Jack
Charlton a hugely deserving ‘Honorary Irishman’.
There is an outpouring of positive
sentiment following the death of Jack Charlton. Jack and Bobby came from humble
mining origins in the North East of England. Both became fine footballers Bobby
being a contender as the greatest ever in England. It was something that two
brothers would be members of a World Cup winning-team as they were in 1966. I
was in London that summer when the sun seemed to shine all the time. Both were
hugely loyal club men with Jack being with Leeds Utd. for a phenomenal number
of games and Bobby at Manchester United for something similar. These were very
contrasting clubs in many ways. These would include football style from the
polished style of Manchester to the dogged fiercely competitive style of Leeds.
The support following both clubs was totally diverse from the international
cosmopolitan support of the one to the localised intense support and need of
the other. Bobby and Jack were very representative of those differences. They
had a very complicated relationship. Bobby was a survivor from the Man. UT.
Munich aircraft disaster. Also, there was a rift as Bobby did not visit their
mother when she was ill. That both would
reach the top of their profession is sociologically interesting. Perhaps that
is why Jack found Ireland a kind of retreat to which he could dip into as a
life in football but not be smothered by it.
There have been many worthy tributes to
Jack Charlton this week. Paul McGrath’s is my pick. So for those of you who
might have missed it, I copy it as below.
McGrath played an integral role in
Ireland’s three major tournaments under Charlton – Euro 88 and the 1990 and
1994 World Cups – and his performance in the 1-0 win over Italy in 1994 is
regarded as one of the greatest ever of any Irish team player.
“Today, I am truly heartbroken at Jack’s
passing,” McGrath said in a statement released through the FAI. It is difficult for me to articulate what
Jack meant to me both on and off the football field. Throughout his ten years as manager of our
International team, Jack backed me as a footballer and as a person - he became
a father figure to me. He gave me his full support when I needed
it most and for which I am forever grateful. He has been a hugely important
person in my life. The Irish people warmed to him because of
his big character and he gave us the belief in ourselves to compete in the big
tournaments. I am very honoured to have been a part of Jack’s journey. Today is a sad day for the Irish football
community and we all owe him huge gratitude for the joy and memories he has
given us.
He is a man I genuinely loved.
My thoughts today are with Pat and the
Charlton family.
Thank you Jack - sleep well.”
(Paul’s biography ‘Back from the Brink’ is
amongst the great sporting books.)
Jack Charlton was part of a great time for
many Irish people. I remember watching a number of those games in various
houses in Forest View with all the young fellows of that time. Then when we got
a result we went on parade around our estate to celebrate it all. This is
remembered in a great picture of the youngsters during one of those campaigns.
In a recent Blog I mentioned John Healy
crying after Ireland defeated Romania, I think. I was supervising the
Matriculation Examination in McHale Park Gym, Castlebar and being allowed by my
supervisor to watch snippets of a key match upstairs. I drove back to Boyle
‘quickly’ to become part of the celebration with the crew in The Craobhin but
when I got there I was many gin and tonics behind the gathering there who were
engaged in the conga or snake dance around the central supporting pillar.
Those were great games and celebrations and
they gave the country a great lift. As someone said “I missed the Italia 90
World Cup as I was actually IN Italy”.
Jack Charlton enabled all that and the country
began to come up off its knees after that. He was a unique man and a man for
Ireland’s Mount Rushmore.
The
25th Anniversary of the Massacre at SREBRENICA in Bosnia
After the Allied victory in World War II,
Yugoslavia was set up as a federation of six republics, with borders drawn roughly
along ethnic and historical lines: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Serbia was the dominant region comprising the
capital of Belgrade. This was all held together by the war resistance leader
Tito who became the dictator of the federation or Yugoslavia. After his death
this fell apart as the ethnic regions strove to establish their own independent
countries. Serbia resisted much of this
and in one of those campaigns Serb forces captured the town of Srebrenica in
Bosnia on July 11, 1995, and killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in a
few days.
The commanding officer of the Serb forces
was a vile general maned Ratko Mladic who was eventually brought to trial as a war criminal in The Hague from 2012 to 2017. He had been supported by Bosnian
Serb leader Radovan Karadzic who died in The Hague where he too was on
trial.
The audacity of the Serbs is represented by
them taking 400 Dutch U.N. peacekeepers into their custody as a shield against
threatened Western airstrikes.
Mladic’s demeanour during the trial was
that of total contempt for the court in all its elements and also the witnesses
present from the SREBRENICA massacre.
The massacre is regarded as the most
appalling act of genocide in Europe of that nature since the World War 2 and
the Nazis. (Rwanda should be kept in mind here).
Today Sunday the 12th of July we
might remember SREBRENICA and the incredible loss of nearly 10 thousand of its
people. 100,000 died in the war itself. The righteous attitude of another ethnic
group who found that they should destroy and kill off this community is
incredible. But man (a civilised species supposedly) has the capacity for such
atrocious acts.
The collapse of Yougoslavia and its effects
is a life study and I am not terribly tuned into the intricacies of it
all. I did visit Croatia and the beautiful city of Dubrovnik and went to Bosnia and Herzegovina on a couple of
trips.
Seeing that I am on a theme of genocide and
dislocation I will mention what happened when India became and Independent
country in the late forties next time.
‘Drifting’
with Jarlath Tivnan
A short fifteen-minute film titled
‘Drifting’ has been making waves at Galway Film Festival. The waves have
reached distant shores also. Amongst the reasons for this is that the lead role
is played by Paul Mescal who is set to become a real star following his role in
the television series ‘Normal People’. I have not watched ‘Normal People but
will do so for educational purposes to see what all the talk is about.
The storyline in ‘Drifting’ is based on two
lifelong friends in a small rural town find themselves at odds for the first
time as their lifestyles begin to move in opposite directions. One of the two
is a very quiet thoughtful person. The Mescal character is a more robust ‘out
there’ personality. He gets into bother regularly and it does not seem to
bother him. He uses his quiet friend as a prop, someone who looks out for him
or as the phrase goes ‘has his back’. Jarlath plays a supporting role with his
usual aplomb as a bar stool all-seeing eye who alerts the quiet character to pending
issues.
The film's message is a regular one in Irish
society. We often see a quiet inoffensive character swept along by a
devil-may-care individual. This, from time to time, does not end up well for
either of them.
It is a lovely moody short film with,
helped by enhancing theme music and an identifiable and regular motif. My
viewing was enabled by being able to rent it which was innovative.
‘Drifting’ will certainly expose all
involved in it to a very large public audience and more importantly to people
in the business and maybe it will see doors open for Jarlath.
Some Errata Notes
We have a Government. Yippee. After x
number of days. The Ministerial and Junior Ministerial accolades have been
distributed. I heartily congratulate our own Frank Feighan on his appointment
to the position of; ‘Minister of State of Public Health Well Being and National
Drugs Strategy’. A somewhat long title!
One appointment that I find mind-boggling
is that of the Green Party’s Catherine Martin who is vying for the leadership
position of the Green Party just now. Take a deep breath, please.
Her
portfolio is as follows: MINISTER FOR---MEDIA/TOURISM/ARTS &CULTURE/SPORT/
and THE GAELTACHT…I’ll use one of my oft used words here…. UNBELIEVABLE!
I have seen this department described, by
top historian, Diarmaid Ferriter as follows; “This new department is surely
indicative of both farce and folly in the administration and governance of
vital areas of Irish life and society”.
This reminds of the final days of Brian
Cowan as Taoiseach and as all around him was falling asunder he restructured
his cabinet and asked a number of them to multi-task. Mary Coughlan may have
been one of them. Speaking of Mary and if I really stretch it to the game of
pulling down statues as in the U.S. and to a lesser degree the U.K. there is a
significant rock with Mary’s name attached to it at the entrance to Lough Key
Visitor Centre which could be relocated to the paddock of memorials in this
region. One of the lesser populated islands in Lough Key for instance.
I
may be wrong but I seem to remember Ray Burke also multi-tasking in the mid-
90s’ around the time he was, with peacock chest out, drawing a line in the sand
in front of Leinster House. There must have been some reconstruction on around
there at the time.
Social
Distancing a Game Changer
I have great faith in the directions of the
many medical experts who populate our television screens at this time. We have
a connection to one of them, the gentleman from Trinity College. They have
become stars, part of the galaxy of caring people in our country over the past
months.
There are various interpretations of social
distancing and personally, I wish to adhere to the two-metre rule. Now, this is
where I run into bother. Not everybody is on that wavelength. This makes it
difficult when a person of the other church trespasses into your zone of two
metres. It is hard to, as the lady in the ad for a television programme echoes;
‘two metres, two metres now’. So if you are a person who comes to chat with
someone else do not make them uncomfortable by encroaching into their space.
Just be mindful that everyone is not as optimistic as you are about the scene
around you as pronounced in, ‘Sure there is no COVID around here’.
Many people will echo the sentiment that
‘God how would I feel if I am the person who
passes it on to my grandmother, my family member with underlying issues or
whoever?’
As I said in my last post I was hugely
impressed by the RTE documentary from St. James’s hospital a few weeks ago.
Amongst its many telling contributions, there was one of a mother who seemed to
be going to extremes in cleaning/disinfecting her car etc. Her daughter was a
day patient at St. James’s for a serious respiratory condition. The mother
answered ‘I am protecting my daughter. There is nothing I would not do to
protect her’.
So just be aware when approaching a friend
that they may be keeping the bar higher than you think necessary. That is their
prerogative.
Barry
Cowen and Driving
The formation of the new Government has
struck some uncharted rocks since its announcement. The lack of senior
ministerial appointments along the Wild Atlantic Way being one. The non-appointment
of Dara Colleary was the obvious ‘ouch’ moment. I have mentioned the ridiculous
agenda for Catherine Martin above. Over the last week, we have the toothache of
Barry Cowen and his drink-driving issue from four years ago exacerbated by his
lack of full licence then etc. Now there is a tangle with the Gardaí in terms
of correctness and also who may have spilled the information to the media.
There is also the fact that Michéal Martin was not aware of it before he
appointed Barry to a top ministerial position. We certainly have more pressing
problems at this time but it is stone in the shoe of the Taoiseach involving a
very sensitive issue. There is the phrase as follows; ‘It is the small things
that catch you out’.
How a senior (now 53 then 49) and very
regarded politician could not have a full driving licence, the i s’ dotted and
the ts’ crossed beats me, especially after the lessons given by Bertie some
decades ago.
The
72nd Anniversary of the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K.
It is unusual to hear of an anniversary
including the 2nd. It is probably because of the role the NHS is
playing in the U.K. in its battle with Covid 19.
The regular notable anniversaries include;
silver =25/ pearl =30/ ruby =40/ gold = 50/diamond (yellow)=60/ diamond (gold)
=75.
Anyway, the NHS came into being in 1948. It
was the result of the William Beveridge Report promoted by the politician
Aneurin Bevan.
It was a huge enterprise and became the
envy of- one could say-the world. A huge number of Caribbean and other
nationalities were recruited as nurses. Today it the Philippines and Indian
nurses. There were also large numbers of
Irish nurses also employed. My sister Carmel emigrated to London circa 1957 and
trained to become a State Registered Nurse at West Middlesex Hospital I think
near Twickenham.
I remember my own travails with poor dental
care and wire-rimmed glasses as a boy. Amongst the first things I did when I
went to England in the middle sixties was register with a doctor and get to a
dentist and I owe the NHS a debt of gratitude that the care given then especially
in the dental area has stood the test of time.
(If you see photographs of people from the
forties/ fifties they can often expose terrible dental images. Then there were huge
numbers with false teeth etc. I’ll adjourn there!)
It was a huge cost to the exchequer and was
resisted of course but that was overcome.
The covering phrase for the all-inclusive
system was that its care embraced ‘From the womb to the tomb’.
I’ll finish today with another of Jane
Clarke’s poems. (I spoke of my Castlecoote neighbour Jane in my last Blog.)
He
stood at the top of the stairs
insisting he could go down himself
but, like a frightened bullock refusing
the crush, his body wouldn’t move
from the spot where I used to sit
in the dark listening to rows in the
kitchen
when my mother showed him the bill
from the shop. He stood at the top
of the stairs in a fever that came on him
as fast as nightfall in winter,
steep, narrow steps between him
and the ambulance ticking
outside the back door.
He stood there in checked pyjamas
and thick Wellington socks,
in the house where he was born
and had sworn he would never leave.
I held him from behind
my brother in front
coaxing with a tenderness
I’d never seen between them,
come on Dad, just one step, one step.
Jane Clarke
from When the Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books,
2019)
Slán for now. Take care. We’re not there
yet.