that Portarlington was a little bit too much like my old intimate home town for my liking. Within an hour and a half I was on the move again.