Shelter from the Storm

There’s a chill wind a blowin’ through the Irish blogosphere as the Recession Christmas looms. Sarah Carey is gone. Irish Flirty Something is gone. Twenty Major, awarded the prize for the Best Blog at the Irish Blog Awards since what seems like forever, is gone.

An Spailpín Fánach, however, is going exactly nowhere. I’m staying right here. Don’t all cheer at once.

An Spailpín Fánach got an idea of his influence when Jo’Burger in Rathmines won the award for best restaurant this year. The same Jo’Burger to which An Spailpín devoted a 642 word hammering in these pages back in August. It’s like driving a DeLorean, or drinking that white porter. A man feels so out of step.

But just because people are looking down snouts at you doesn’t mean you should stop doing what you’re doing. Perhaps being thankful that you’re not sporting a porcine proboscis yourself is the first step. Irish Flirty Something, for instance, didn’t care for ladies in the city noticing that she spoke with a "country" accent. Baby, that’s not a bug; that’s a feature. So many things are matters of perspective.

And as such An Spailpín Fánach shall continue to wear a green and red heart on his sleeve, and live and die with the Mayo County team. No bones shall be made about enjoying the singing of Mrs Cole and her friends and Anna Netrebko equally, even though they till different fields. You could be a prop forward or a flying wing, but your team still needs you.

The mysteries of the city of Dublin and my repeated inabilities to find an escape route from same will continue to get coverage, and you’ll also get your spot of Gaeilge every now and again, because it’s good for you and good men took bullets for it.

An Spailpín knows very little, but I do know it’s very hard to even know your own mind, and to be comfortable in your own skin. To try to know other people’s minds, and to try to please them as well, is a bridge too far. So I’m happy enough to rant along happily to myself here by fire, and all are welcome that want to come along. If the opera bores you, call back some other time and please God we’ll be on the football, or vice versa. And if you don’t like it all – sure bejapers why did you bother your head coming down this far at all? Isn’t life short enough?






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