The Year in Sports

If you want it, you'll have to fight for it.

Your bookmaker will return you fifty cent profit on every Euro you bet on Dublin if Dublin win five All-Ireland Football Championships in a row next year, something no county has achieved in football or hurling. How astonishing. And of course, the price is very hard to argue with. It is impossible to make a cogent case for any other county winning it, as each of the contenders has profound flaws and, while Dublin are by no means perfect, they are considerably better equipped to win than any other county.

For all that, your correspondent can’t get it out of his head that Dublin won’t do it. The pressure and hype will be bananas, as more and more entities see the chance of a quick buck and climb up onto an already-overloaded Dub bandwagon. Even though the new rules are for the league only, who knows what tiny cracks the League will reveal that could be torn open in the white heat of Championship. But most of all, the biggest struggle that Dublin will face to win five-in-a-row is the struggle all dynasties face – the fact that players get old.

This runs against conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is that Dublin have found the alchemist’s stone, and can regenerate players like no-one else has been able to before. Brian Fenton and Con O’Callaghan are cited as proof, the replacements that are better than what went before.

And that’s all fine, but there are more constants over the four-in-a-row starting fifteen than you might think. Cluxton, obviously. But also Jonny Cooper, Philly McMahon, Cian O’Sullivan and James McCarthy. That’s a lot of backs, keeping a lot of pressure off Cluxton, who cares little for pressure. It will not be the shock of shocks if Dublin do win five-in-a-row, of course. But it won’t be as big a shock as some think if they don’t. After all, Kilkenny were meant to be able replenish their players at ease too, but when Jackie Tyrell and Tommy Walsh and Henry Shefflin went off into the sunset, things began to fall apart.

Of course, the monstrosity that is the Super Eight section of the Championship will do all in its power to preserve the powerful against the threat of the weak. Would anyone have heard of Mullinalaghta if there had been Super Eights in the Leinster Club Championship, or even in the Longford Club Championship?

The Super Eights is a further betrayal of all the Championship stands for and should stand for, a point made time and again in this place. In many ways, the highlight of the summer was the sight of empty seats in Croke Park for the Super Eights, something that so shocked the grubby moneymen who are behind the thing that changes have already been made. Hopefully, it’s too late and the thing will be sent back to whatever hell from whence it rose.

Shane Dowling. No better man.

Your correspondent is generally loathe to comment on hurling as I know enough about it to know I know very little about it, actually. I do know that the people of Limerick continue to float on a blissful cloud in this horrid winter weather and more power to them. But whether it’s my innate conservatism or not, I can’t help but be suspect of the provincial round robins.

Heresy, I know. For those in Munster and Leinster – and even for people from Galway, I believe – these round-robin games seem to have been an unending series of delights. But for someone at a remove, it was a struggle to keep up and figure out exactly who is ahead and who is behind.
But that’s what a great competition should do! is the response. Of course. But only up to a point. There has to be a narrative or else it’s all very hard to sort in your head. If every game is an epic then no game can be an epic.

Someone remarked that Limerick’s win this year was actually the greatest win of all time as no other All-Ireland winner had to beat so many top-class teams to win the title. And that’s true, but it’s also true because no other teams had to – it used to be a knockout competition. Maybe, as time rolls on, we’ll get used to it. Maybe. But it’s very hard not to worry about hurling when people are spending a lot of money claiming to promote the game in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, when they don’t stir one princely finger to promote the game north of the M6 motorway. There is something here that doesn’t quite add up.

Jacobus Rex

This was the greatest year in Irish international rugby history. Ireland won the Grand Slam, they won a southern hemisphere tour, and they beat New Zealand. Joe Schmidt is the best coach in the world, and Ireland have some of the best players in the world.

There are those who ask questions about friendlies and what will Ireland do in the World Cup. They don’t really want to know. Anyone who follows rugby knows the worth of what Ireland have achieved and anyone who doesn’t, probably doesn’t really want to in the first place, and is only looking for mischief.

But as with football and hurling, dark clouds loom in the distance. The game is changing all the time. Professionalism is twenty years old now, and rugby is so different from what went before. Amateur rugby was a backs’ game of field position. Professional rugby is a forwards’ game of ball retention.

The old order is under more and more strain because money wins every argument, and nothing that went before, as regards tradition or honour or how-we-do-things, can withstand money. Agustín Pichot, the former scrum-half for Argentina and now vice-chairman of World Rugby, has spoken of how the demands on players cannot be met in current circumstances, and he's right. Something's got to give, and some things already have.

France was a rugby powerhouse once. Now, her clubs have strangled the life out of the national team. It may be Stockholm Syndrome, as no team found more ways to annually batter Ireland than the French did, but now they’re gone it feels like the game has lost something, and there is an empty space where those gallant prancing cocks used to be. It just doesn’t feel right.

The best man in Ireland, England,

Scotland and Wales?

How wonderful it would be if Tyson Fury could save boxing. It is one of those things that is only obvious after it is pointed out that without a functional, competitive heavyweight division all other boxing divisions are somehow lessened. And now, thanks to this extraordinary man it may be saved.

It's a long path and it’s a lot to ask of Fury, who has his own demons to fight outside of the ring, but sport needs boxing. For a sport so easily corruptible, it is one of the noblest of sports in its way. I hope it can be saved in these changing times, and look forward to the rematch between Deontay Wilder and Fury with no little anticipation.

Is UFC Really a Sport?

First published in the Western People on Monday.

Consider two fighting Irishmen, in fair Las Vegas where we set our scene. But these men are not alike in dignity, and are viewed differently despite their very similar pursuits.

Conor McGregor, the Ultimate Fighter, is hailed on all sides as an athlete and hero while poor Sheamus O’Shaunessy, being a professional wrestler, is considered some sort of circus act.

It’s hard to make a case for professional wrestling being a sport, chiefly because it’s not. Wrestling is not a sport the same way Coronation Street isn’t a sport. But it entertains the children and can’t really be said to do any harm.

But since when did we decide to take Mixed Martial Arts seriously? Is there really that big a difference between these two wild and whiskery Irishmen?

Is the Ultimate Fighting Championship an evolutionary leap from boxing, as its adherents would attest, or is just an offshoot of wrestling, sold in the global marketplace like so many pounds of lard and with just about the same nutritional value?

Men have always fought, and probably always will. It’s too deep in the genes to ever go away. Fighting is certainly in the Irish genes – we had the faction fights of the 18th and 19th centuries and even today some families, for better or for worse, still settle disputes in the old-fashioned way, with their bare knuckles.

John Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensbury, was the man whose twelve rules codified fighting into boxing, the sweet science, and it was boxing that was the pre-eminent fighting sport of the 20th Century. Mike Tyson once said that the Heavyweight Champion of the World was the “baddest man on the planet,” by which Tyson meant that being Heavyweight Champion made you the hardest man alive. It’s not hard to understand the attraction of that.

But that was twenty or more years ago. Boxing is a dying sport now, killed by its own greed. Being the “baddest man on the planet” ceased to mean anything when there were four or five baddest men on the planet at any one time, as different associations named different Champions in the hope of getting a slice of the lucrative American TV pie.

The increased money available in the other professional sports attracted men who might otherwise have been boxers. The sanitisation of society and real fears over the long-term damage that boxing can do haven’t done anything for the sport either. Amateur boxing is popular but it’s nearly unrecognisable from the pro sport in its terrible glory.

Boxing’s slow death has opened a vacuum in the market, and it’s that market that the discipline of Mixed Martial Arts, through its primary exponent, the Unified Fighting Championship (UFC), is trying to fill. As a marketable product, UFC is inspired, a perfect fit for its throwaway age. As a sport – well. Ultimate Fighting isn’t quite, as the young people, all that.

The idea of the Ultimate Fighting Championship is that a Champion is just that – ultimate. He would win a streetfight as quickly as he would win a boxing match. It is boxing without the science or, indeed, the sweetness. Raw, visceral, primal stuff.

Except that it’s not, is it? The UFC is as far removed from streetfighting – or brawling, or causing public nuisance, as streetfighting is also described – as boxing is. Barefoot streetfighting might not be the best tactic, not least as some Rommel of the backstreets may be wearing bovver boots himself, and take an ungallant advantage.

There is something counter-evolutionary in seeing a barefoot person wearing gloves. It’s as if he or she got mixed up somewhere in the process of evolution. But kicking has to be part of this Ultimate Fighting, not because it’s a fully-rounded martial art, but because some sort of kicking motion is essential for audience appeal.

A lot of people who like UFC grew up watching video games, and fighting video games always feature kicking. Therefore, the UFC had to have some sort of kicking action in the show, so the lads in the audience would know when to cheer.

They couldn’t have booted kicks though, because there’s a big difference between a kick from a bare foot and a kick from a booted foot. Real life isn’t a video game. Therefore, UFC’s tough guys fight barefoot. In their tootsies, like little girls.

You don’t read that on the posters.

It’s a pity that boxing has gone into its terminal decline. The Marquess of Queensbury brought a kind of nobility to fighting. Before its corruption, there was an honesty to boxing that is not so obvious in UFC.

Domhnall Mac Amhlaigh, a Galwayman with Kilkenny roots, wrote an excellent memoir of his life as a navvy in England after the Second World War called Dialann Deoraí – “Diary of an Exile.” At that time, socialising was done by attending dances run by the local Catholic parish. The dances themselves were dry, but the pubs nearby did a roaring trade as men reacted as they always do in times in drought. They loaded up, and arrived at the hall steaming.

Naturally, fights broke out as a consequence. However, there was one priest who ran a particular dance and didn’t care for the Irish letting their nation down in pagan England. He broke up the fights himself, and held the combatants back until the dance was over.

Then, when there was no-one in the hall but themselves, the priest marked out a ring, handed out boxing gloves and had the boys settle their disputes like gentlemen.

There is no real trace of the gentleman about UFC and how it markets itself. Certainly, gentlemen were few and far between among some of the men who climbed through professional ropes over the years, but the sport always had that aura, that layer of discipline and self-control running through the violence and holding it in check. This counts for nothing in UFC. It’s all about the shaping.

Shaping, because it would be interesting to know just how tough these lads really are, when they have their shoes on and aren’t oiled up for the cameras. We have seen some robust exchanges in Croke Park recently – would any of the Ultimate Fighters fancy seventy minutes of that?

A friend of the column was fascinated by WWE Wrestling when he was a child. One day, his father came in as he was watching some fight, with some guy posing in the ring. “He might look tough now,” said the old man, “but I wonder how tough he’d be after digging twelve ridges of potatoes?”

Not very, is this column’s guess.

Seán Mannion, the Neglected Great of Irish Boxing

First published in the Western People on Monday.

Rocky Ros Muc, written by Rónán Mac an Iomaire and published towards the end of last year, is a book about the life and times of the greatest Irish professional boxer you never heard of. Seán Mannion was a granite-jawed welterweight / light-middleweight who fought out of Boston, Mass from 1977 until he finally retired in 1993.

In Rocky Ros Muc, Mac an Iomaire looks at the sport of boxing, life in Connemara, the Irish emigrant experience and the life of a man who could have been a contender. He weaves all those threads together to present an invaluable record of a way of Irish emigrant life and of a sport at a time when it was still a big deal.

Seán Mannion boxed as an amateur in Ireland before taking the plane to Massachusetts to make his fortune, like so many before him. He worked for his brother’s construction company by day and by night Mannion boxed in Connolly’s Gym.

Connolly’s Gym was on Broadway Street in Dorchester, the famous “Southie” area of Boston that is famous for its Irish and its hoodlums. Mac an Iomaire excels in portraying the atmosphere of the place at the time, when everyone knew who Whitey Bulger was and nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of him.

This is one of the many marvellous features of the book, how Mac an Iomaire is able to place you in the time and at the place. You’re in the Irish bars celebrating St Patrick’s Day, you’re ringside at the fights, and sometimes you can even hear the thock! thock! thock! of the punches hitting the heavy bag in the gym as Mannion hones his trade with a line of made guys, wiseguys and plain old two-bit hoodlums looking on and hanging out.

As a boxer, Mannion had several gifts. Firstly, he was lefthanded, a southpaw. Most boxers, like most people, are right-handed, which makes fighting a left-hander an oddity in itself. That puts opponents at a disadvantage straight away.

Secondly, Mannion had excellent ringcraft – he was a proper boxer, rather than just a brawler. But best of all, Mannion could take what was thrown at him. Seán Mannion fought fifty-seven professional fights, and was never knocked down in any of them. There are very few fighters about whom that can be said.

But for all that, Mannion had one fatal flaw. When he’s in training, a boxer has to live almost like a monk. He has to exercise right, train right, eat right. He has to go to bed early and be up before the dawn, running miles, skipping rope, sparring, hitting the heavy bag, hitting the light bag.

What he’s not meant to do is to live on fried food and booze, which commodities Mannion found hard to resist. There’s an amazing story in the book that illustrates just how far off the pace Mannion was in terms of training, and just how good he could have been if he’d been better managed.

On the 20th of August, 1982, Mannion was to fight Hector Figuerora at welterweight. Welterweight boxers weigh not less than 140 pounds and not more than 147. At the weigh-in on the day of the fight, Mannion weighed in at 156. Nine pounds overweight.

Figuerora’s seconds demanded a forfeit, but Mannion was given a chance to see if he could sweat the weight off. They ran the shower in his hotel room until hands couldn’t be seen in front of faces from steam, and then in Mannion went, dressed in a rubber suit and carrying a skipping rope.

After one solid hour’s skipping, Mannion was weighted again. Four pounds lost, but still five overweight. Back into the rubber suit with Mannion, and he started running up and down three flights of stairs. Up and down, up and down.

After half-an-hour, he was back on the scales. Another four pounds gone, but still one left. Figuerora’s corner wouldn’t concede the pound, even though Figuerora’s opponent was surely, surely spent after all this.

Finally, a last resort. Mannion was given a raw rubdown by one of his trainers – a massage without oil. The trainer more or less skinned Mannion to lose that extra pound. After the rubdown Mannion, naked and red as a lobster, climbed onto the scales and made the weight. Then he beat Figuerora on points over ten rounds. After all that working out, Seán Mannion was still able to box ten rounds and win.

Mannion got his shot at the World Title eventually, against Mike McCallum. It didn’t go well. Mannion had been injured in training before the fight but even if he hadn’t, McCallum would still have been too good. The great names of middleweight boxing in the 1980s were Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler, and not one of those four ever got in the ring with McCallum.

Seán Mannion’s is an extraordinary story of wins and losses inside and outside the ring and this book is a treasure. So much so that there may be people reading this who will wonder why, if it’s so good, Mac an Iomaire wrote it in Irish.

Firstly, Irish was very important to Mannion. He insisted on one of his brothers being one of his cornermen so they could speak in Irish during fights, and also insisted that Amhráin na bhFiann be sung, in Irish, before he fought McCallum. And secondly, why shouldn’t it be written in Irish?

Books written in Irish are not always good, and the currently ill-judged emphasis on ‘spoken’ Irish doesn’t do much to help. The market of books written in Irish, what gets published and what doesn’t, is a debate for another day. Don’t begrudge us our treat.

Besides; people often say they would warm up their school Irish if only they got a chance. The chance is here now with the publication of Rocky Ros Muc. Seconds out.

The Sporting Year: Review and Preview

It is a bittersweet thing indeed that the sporting year of 2012 ends on the death of Páidí Ó Sé. “Legend” is the most overused word in sports, but Páidí Ó Sé transcended the narrow bounds of that cliché long ago.

Where other men are legends, Páidí was an icon; others on that great Kerry of the 1970s were more admired and it’s possible Eoin “The Bomber” Liston was more loved, but nobody represented parish and people, the DNA of the GAA itself, better or more proudly than Páidí Ó Sé.

His bar in Ventry is a GAA grotto. The greatest cynic of that particularly Kerry cuteness that Tom Humphries identified as “the Republic of Yerra” could not help but be swept away by the aura of the place, the rich sense of the history tucked up against the Atlantic, where so much of the world’s history and culture was once stored, many hundreds of years ago.

Páidí Ó Sé’s life was short but few lives have been so full. Suaimhneas síoraí ar a anam Gaelach uasal.

In this year’s iteration of the football championship that Páidí Ó Sé graced for so long, Mayo lost; they always lose.

In hurling, the crown tottered on Kilkenny’s head as the All-Ireland final turned into its third and final act, but Henry Shefflin did nothing less than impose the majesty of his talent on the game. Shefflin moved to centre-half forward to dominate the game and rescue Kilkenny in their hour of greatest need of this decade they have dominated. Galway had no answer in the replay and Kilkenny continue at the very top of the tree.

Donegal were the best team in the football Championship of course. If you wish to see a team as being a symbiosis of coaching, talent and tactics, seldom can the three strands have combined as well as they did for Donegal this year. Donegal swept through the Championship as a burning flame, and nobody ever really made them sweat. It was a year of sheer dominance by Donegal from start to finish, like a racehorse winning the Derby from wire to wire.

Keith Duggan wrote a stirring call to arms for Donegal in the Irish Times in the week after the final, suggesting that they had it in them to dominate football for years to come. And it’s possible, but my goodness it’s a big ask. Only two teams have retained the title in the past twenty-two years, and the intensity of Donegal this year will surely be hard to replicate in 2013 – not least after a winter of celebration.

The current All-Ireland odds have Donegal as joint favourites with Kerry. This is a little surprising as Kerry are meant to be rebuilding, but then anytime the Championship seems wide open it’s the Usual Suspect that generally collects it.

Jim Gavin’s new model Dublin could be worth a bet at a best price 5/1 while it’s hard to know quite what to make of Cork in Championship terms. The Rebels are undoubted League specialists with their three League titles in a row and that can never be taken away from them. The League is the second most important inter-county competition after all.

Mayo are the last of the top five contenders at best price 12/1, shorter than they generally start seasons. After a semi-final in James Horan’s first year and a final in his second, there are only two places for Horan to go in his third year, and all Mayo prays it’ll be the good place rather than the alternative.

Mayo’s series of All-Ireland failures mean that the Championship for them is now a seventy-minute one, that doesn’t start until half-three on the third Sunday in September. Everything else is just a super-long League. It’s neither fair nor just, but that’s how it is.

Rugby has the excitement of a Lions tour next summer, which always adds a frisson for the home nations in the Championship. It’s hard to know how Ireland will do; the golden generation is now dead and gone and there is evidence for a reasonable campaign in the Six Nations and for an abject disaster. As ever, the first game sets the tone and Ireland’s campaign begins in Cardiff, where the Welsh are reeling from the effects of a disappointing summer and a particularly wretched autumn. We’ll wait and see.

2012 was an Olympic year of course, with Katie Taylor’s victory (and Seán Bán Breathnach’s marvellous commentary) the highlight for Ireland. Good for Katie but it’s fair to say, now that the dust has died down, that people got carried away hailing her as the greatest Irish sportswoman ever. This blog coughs discreetly, and suggests that honour remains with Sonia O’Sullivan.

In soccer, 2012 will be remembered as the year when the plucky Irish lost their major Championship innocence. After the drama of Saipan, the glory of America, the incredible, nation-building summers of 1990 and 1988, Ireland’s dream lasted just three minutes, until Mario Mandžukić headed home the goal that exposed Ireland as a busted flush.

The dream lasted as long as it takes to boil an egg. Ireland were humiliated and Giovanni Trapattoni’s reputation left in tatters in a series of nightmare matches. The best reaction was Liam Brady’s during the Spanish game, when the great man remarked that the majority of the Irish team had never played against the likes of the Spanish. They were as baffled by them as a Sunday league pub side would be.

And in the meantime, the supporters sang on. There was some vicious reaction back home to the singing, but in truth, what else could they do? There were people in Mayo jersies out drinking pints after the All-Ireland. Life goes on, and there’s always next year to dream anew.

Brush Up Your Irish with Katie and Seán Bán: Part 3 of 3

And here's the final part of the celebration of the greatest piece of extempore spoken Irish since God knows when. Seán Bán Breathnach's teary commentary on Katie Taylor's gold medal did more for Irish than a hundred studies or rubbish Departmental initiatives. I hope, in my own barely-competent way, I've taken some of the mystery out of the language so far, and people are looking forward to brushing up on the Gaeilge as Autumn falls. Anyway, back to the great man talking about the great woman.

1:35
Deich pointe in aghaidh a h-ocht, go h-oifigiúil anseo. Ó, dó a dó, sa chéad cheann, dó a h-aon ag Ochigava sa dara cheann, ceathair a h-aon ag Katie an triú babhta - sin é an ceann!

Ten points to eight, officially here. Oh, two-two in the first one, two-one to Ochigava in the second one, four-one to Katie in the third round – that was the one!

My Collins Irish Dictionary iPhone app lists six different meanings for the word “a.” It’s the language’s jack of all trades. You use it talking to someone (“a Sheáin”), as a preposition (“tabac a chaitheamh”), as a possessive adjective (“a athair/a h-athair/a n-athair” – his/her/their father), a participle with an abstract noun (“a leithéid,” as we’ve seen already), a relative participle (“an fear a bhris banc Monte Carlo” – the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo) and, as here, to count – a h-aon, a dhó, a trí. Phew! Why pile so much onto one one-letter word? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t rule out the Famine.

1:47

Tá sí ag breathnú suas sa spéir anseo - tá sí ag dul sásta go dtí na cúinne go gairid, tá sí ag cur an … dearg uirthí, tá sí ag dul amach as an fáinne anseo agus, a lucht eisteachta, dáiríre píre, … seo deor as do shúile. Tá sé an-deacair deor a bhaint as a chuid súile, tá sé ag tarraignt isteach ar cúig nóiméad tar éis a chúig, a lucht eisteachta, tá an stáir á dhéanamh.

She’s looking up to the sky here  - she’s happily going quickly to the corner, she’s putting on the red … she’s coming out the ring here and, listeners, honestly, [this would draw] a tear from your eye. It’s very hard to draw tear from your eye, it’s drawing in for five minutes past five, listeners, history is being made.

Stick a síneadh fada on the ‘a,’ of course, and you can get another day’s work out of it. This comes down to idiom – one of the reasons Gaeilgeoirs get thick about people translating directly from English is that it crushes the idiom that’s natural to the language. I’ve translated “tá an stáir á dhéanamh” as “history is being made” because that’s idiomatically correct English. But the phrase doesn’t literally translate at all – its construction is unique to the language itself. History is of the making, history is in the making, history has the making – something like that.

The big lesson here is when you’re working backwards. If you want to translate “history is being made”, don’t translate it as “tá an stáir ag bheith déanta.” A million fingers scratching one million miles across one million blackboards couldn’t be more horrible.

Why overload the “a” further with that fada? Musha Cromwell, don’t you know well.

2:14

Tá sé buaite ag Katie Taylor, 'sí Katie Taylor as Brí Chualann, sé bhliana d'aois, sé bhliana fiche d'aois, seaimpín Olympics don bhliain dhá mhile agus a dhó-dhéag. Le sin, agus mo cheainín bocht … go deo, le sin, ar ais … sa stiúideo.

It’s won by Katie Taylor, it’s Katie Taylor from Bray, six years old, twenty-six years old, Olympic Champion for the year thousand and twelve. With that, and my poor head … for ever ... back to the studio.

And here SBB, or what’s left of the poor man, wraps up and hands back to the studio. You’ll notice I’ve left out words in the past two extracts, and this is the most important lesson of all.

Reader, I haven’t a rashers what those words were. I couldn’t make them out. But here’s the thing – that’s ok. You’ve never going to catch all the words. Never. You can’t let the odd word here and there discombobulate you – as you may in fact be discombobulated just now by that most excellent jawbreaker. Missing the odd word is fine. Gaeilge, like golf, is not a game of perfect. Go n-éirí leat.

Brush Up Your Irish with Katie and Seán Bán - Part 2 of 3

Yesterday we got stuck into the first part of Seán Bán Breathnach’s epic commentary on Katie Taylor’s gold medal fight. Seconds out, round two!

0:30

Ó, a leithéid de bhean. Dúirt mé cheanna orthu, laochra na hÉireann - Maud Gonne, Gráinne Úaile, Mary Robinson, Máire Mac an tSaoí - tar isteach, seo í an bhean -

Oh, what a woman. I said already, heroes of Ireland – Maud Gonne, Gráinne Úaile, Mary Robinson, Máire Mac an tSaoí – come in, this is the women -

I’m not at all sure about the grammar of “leithéid de bhean,” but again, this is spoken in the white heat of excitement – we’re not always grammatical in English when we’re roaring. The tuiseal ginideach is here again – “laochra na hÉireann,” heroes of Ireland. Most people get thick when the British refer to Éire – Éire is the correct nominative form of Ireland in the Irish language. Surprise!

0:40

Tá an Rúiseach ag gáire - níl aon fhonn gháire ar an Rúiseach. Tá crá uirthí, tá colgach uirthí, tá sí lán d'éad, agus dúirt sí aréir go raibh deich pointe ag Katie sula dtiocfadh sí isteach sa bhfáinne ar chur ar bith. A leithéid de sheafóid! A leithéid de bhean. Katie Taylor!

The Russian is laughing – the Russian has no interest in laughing. She’s tormented, she’s angry, she’s full of jealousy, and she said last night that Katie had ten points before she got into the ring at all! What rubbish! What a woman, Katie Taylor!

Sofya Ochigava didn’t spare the trash-talking before the fight and SBB is inclined to take that stuff personally. When he sees her with a puss on her after the decision was announced he lets her have both barrels. Again, I’m not sure about two of the words, and I’m guessing “crá” and “colgach” – torment and anger. I’d say I’m fairly close.

“An Rúis” is the Irish for Russia, so “Rúiseach” is a Russian. It works for countries and for surnames, probably going back to when clans were their own states, more or less. Sasana, an Sasanach. Ó Brádaigh, an Brádach. Ó Ceallaigh, an Ceallach. Francach is a Frenchman, but it also means a rat. Puns exist in Irish too.

I’m not sure myself about the precision of the grammar in the last three of SBB’s sentences. But again, it’s spoken word and I’m not that clever, really.

0:58

Agus dáiríre, tá mé ag tráchtaireacht, a lucht eisteachta, le dhá scór bliain ach seo é an ócáid atá is giorra do mo chroí riamh sa tsaol, go bhfuil an bean seo 'théis craobh Olympic a thabhairt léi. Marach í, ní bheadh aon chraobh - ní bheadh aon bhean san Olympics.

And seriously, I’m commentating, listeners, for forty years but this is the occasion that is closest to my heart ever in life, that this woman is after taking an Olympic title. Without her, there wouldn’t be any title - there wouldn't be any woman in the Olympics.

This is where the commentary comes into its own, and SBB’s own personality comes out. The man’s a big softie, really. “Lucht” is a crowd, or group, so “lucht eisteachta” means “group of the listening.” There are no prizes for guessing what grammatical feature this is. Also here we see the phrase “tar éis,” after, contracted to “’théis.” Contraction is quite common in Irish, and we’ll see more of it.

1:16

Agus anois tá brat na hÉireann ag Katie Taylor, tá sí ag dul timpeall an fháinne. Sár-throid, níl aon cheist faoi cé hí an dara duine is fearr sa ndomhan - 'sí Ochigava an dara duine is fearr sa ndomhan, ach ag deireadh an lae, níl aon mhaith bheith ar an dara duine is fearr sa ndomhan mar 'sí Katie Taylor an duine is fearr sa ndomhan!

And now Katie Taylor has the flag of Ireland, she’s going around the ring. A fantastic fight, there’s no question who’s the second-best in the world – it’s Ochigava who’s second best in the world, but at the end of the day, it's no good being second best in the world because it’s Katie Taylor who’s the best in the world!

SBB is still pissed with Ochigava and her big mouth. Happily, it’s not all bad because here we see another of the primary features of Irish as a language – the fact there are two words for the verb “to be.”

If something is inherent to a thing, something that is essential to its very being, it’s rendered as “is fear é,” “is bean í,” – he is a man, he is a woman. If the something is something that can change, you say “tá sé caol,” “tá sé ramhar” – he is thin, he is fat. When Seán says “’sí Ochigava an dara duine” it’s a contraction of “is í Ochigava.” The two verbs for “to be” are another source of schoolroom torture, because there’s no equivalent in English. Spanish has the same system, yet it doesn’t seem to knock a stir out of them. On me head Xavi, on me head!

Phew. All worn out after that. Come back tomorrow for the last round-up.

Brush Up Your Irish with Katie and Seán Bán: Part 1 of 3

One of the many super dividends from Katie Taylor winning her gold medal was the opportunity for Seán Bán Breathnach to remind the nation of the inherent beauty of their own language. SBB’s commentary after Katie was announced winner of the fight has, in that awful modern expression, gone viral and people seem to be enjoying the emotion of it without actually knowing what the great man is saying.

So I thought I’d have a crack at transcribing, translating and commenting on the commentary, in the hope that it might help people who are trying to learn some Irish. This is slightly risky on my part, as verbatim commentary isn’t always correct in syntax or grammar. My own Irish really isn’t that great and there were parts of the thing I couldn’t quite make out myself but maybe we can use those flaws to our advantage too, and gain courage in the attempt. Seo chugainn anois - here we go.

0:00

Agus chomh ciúin - deich pointe in aghaigh a naoi - [béiceáil] Katie Taylor! Katie Taylor, seaimpín na hEorpa, seaimpín an domhain agus seaimpín Olympics anseo!

And so quiet – ten points to nine – [shouting] Katie Taylor! Katie Taylor, champion of Europe, champion of the world and Olympic Champion here!

SBB gets the score wrong at the start, but he’ll correct it later. Not that it matters – the detail is secondary to the achievement.

From the point of view of grammar, here we see the first occurrence of that notorious beast from under the bed that terrified your childhood but that gives Irish so much of its flavour, the tuiseal ginideach, or genitive case. English uses “of” to show possession. Irish doesn’t, but changes the word that’s being possessed instead. This is the tuiseal ginideach. So if “scoil” is school, school bus becomes “bus scoile” – bus of school.

Grammatically, changing a word according to its grammatical purpose in a sentence is called inflection. There are five tuisil in Irish, as there are in Latin. There are six in Ancient Greek, seven in Polish. The difficulty arises because English isn’t an inflected language – there’s nothing to equate it to. Also, the other tuisil don’t do an awful lot in Irish, and that’s what gives the tuiseal ginideach its Macavity the Mystery Cat air of omnipotence.

In the commentary, Europe is “an Eoraip,” but champion of Europe is “seaimpín na hEorpa.” World is “domhan,” champion of the world is “seaimpín an domhain.” There are a set of rules that govern this, and once you know them it’s really not that frightening at all.

0:15

Tá sé buaite ag Katie Taylor - a leithéid de thaispeántas arís, sa triú babhta sin. Tá sí fhéin agus Daide agus Billy, agus fear Georgia, tá siad ag baint barróige dá chéile.

It’s won by Katie Taylor – what a performance again, in that third round. She herself, and Daddy, and Billy, and the man from Georgia, they’re hugging each other.

There are two words here that I don’t recognise, so I’ve put in what I think are their nearest equivalents in the justly notorious Official Standard. “Buaite” is the verbal adjective form of the verb “buaigh,” to win, and there are those who will give you a fight that “Buaigh” itself not a right verb at all. We would not be Irish if we didn’t fight amongst ourselves.

The other word I’m guessing is “leithéid,” as in the likes of, the kind of – “ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann,” their likes will not be seen again. SBB seems to be saying “léide” here, which may be a Conamara equivalent of “leithéid.” It’s dialect – some people are thick about dialect in Irish and how everything should conform to the standard. That’s ok in textbooks but in actual living languages you must have dialect. To opponents of dialect, there are three words that crush all argument – Cheryl Cole, pet.

We also see our friend the tuiseal ginideach in this extract and one of the interesting points of Irish idiom. A verb in English that ends in –ing is called a participle – coming, going, and so on. In Irish, the giveaway is “ag” – “ag teacht,” “ag imeacht.” Where it gets interesting is if there’s a noun after the participle.

In English, we say we’re doing something. In Irish, we say we’re doing of something – that’s the difference. We don’t play football – we play of football, “ag imirt peile,” rather than “ag imirt peil.”

“Barróg” is the Irish for hug, but hug doesn’t exist as a verb in Irish. Therefore, Seán says collecting hugs - “ag baint barróige” literally translates as collecting hugs. It’s the way the Gael rolls.

End of Part One. More tomorrow - tuilleadh ar maidin.