The Panvulgarium - Another Low for Social Life in Dublin

How ironic it is that Dublin, a city that has seen the lives and talents of so many of her citizens washed away on a sea of booze - Myles, Kavanagh, Behan, God have mercy on them all - should lose all conception of what a public house should be. The latest monstrosity inflicted on a increasingly beaten population is John M. Keating's, which opened on Mary Street at Christmas. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

To describe John M Keating's, it's necessary to coin a new word. Taking my cue from John Milton, An Spailpín Fánach's nominee for greatest English poet, may I suggest "Panvulgarium," a collection of all that is vulgar in the world? It will certainly do to be getting along with.

John M Keating's is built on St Mary's Church, one of the earliest examples of a galleried church in Dublin, according to the John M Keating website. It seems the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Culture, Gaeltacht and the Islands has classified the building as one of "intrinsic historical interest," and a comprehensive programme of conservation and restoration has been carried out since 1998.

How odd that an intensive programme of conservation and restoration should result in a church turning into a boozerama - did someone switch the blueprints along the way, resulting in optics replacing organs, porter taps subbing for pulpits and great spumes of Aftershock vapours rising to rafters that once led all the way to God? Is the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Culture, Gaeltacht and the Islands in charge of boozers too? What a busy man he must be.

We are told, again on the John M Keating website, that many famous personages are buried here, including Mary Mercer and Lord Norbury, the man who sentenced Bold Robert Emmett to the gallows. Rich in history again, but once more begging in the question - who in God's name let them turn this place into a pub?

Churches have been deconsecrated before; a city, like Nature, is a Heraclitean fire, forever changing yet staying the same. Yet at the same time most deconsecrated churches, once deconsecrated, have their churchly effects moved on - in John M Keating's, they're still there. An Spailpín presumes they're still there for effect, that some interior designer on a hearty commission thought it was cool, but to An Spailpín's tired and despairing eye, it's just vulgar, cheap and too awful.

When you walk around John M Keating's, you still see plaques on the wall in memory of St Mary's preachers and churchmen down through the years. The language of the memorials is high Victorian, talking about labouring in the fields of the Lord with upright dignity and this sort of crack. It made me very lonesome to read them - I don't know if those dead churchmen's bones still lie in vaults behind those marble plaques, but I'm sure their shades have long since fled the building, appalled at what we as a society now consider of value. The high Protestant Victorians had their faults but it's very hard to fault the courage of men who trod the Khyber Pass and sailed up the Zambezi river with nothing for protection but the King James Bible. They might have been wrong, but at least they believed in something - unlike the clientele of John M Keating's, who only seem to believe in standing on sepulchres of braver and better men, talking about house prices with beer dribbling down their whiskers. These be thy Gods, O Israel! God help us all. Time for Evensong in Mulligan's, or perhaps John Kehoe's if I can get a seat.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, Culture, Dublin, Pubs, John M Keating

Banríon Mhór na Níle agus Girseacha Gleoite na Gaillimhe

Tugann An Spailpín Fánach faoi deara go bhfuil RTÉ chun an scannán Cleopatra a chraolú Dé Sathairn seo chugann. Tá roinnt locht ar an scannán céanna - 'sé go bhfuil an scannán ró-fhada an rud is measa leis - ach is sár-scannán é ag an am céanna. Agus an fáth go sár-scannán é Cleopatra ná go bhfuil Elizabeth Taylor ann mar Chleopatra féin. Nuair a rinneadh an scannán ba í Liz Taylor an bean is aíle agus is cáiliúl sa domhan, an realt is ghile i Hollywood, agus tá a h-aileacht soléir go leir i gach aon fráma an scannáin.

Ach ní h-amháin aileacht Liz Taylor, nó an ghrá a lasadh idir íse agus Richard Burton, atá san scannán mar Mhark Antony, an rud is ansa leis An Spailpín maidir le Cleopatra. An rud is ansa liom ná go bhfuil aileacht Liz Taylor - a bhí cumasach go leor, gan dabht - á neartú ag gruaig bainte ó chinn girseach na Gaillimhe a bhí togtha mar bhrídeacha Críost ins na caogóidí agus na seasóidí. Seo é an scéal.

Uair amháin ins na caogóidí, an drochaimsir sin in Éirinn, aimsir easpa airgid agus ghanntanais agus deoraíochta, bhí cuairteoir ann in iarthar na hÉireann, agus bhí sé i bponc ceart. Bhí a ghluaisteán tar éis briseadh síos air, agus bhí air cabhair a fháil chun filleadh ar áis abhaile. Bhuail sé amach ag siúl ar an mbóthar agus, tar éis tamaill, chonaic sé clochar i bhfad uaidh. Bhuail sé chuige.

Nuair a d'fhill sé an clochar, tógadh isteach an cúldhoras é. Is gá tuiscint gurbh Giúdach é an cuairteoir seo agus, ag an am sin, ní cheart do mná rialta eiriceach a thabairt isteach an príomhdhoras, go háirithe eiriceach ón gcine a chuir An Slánathóir chun bháis. Togadh isteach sa chistin agus cuireadh ag an mbord é, ag fanacht ar meicineoir ón mbaile.

Agus an cuairteoir seo ag fanacht ar mheicineoir, thug sé faoi deara go raibh bosca éigin faoin mbord. D'fheach sé isteach - bhí an bosca lán le gruaig.

Bhí an cuairteoir cosuil le fear a tháinig ar phóta óir an lepreacháin. Mar ba dhéantóir na mbréagfholt é an cuairteoir Giúdach seo, agus bhí fios maith aige comh deachair a bhí sé gruaig maith a fháil do bhréagfholt breá a dhéanamh. Tá ceithre chinn gruaige ann chun bréagfholta a dhéanamh, B, B1, A, A1, ach, i ndáirire, níl aon maitheas ag cíbe acu seachas amháin an A1. Agus bhí an bosca seo comh lán le gruaig A1 bhí sí ag titim amach as.

D'iarr an cuairteoir ar bean rialta cad é an scéal faoin mbosca breá gruaige seo. D'inis sí dó gurbh í a gruaig an príomhfhoinse bhróid ins an gcailín agus, nuair atá cailín chun dul isteach ins an gclochar, gearradh an ghruaig dí, nach lige a gruaig gleoite i gcathú í. Agus cén fáth go bhfuil an ghruaig comh maith mar atá sí? Níl raibh an bean rialta cinnte, ach shíl sí go raibh an ghruaig comh maith mar a bhí sí mar bhí nós ag cailíní Chonamara an aimsir sin a ngruaig a choiméad fada, agus an ghruaig fada sin a ní i sruthanna na sleibhte Chonamara.

'Siad an dhá fháth sin, fadacht na gruaige agus glaineacht na gruaige, an dhá fháth is tabhachtaí don ngruaig ag dul isteach i mbréagfholt, agus bhí fios maith ag an gcuairteoir gurbh fhéidir leis sár-bhréagfholta a dhéanamh dá mbeadh gruaig cosuil le gruaig an bhosca aige. D'iarr an cuairteoir a cheist deirneach - cad atá chun déanamh leis an ghruaig?

"Tá sí chun caitheamh amach," arsa an bhean rialta cnéasta soineanta.

"B'fhéidir go bhfuil tuairim níos fearr ná sin agamsa dí," arsa an cuairteoir, agus an seicleabhar a thógáil amach aige. Cé narbh ceart Giúdach a thógáil isteach ar phríomhbhealach an chlochair, ní aithníonn an t-airgead aon chosc mar sin. Rinne an cuairteoir margadh leis na mná rialta a ngruaig bainte a cheannach comh fada a bhí cailíní ag teach isteach chucu. D'fhill an cuairteoir ar áis go Londáin, a áit dhúchais, agus cuireadh an ghruaig chuige gach cúpla mí.

Mar sin, a leitheoirí, bígí fios agaibh, agus sibhse ag breithneamh ar Liz agus Richard Burton ag spalpadh na spréacha le cheile ins an scannán Cleopatra, go bhfuil gruaig Liz bainte ó chailíní Iarthair na hÉireann, a thug a saoil suas ar son an Tiarna. Creid é nó ná creid.

Technorati Tags: Culture, film, Ireland, Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Gaeilge

Kismet, Brady

Even from his lonesome exile in the Pale, An Spailpín Fánach has heard the weeping and rending of garments back home in Mayo. Several chickens came home to roost when Galway put Mayo to the sword on Sunday in Castlebar; now the Mayo psyche, fragile at the best of times, faces another send-for-Oscar-Goldman job on the Eve of Championship.

It wasn't that surprising, really. The early league form has dissipated in recent times as the ground got harder and things came a little more into focus for teams. Cracks that were visible against Cork and Dublin split wide open in Castlebar as midfield was over-run and the Mayo finishing left a little something to be desired.

Mickey Moran's media cheerleaders were silent on the implosion this morning, apart from hints that Mickey was off his bonce to take on those Mayo loopers in the first place. The argument has been made before that Mickey is only manager by default anyway, so there's no real need to go there. It's old news, and there's not a lot to be done about it now.

What concerns An Spailpín tonight is this notion that Mayo fans are somehow greedy for wanting to win All-Irelands, and the question of how much of a difference a coach makes in the first place.

The Mayo fans should apologise to no-one for wanting to win All-Irelands. Isn't that the idea of entering the competition in the first place? As for expectation being out of proportion to capability, one of the reasons that the Mayo support have found the past ten years so frustrating is just how close the team has been. If you think of any of the teams that have been in the shake-up over the past ten years, you can't look past Mayo for consistency over those ten years. Certainly they're higher on the tree than certain media darlings, whom An Spailpín (Kil)dares not mention. Meath have gone beneath the waves, Armagh have risen and are toppling now again, even Tyrone too could be one good beating away from being kaput. But still Mayo are there, or thereabouts, scutchings such as the last day's notwithstanding.

The reason that Mayo have been, and are still, despite the horrors and reverses and internecine squabbling, there or thereabouts is down to players, not managers. During a heated argument with a Boy of the Old Brigade last week, An Spailpín was rather taken aback when said B of the OB remarked that, for his two cents, the Tyrone revolution has nothing to do with blanket defences or different training methods or anything like that. As far as he's concerned, All-Ireland winning Tyrone began and ended with Peter Canavan and now that Peter the Great has abdicated, Tyrone will find themselves just somehow that little step off the pace that makes all the difference at five o'clock on the fourth Sunday in September.

Equally, the reason that Mayo have been in All-Ireland contention for the past ten or so years has been down to three men - James Nallen, David Brady and Ciarán McDonald. These men have consistently been the difference-makers for Mayo in Mayo's greatest years since the 'fifties, and they are the reason why the desperation is so acute in the county. Because the whole county can hear the clock ticking down on their careers, and the thoughts of them having to take their places with Liam McHale and Willie Joe and Joe Corcoran and Willie Casey and the rest in the Greatest Never to Win... Hall is distressing in the extreme.

That's why there is rending of garments. There is no shame in losing to Galway - this Galway team, that was forged in the fire of a hot day in Castlebar in May 1998, is one of the finest that the game has seen, and an example to all in how the ancient game should be played. If anything, Galway, rather than Mayo, should be grinding their teeth that they haven't won more All-Irelands than they have with the incandescent talents at their disposal. But, because Galway closed the deal first time out in 1998 the old warriors like Joyce and Donnellan do not have the psychological burden that Nallen, Brady and McDonald must carry as they pass the torch to the coming generation.

There is a coming generation in Mayo, thank God. Mayo has never wanted for footballers, and long may that continue. But good and all as the next generation are - and An Spailpín hopes to be spared to see more talent blooming in the Under-21 semi against Tyrone in Cavan on Saturday - the likes of Nallen, Brady and McDonald will not be easily replaced. That is why their talents must be maximised while they are still around, and that is why An Spailpín is keeping his head held up.

That, and the remarkable picture of Niall Coleman and David Brady above from Castlebar, which was in at least three national papers this morning. Mayo are back at Square One with, from this remove, a team likely to start in the Championship that is distressingly similar to the one coursed out of Jones' Road by Kerry last summer. But there is still a Mayo, and there is still a David Brady dressed in green above the red. When An Spailpín first saw the picture of Brady and Niall Coleman sharing a moment I thought it was a little too far back Brokeback Mountain for comfort; now, An Spailpín realises that it is simply David Brady displaying his Ballina heritage.

For this is a kiss that is supremely gallic in intention and execution, and a stirring echo of General Jean Sarrazin's spontaneous gesture towards Patrick Walsh, whom the French found hanging from a gibbet in Ballina when France liberated the town on August 24th, 1798, the year of liberty. Walsh, a Crossmolinaman, had been caught and summarily hanged as a spy by the Prince of Wales Fencibles and Yeomen, then in command of the town, and General Sarrazin paid an elegant, and so exquisitely French, tribute to his fallen freeman by kissing Walsh's corpse as it swung from the gallows. So history transmits down the ley-lines. For what else can David Brady be whispering in Niall Coleman's ear but "À bientôt, mon vieux"? Maigh Eo abú.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, GAA, Mayo

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Seán Kelly's Legacy to the GAA

Tom Humphries has written the first epitaph of Seán Kelly's Presidency of the GAA. It's in this morning's Irish Times and it's depressingly typical of the rather gooey copy that Big Tom comes up with when he's writing about someone he likes - lambs gambolling at his hero's feet as he walks the green playing fields of Erin, and similar soft chat. "At grass roots level, Kelly is revered and loved ... You don't imagine Seán Kelly worrying about getting confession if he sits and watches a soccer match ... the beginning of a journey into Ireland and Irishness."

You couldn't make it up. The most telling sentence of the lot is this one, a quote from Seán Kelly himself: "I think another part of us will say 'thank God, we're old enough and we've grown up enough to make this contribution.'". "Make this contribution" - what an odd expression for a man who is effectively CEO of a business with the highest membership in Ireland. That's not the language of business - that's the language of ... oh dear God, it's the language of religion.

And not just any religion. "Make this contribution" is beardy-priest speak - you know those bucks that would plague you in school turning up at retreats with their beards and guitars and sandals and their "oh, don't bother with any of that 'Father O'Brien' stuff - just call me Tommy!" And then out with the guitar - nylon stringed, of course - and a few verses of a newly written folksong about Liberation Theology or Archbishop Romero.

The beardy priest is a good-hearted sort of soul, but he'd be better off feeding soup to the poor and needy than running anything bigger than a parish raffle for a new set of pipes for the organ. And it's the same with the Presidency of the GAA - all naivety will get you is a good price on a glass hammer or a one in a lifetime deal on a box of rubber nails.

Thanks to Seán Kelly's political skills, soccer and rugby will be played next year in Croke Park. This is a decision that has been universally lauded by a media who spend their time beating divers drums about "how far we have travelled," but do not tell us how exactly the GAA is better off itself after the deal - except in terms of some ersatz nylon-strung morality, of course. It has "made a contribution." But to what or to whom?

The GAA is getting money, of course. Some things can't be bought, such as those things that the GAA is effectively holding in trust for the nation until the nation decides to try to be Irish again, something currently down on the list of national priorities. Some things, miserably, can very easily be sold however, and history will tell just how much birthright the GAA has sold for a mess of pottage.

The mainstream media also tell us that the deal allowing soccer and rugby to be played in Croke Park has softened the cough of the backwoodsmen in the GAA, a cheap and nasty little term that even the normally impeccable Daire O'Brien of Setanta Sports has used in the past. Not a term that bothers An Spailpín Fánach though, as An Spailpín is nothing if not an incorrigible backwoodsman, and will be, if God spares him, until he's leaving the church feet first on the shoulders of his nearest and dearest. That sad little saw about modernisation and the quietening of the backwoodsmen always reminds An Spailpín of Father O'Connor, the curate in Strumpet City. You may remember how Father O'Connor's superior, Father Giffley, used make a point of chiding Father O'Connor's preference for his "fine friends in Kingstown" over his inner-city parishioners. Now, if Father O'Connor is a GAA man perhaps his "fine friends in Kingstown" won't look so far down their noses at him, and may even let him sit closer to the fire. They may even get him corp comp tickets for Hermes v Alex in the hockey - who knows where it ends? Those who "make a contribution" shan't be forgotten, I'm sure.

Manna indeed for those in the GAA of a mind to keep in well with fine friends in Kingstown. But bitter mead for those who aren't that pushed about correct opinion, but whose love for the GAA had always to do with patriotism and Irishness, first, last and always. They have nothing to console themselves except the pieces of silver.

How odd it was, during the so-called debate on the opening of Croke Park, that the GAA was being chided for being able to build a stadium of its own and neither the IRFU nor FAI were called to account for their having gotten into this mess in the first place. Now, with the mentality of the beardy priest, wearing his sandals in a snowstorm, the GAA stands at the shore, its large smile in inverse proportion to its demonstrated intelligence, welcoming - what? What is coming, exactly? Who are these strangers in chain mail and armour decamping at Waterford and talking about a big day out on St Bartholomew's Eve?

Marian, one of few real talents on RTÉ, was of the opinion a few weeks ago that, so long as the young people are off kicking ball and we-the-nation can still carry out Jack Charlton's bull to "always have a party," isn't it only fantastic that Croke Park has been opened up in the face of the "backwoodsmen?" And if you see no distinction between the games, then you're laughing along too. You are also a rather poor GAA man, ispo facto, but we can't have everything, can we? An Spailpín's very best to your fine friends in Kingstown, of course. If, however, you think that the modern world makes it even more essential that Ireland has a distinctly Irish identity separate from some hideous globalised shopping centre, with one million shops selling two million different kinds of tat at three million times what it's worth, and that this identity has to fought for and doesn't just rise up out of the ground like a well of fresh spring water, then today's Seán Kelly interview sounds like nothing so much as the first nail being hammered into a coffin.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, sport, GAA, Sean Kelly

Náire Rialtais na hÉireann, Bród Mór Bhéil an Átha

Tá céad dréacht an Amhráin Náisiúnta ag dul faoin gcasúr ar mhaidin. Iarradh ar an Rialtas an dréacht a cheannaigh ar son na hÉireann agus phobail na hÉireann, ach níor bhac leo le sin. Tá sé cleachta go maith ag an Riatas go n-imíonn fadhbanna nuair a tugtar cluas bodhar dóibh. Bhí aimsir ann nuair a toghadh rialtais mar chreididís in rud éigin; sa lá atá inniu ann, ní ghá dóibh creideamh in faic seachas airgead an SSIA agus praghasanna tithe.

Agus ar thaobh eile na tíre, ins an Iarthar, bhí fear ann a chreideadh go dtí lá a bháis. Ba idéalaí é Jackie Clarke, siopadóir agus stáraí i mBéal an Átha, Co. Mhaigh Eo. Cé gur thogadh é ar Chomlaire Bhéil an Átha ar son Sinn Féin i 1966, níorbh fear mór polaitíochta ná hÉireann ab ea Jackie Clarke. Níorbh Teachta Dála é nó Áire nó iar-Taoiseach é ach an oiread. Ach bhí spéis mór ins an stár aige le linn a bheatha, agus bhailíodh sé píosaí cuimhneacha stárúil. Fheiceadh sé fógra ar cheantáin éigin sa nuachtáin, b'fhéidir, agus cheannóidh sé piléar a scaoileadh i 1916 ann. Nó chuireadh fear éigin glaoch teilefón air nuair a bhíodh rud éigin ag an bhfear agus suim ag an gCléireach air, agus cheannóidh Jackie Clarke mar sin iad.

Tar éis na blianta, bhí bailiuchán mór bailithe ag Jackie Clarke. Agus é ag chur a aghaidh ar an tSíoraíocht i 2000, d'iarr Jackie Clarke ar a bhean, Ann, a bhailiuchán stárúil a thabairt do phobal na hÉireann, agus rinne Ann é sin. Tá Iarsmalann Jackie Clarke chun oscailt i mBéal an Átha, áit dhuchais Jackie Clarke, i nDeireadh Fómhair, 2006. Is fiú bailiuchán an Chlérigh €10 miliún, ach shíl Jackie Clarke, agus síleann a chlann, go bhfuil rudaí ann atá níos tabhachtaí ná airgead. Nach trua an rud é nach bhfuil an tuairim céanna ag Rialtas na hÉireann?

Technorati Tags: Ireland, Culture, History, Gaeilge