I vividly remember my first visit to the cinema. My Dad brought my brother and me to the movies to see a full length feature on the 1970 world cup. We had a black and white telly at the time, so the realisation that football was actually played in colour was my first shock. The second thing to hit me was the majesty of the theatre. The screen was bigger than anything my young mind could imagine and the way the sound enveloped me was strangely comforting. There was also the cushioned seats, which were a far cry from the wooden benches I was used to at home.
I started a love affair with the cinema then to which I remained faithful through the years, even though other technologies sought to entice me into their parlour. First, there was video, which killed the radio star and did it’s best to destroy the movie going experience too. I was around when the first top loaders came in and remember that space docking sound as it sucked the cassette into its inner sanctum.
One of mates had a player in the back room of his parent’s house and for a few years during my adolescence, we could think of nothing more edgy than to pool our meagre resources and rent a video to watch teen focussed American movies that might offer the prospect of a naked breast or at least a few curse words that we hadn’t heard before.
Adolescence in the Ireland I grew up in was a slow burning affair.
Video rental shops were the big craze back then and seemed to pop up everywhere. The one we frequented was in a pub, with the videos arranged against the back wall. This meant that your selection was monitored by a collection of surly drinkers huddled around the bar. “The butler did it” they’d say if you chose a thriller. “There are more tits on the bull I have at home than you’d see in that filum” would be their call if you went for something more risqué.
DVD came later and I was a late convert having built up a sizable collection of Woody Allen and moody European movies on video that I was loathe to say goodbye to. But the lure of the box set got me in the end. Who could resist the entire catalogue of The Wire for example? Particularly when you can set up subtitles to understand the gangster accents and watch 20 episodes back to back over a weekend.
But throughout the video and DVD age, I stayed loyal to the cinema. It forces you to sit in one place for two hours, without distractions. You tend not to visit the toilet or play text tennis, as you do when watching a movie at home.
During my bachelor years I noticed that my married friends had all stopped visiting the movies, except for the occasional Saturday afternoon visit to a multiplex with their kids to see the latest Shrek or Toy Story release. When I asked why they never bothered seeing a grown up film, they would shrug and say that they weren’t going to waste a baby sitting night by watching something they could rent six months later. It always seemed to be about the film and not the atmosphere for them.
But in a week or so, I’ll become a Daddy and for the next few years at least, my cinema visits will be limited. So the wife and I have been trying to catch as many movies as possible in the past few weeks. But I’ve never been a weekly attendant. I’ve only ever gone when there was something worth seeing. It’s only when I felt I needed to go urgently that I noticed how much dross is on most of the time.
In my local back in Ireland, Betty (the landlady) kindly displays the front page of the local paper above the urinals to give you something to read while carrying out your waste control. The only problem is that the paper is from 1965 and Betty hasn’t changed it since then. The cinema listings have always stayed with me because I’ve never heard of any of the films that were playing that week. Red Buttons was the star of one of them (which gives an indication of the star quality) and the rest would have fitted into the straight to video category if only video had existed back then.
I puzzled over this until last week when I checked out the new releases and found only rubbish. One is a movie called Red Dog. I read a review and it didn’t go much further than saying “It’s about a red dog”. It reminded me of my mother’s last cinema visit, which was to see George Clooney’s “The Perfect Storm”. I asked her how it was which she took as a question as to the movie’s plot. “It was about a fishing boat that went out in a storm and then it sunk”. I watched it two weeks later and she’d pretty much nailed it. Most films aren’t about much except pretty scenery and boy meets girl. Red Dog falls into this category although dog meets bitch would probably better summarise the ending.
The other films on offer were “We need to talk about Kevin” (which is not the sort of movie expectant parents should see) and “The Orator” which is about a Samoan dwarf and has the added benefit of being in Somoan.
I’d just about given up and resigned myself to a life of Toy Story sequels when I
noticed that my old friend George Clooney had a new release out. “The Ides of March” is a political thriller and makes the West Wing look like Glee. It is magnificent and if movies like that keep coming out, I know where I’ll be spending my baby sitting nights in the next few years. My love of cinema still has a beating heart.
Monday, 28 November 2011
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
The Phantom Belly
I was once in a play in Dublin that involved a complicated costume change during the interval. Shortly into the second half I found myself front of stage during a long speech by one of the other actors. During a pause I noticed an elderly lady with a distinctive blue rinse hairstyle pointing at me. I should say that the front rows at amateur drama are usually reserved for people who are aurally challenged, so I wasn’t surprised when she spoke loudly to her partner.
“Who’s he?” she said, keeping her finger pointed straight at me.
Her partner (who was obviously equally hard of hearing) replied in a similar booming voice “He’s the fat bloke from act 1”.
Yes, it’s time I admitted that I struggle with my weight. I have done so since I was a teenager. I got a job in a pub and used to sneak out with crisps, chocolate and anything else I could find (with the strange exception of alcohol). In no time at all I had developed a belly, or a spare tyre as my Mother so cruelly called it.
Then I went into my last year at school and had to give up work, due to the pressures of study. I went back to a frugal existence of three meals a day and soon returned to the scrawny shaped youth I was before I started work. Then of course I discovered beer and the belly returned. Over the years I guess it has fluctuated but the sport I played in my twenties probably kept it under control.
My next challenge was pasta. I didn’t start eating it until I was in my late twenties and moved to Luxembourg. I wouldn’t exactly say I was jockey like when I arrived there, but after 3 years of Tre de Pate every day I came back looking like the Michelin man. Luxembourg is squeezed between France and Germany and has developed a culinary tradition that takes the rich style of cooking from the former and portion sizes from the latter. It might be the smallest country in the European Union but it boasts some of the biggest people.
There followed 10 years in Ireland, which could best be described as an odyssey of Guinness and fried food. As the years passed, I played less and less sport and in one of those cruel games that nature plays I started losing hair in direct proportion to the weight I gained.
Moving to Australia was partly motivated by the desire to live in a healthier, outdoors type culture and this has worked to some degree. I’m five kilos lighter than I was when I got here and have the motivation to drive this further.
But recently I’ve noticed that despite my weight remaining steady, my stomach has bulged outwards. Last night I started getting cramps in the belly department and I was hit with a sudden realisation. I have developed a phantom pregnancy! My good wife is now eight months into her confinement and perhaps I’m subconsciously feeling jealous. I’ve had a well-structured belly for years after all but now she’s getting all the attention, including small children who want to touch her bump. The only people who have ever wanted to touch my bump are Chinese tourists who think I might be the reincarnation of Budda.
Jealousy or not, it is very strange. I find myself struggling to get out of sofas and hold the small of my back while waddling around the house. I’ve also started getting up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night as though some small creature was pressing against my bladder.
It seems odd though that men should want to share in the trials of pregnancy. It looks a pretty uncomfortable experience. I hope my own phantom experience doesn’t extend to the labour stage. I cry when I get an injection after all. I shudder to imagine what it would be like to have a thing the size of a melon pass through me.
However, I am pleased that my belly will become useful in a few weeks. The biggest thing I’m looking forward to is having our new born child rest on my stomach while I introduce him/her to the delights of football on TV. Skin on skin contact in the best bond a parent can develop with their child and I have enough skin to last the kid until adolescence.
We got into a bit of a panic a few weeks ago when we realised we had nothing bought. But a couple of laborious Saturdays spent in Mothercare and Baby Buntings has sorted us out. Junior now has somewhere to sleep and to wash and enough cute baby clothes to bring a tear to an ogre.
All that is left is for him/her to make their grand entrance. The doctor told us this morning that the baby’s head is now “engaged” which makes it sound like we are involved in a space mission, where we have hooked up with the rocket ship that will take us into the great unknown.
We are certainly on the cusp of something life changing and amazing and that might be a more realistic reason for last night’s stomach cramps. I don’t have much experience with kids after all, apart from once being one myself (and that was so long ago I can barely remember it). So I will admit to being a little nervous. Will I be a good Dad? Will I raise somebody to be my best friend, as my Father has been to me?
All expectant fathers have these fears apparently and all we can do is sit back, let our wives do all the hard work and then hope that instinct kicks in. If I can be half the Dad my Father was to me I will do well. And if our kid can be half the offspring I was, they will also be doing well. Because that means they will be unlikely to have a bulging belly.
“Who’s he?” she said, keeping her finger pointed straight at me.
Her partner (who was obviously equally hard of hearing) replied in a similar booming voice “He’s the fat bloke from act 1”.
Yes, it’s time I admitted that I struggle with my weight. I have done so since I was a teenager. I got a job in a pub and used to sneak out with crisps, chocolate and anything else I could find (with the strange exception of alcohol). In no time at all I had developed a belly, or a spare tyre as my Mother so cruelly called it.
Then I went into my last year at school and had to give up work, due to the pressures of study. I went back to a frugal existence of three meals a day and soon returned to the scrawny shaped youth I was before I started work. Then of course I discovered beer and the belly returned. Over the years I guess it has fluctuated but the sport I played in my twenties probably kept it under control.
My next challenge was pasta. I didn’t start eating it until I was in my late twenties and moved to Luxembourg. I wouldn’t exactly say I was jockey like when I arrived there, but after 3 years of Tre de Pate every day I came back looking like the Michelin man. Luxembourg is squeezed between France and Germany and has developed a culinary tradition that takes the rich style of cooking from the former and portion sizes from the latter. It might be the smallest country in the European Union but it boasts some of the biggest people.
There followed 10 years in Ireland, which could best be described as an odyssey of Guinness and fried food. As the years passed, I played less and less sport and in one of those cruel games that nature plays I started losing hair in direct proportion to the weight I gained.
Moving to Australia was partly motivated by the desire to live in a healthier, outdoors type culture and this has worked to some degree. I’m five kilos lighter than I was when I got here and have the motivation to drive this further.
But recently I’ve noticed that despite my weight remaining steady, my stomach has bulged outwards. Last night I started getting cramps in the belly department and I was hit with a sudden realisation. I have developed a phantom pregnancy! My good wife is now eight months into her confinement and perhaps I’m subconsciously feeling jealous. I’ve had a well-structured belly for years after all but now she’s getting all the attention, including small children who want to touch her bump. The only people who have ever wanted to touch my bump are Chinese tourists who think I might be the reincarnation of Budda.
Jealousy or not, it is very strange. I find myself struggling to get out of sofas and hold the small of my back while waddling around the house. I’ve also started getting up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night as though some small creature was pressing against my bladder.
It seems odd though that men should want to share in the trials of pregnancy. It looks a pretty uncomfortable experience. I hope my own phantom experience doesn’t extend to the labour stage. I cry when I get an injection after all. I shudder to imagine what it would be like to have a thing the size of a melon pass through me.
However, I am pleased that my belly will become useful in a few weeks. The biggest thing I’m looking forward to is having our new born child rest on my stomach while I introduce him/her to the delights of football on TV. Skin on skin contact in the best bond a parent can develop with their child and I have enough skin to last the kid until adolescence.
We got into a bit of a panic a few weeks ago when we realised we had nothing bought. But a couple of laborious Saturdays spent in Mothercare and Baby Buntings has sorted us out. Junior now has somewhere to sleep and to wash and enough cute baby clothes to bring a tear to an ogre.
All that is left is for him/her to make their grand entrance. The doctor told us this morning that the baby’s head is now “engaged” which makes it sound like we are involved in a space mission, where we have hooked up with the rocket ship that will take us into the great unknown.
We are certainly on the cusp of something life changing and amazing and that might be a more realistic reason for last night’s stomach cramps. I don’t have much experience with kids after all, apart from once being one myself (and that was so long ago I can barely remember it). So I will admit to being a little nervous. Will I be a good Dad? Will I raise somebody to be my best friend, as my Father has been to me?
All expectant fathers have these fears apparently and all we can do is sit back, let our wives do all the hard work and then hope that instinct kicks in. If I can be half the Dad my Father was to me I will do well. And if our kid can be half the offspring I was, they will also be doing well. Because that means they will be unlikely to have a bulging belly.
Friday, 28 October 2011
Waiting for the Stork Part 2
Week four at the antenatal classes and I’m struggling to stay awake to be honest. It’s three and half-hours in a warm room at the end of a long working day. If nothing else it is getting us used to the first months of the kids life, when trying to stay awake will be a daily challenge.
The instructor tries to make it interactive, but as we’re all first time parents, nobody wants to make a fool of themselves by giving a stupid answer. I’d been on a training course at work the week before, which was not dissimilar to the baby class I now found myself in. Both were run by slightly smug individuals who spent most of the time asking patently obvious questions which nobody wanted to answer for fear of becoming the class pet. And both were training us for a scenario that would involve forgetting everything you’ve heard during training.
The only problem with these courses (both Baby and work related) is that they involve long periods of silence while the instructor waits for an answer to her longwinded questions. In most cases, she asks questions relating to the topic she is about to explain. This is pretty redundant and reminds me of the dark days of school when the teacher would ask “What is the capital of Poland?”, just before he was due to tell us anyway. That’s why many of the kids from my school went on to be experts at quizzes.
One of the questions she asked was “Who knows what the three day blues are”? After an age, I thought I’d venture a response. “Is it a music festival in Adelaide”?
All the blokes laughed but the women weren’t impressed. Later on we got on to the subject of breastfeeding. “How long does the average woman breastfeed for”? We were asked. Again the silence was deafening, so I answered “surely you’d do it until the baby was full”.
At that stage I think I was marked down as a troublemaker. You’re supposed to take these things seriously after all. There are male midwives apparently, but our classes were determinedly female. Childbirth is their thing after all and we men are there for support. Kind of like the little guy who runs onto the football pitch with a bottle of water and a sponge when somebody goes down injured. Nobody pays in to see that guy. They are there for the footballers.
On the third class, we got a tour of the hospital, which at least gave some attention to the guys. We were shown where to park when we rush the wife to hospital. How much it costs to park while she’s in labour (an arm and a leg) and where the canteen is. The birthing suites are nicely modern and well equipped and had enough gadgets to keep the men interested. Most of us were drawn to the TV and fridge. It made the space look a hotel room. The fridge apparently is provided so that we can bring in cooling packs and food for the expected 8 hour ordeal (only the woman giving birth gets fed by the hospital).
You could tell that all the blokes wanted to know if you could bring in a six-pack but nobody had the guts to ask.
They showed us where the baby will be weighed and measured and where the umbilical cord is cut. Many aspects of this whole fatherhood thing are coming as a shock to me. Not least is the fact that the modern man is supposed to take a pair of scissors to the cord connecting the baby to the placenta. I went white at the mention of this process. I’m an Accountant who feels faint when I get a paper cut. If I wanted to be a surgeon or a butcher, I would have trained to be one.
My squeamishness wasn’t helped when the midwife mentioned that the cord is like nylon rope and you had to give it a good snap with the scissors. When she said that some men liked to wait until the cord had stopped pulsing, I nearly passed out. I can see that I’m going to have to work on my resilience over the coming weeks.
The lowlight of the tour was when they took us to the post natal ward and explained that the mother and baby would only spend one night there. So if the baby is born at 10pm, we’ll be on the mean streets of Melbourne by 6pm the following evening with a small bundle of joy and two inexperienced parents.
But that’s life and I doubt if we’re the first parents to find ourselves in that position. The seven billion people clinging to this mortal planet all got here through similar means. Most people cope and that is what we will do.
We bought our first set of nappies last week and have started to think about all the other things we’ll need. Last Sunday we went to a Baby Expo, which was just about the most soul-destroying thing I’ve ever done. Most of the displays were designed to target your guilt or vanity. There were cots that cost as much as a small car, prams that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Grand Prix circuit and a bewildering assortment of gadgets designed to monitor a baby’s temperature and heartbeat. It seems that the modern nursery is better equipped than an intensive care unit.
After we passed a stall selling aromatherapy treatments for infants, we were hit by a sudden weariness and sat down to enjoy a coffee. My eyes were drawn to a strange green figure on a stage to my right. It turned out to be Dorothy the Dinosaur. She danced and sang a tinny tune and the kids screamed their approval. Somehow I think I’ll be seeing a lot of Dorothy in the future. I can only hope that she knows a few Leonard Cohen songs.
The instructor tries to make it interactive, but as we’re all first time parents, nobody wants to make a fool of themselves by giving a stupid answer. I’d been on a training course at work the week before, which was not dissimilar to the baby class I now found myself in. Both were run by slightly smug individuals who spent most of the time asking patently obvious questions which nobody wanted to answer for fear of becoming the class pet. And both were training us for a scenario that would involve forgetting everything you’ve heard during training.
The only problem with these courses (both Baby and work related) is that they involve long periods of silence while the instructor waits for an answer to her longwinded questions. In most cases, she asks questions relating to the topic she is about to explain. This is pretty redundant and reminds me of the dark days of school when the teacher would ask “What is the capital of Poland?”, just before he was due to tell us anyway. That’s why many of the kids from my school went on to be experts at quizzes.
One of the questions she asked was “Who knows what the three day blues are”? After an age, I thought I’d venture a response. “Is it a music festival in Adelaide”?
All the blokes laughed but the women weren’t impressed. Later on we got on to the subject of breastfeeding. “How long does the average woman breastfeed for”? We were asked. Again the silence was deafening, so I answered “surely you’d do it until the baby was full”.
At that stage I think I was marked down as a troublemaker. You’re supposed to take these things seriously after all. There are male midwives apparently, but our classes were determinedly female. Childbirth is their thing after all and we men are there for support. Kind of like the little guy who runs onto the football pitch with a bottle of water and a sponge when somebody goes down injured. Nobody pays in to see that guy. They are there for the footballers.
On the third class, we got a tour of the hospital, which at least gave some attention to the guys. We were shown where to park when we rush the wife to hospital. How much it costs to park while she’s in labour (an arm and a leg) and where the canteen is. The birthing suites are nicely modern and well equipped and had enough gadgets to keep the men interested. Most of us were drawn to the TV and fridge. It made the space look a hotel room. The fridge apparently is provided so that we can bring in cooling packs and food for the expected 8 hour ordeal (only the woman giving birth gets fed by the hospital).
You could tell that all the blokes wanted to know if you could bring in a six-pack but nobody had the guts to ask.
They showed us where the baby will be weighed and measured and where the umbilical cord is cut. Many aspects of this whole fatherhood thing are coming as a shock to me. Not least is the fact that the modern man is supposed to take a pair of scissors to the cord connecting the baby to the placenta. I went white at the mention of this process. I’m an Accountant who feels faint when I get a paper cut. If I wanted to be a surgeon or a butcher, I would have trained to be one.
My squeamishness wasn’t helped when the midwife mentioned that the cord is like nylon rope and you had to give it a good snap with the scissors. When she said that some men liked to wait until the cord had stopped pulsing, I nearly passed out. I can see that I’m going to have to work on my resilience over the coming weeks.
The lowlight of the tour was when they took us to the post natal ward and explained that the mother and baby would only spend one night there. So if the baby is born at 10pm, we’ll be on the mean streets of Melbourne by 6pm the following evening with a small bundle of joy and two inexperienced parents.
But that’s life and I doubt if we’re the first parents to find ourselves in that position. The seven billion people clinging to this mortal planet all got here through similar means. Most people cope and that is what we will do.
We bought our first set of nappies last week and have started to think about all the other things we’ll need. Last Sunday we went to a Baby Expo, which was just about the most soul-destroying thing I’ve ever done. Most of the displays were designed to target your guilt or vanity. There were cots that cost as much as a small car, prams that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Grand Prix circuit and a bewildering assortment of gadgets designed to monitor a baby’s temperature and heartbeat. It seems that the modern nursery is better equipped than an intensive care unit.
After we passed a stall selling aromatherapy treatments for infants, we were hit by a sudden weariness and sat down to enjoy a coffee. My eyes were drawn to a strange green figure on a stage to my right. It turned out to be Dorothy the Dinosaur. She danced and sang a tinny tune and the kids screamed their approval. Somehow I think I’ll be seeing a lot of Dorothy in the future. I can only hope that she knows a few Leonard Cohen songs.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Waiting for the Stork Part 1
Helen runs our local breastfeeding class and is a slightly intimidating lady. “Do you have any experience with babies?” was her first question.
“Well, I used to be one” I said. “I was a lot fitter back then, mind you. I weighed 9 pounds, 4 ounces but I’ve been stacking it on ever since”.
She didn’t laugh. Years’ working as a midwife obviously numbs you to baby jokes. I was going to try my old favourite “I like babies but couldn’t eat a whole one” but thought better of it and slunk away to find a place among the other parent’s to be. It was a motley crew it must be said. Two lesbian couples who looked a little smug. This is probably due to the fact that they have double the output capacity of the other couples. Two women who arrived on their own and muttered darkly whenever they mentioned their absent husbands and just three blokes (including myself) who had turned up with their partners.
We were asked to introduce ourselves to the group and I had the honour of going first. “Despite my bulging tummy and man boobs”, I said. “I just want to point out that I’m not actually pregnant”.
The fat bloke two seats to my left glared at me and said “You’ve stolen my bloody line”.
I also mentioned that I’m Irish and breastfeeding is about as common there as ham sandwiches are in Israel. Helen looked at me as though I was a caveman and shook her head. I slunk back into my seat and buried my head in the handout we received at the start. The first thing I noticed was a glossy colour pamphlet with the heading “poo chart”. To my disappointment it contained nothing about a cuddly bear called Winnie, but had lots of pictures of excrement. I’m learning new things every day, but apparently it’s OK for a small child to have bright green poo, and they don’t even have to consume a bottle of Creme de Mente like their father does.
I now know what to expect when I open those 72 nappies that will be needed in the first week of juniors’ existence. To be honest, I’ll probably be more concerned about the condition of my own poo in that week as I don’t respond well to lack of sleep and a diet of takeaway food.
The class was pretty boring, until they introduced the live demonstration. Two women had brought along their little boys and we were expected to stand round in small groups and stare at their mammaries. I was a little uncomfortable. The last time I’d paid that much attention to boobies, outside of a loving relationship, was when I first stumbled upon a topless beach in Spain. I say stumbled, because I tripped over an elderly German tourist on a sun lounger while staring at somebody else.
The little boys were 4 and 8 months and the younger one fitted the breastfeeding stereotype that was in my head. It was brought to the feeding station and held there while he filled himself up. The older one was more mobile and he treated his Mother as more of a self service option. Every hour or so, he would crawl over to where she was sitting. He would then climb up and start unbuttoning her blouse. Pretty soon he’d be getting a mouth full while his Mother read a book. We were there to learn how to breastfeed but the thought struck me that she would actually have a harder job teaching her kid when to stop. If it’s that easy, why would you ever bother with the pureed vegetables that other kids are forced to eat?
Two weeks later, we went to our first ante natal class. I’ve been talking to a lot of Dads recently and one thing that always comes up is the horror movies that are shown at these classes. Thankfully, ours was more old school and the presenter decided to showcase her acting skills by playing out most of the action that would normally be seen on screen. This involved lots of moaning and face pulling that would not be out of place at a Pentecostal speaking in tongues festival.
The gathering here was much more conventional with equal numbers of Dads to Mums. Naturally, it focused on the females but we men did get the occasional mention. It’s our job to drive to the hospital (and home again two days later) and to be the chief forehead wiper and back masseuse. We are also expected to be strong and supportive, particularly during that point in labour when it is pointed out that all this pain is actually our fault.
In two weeks time, we get a tour of the hospital. Apparently these days, the delivery rooms are en suite with TVs and vending machines. We’re expecting an 18 hour process, so I might bring along a Box Set of the Sopranos. It’s all very different to when I was a nipper. Mammy won’t be lying down for the delivery it seems. These days you are encouraged to lie across a large exercise ball or to be on all fours. It all seems terribly undignified to me, but then there is very little dignity involved at the start of the baby making process either.
The first class was fun and it gave us a chance to meet other people in our area who are also close to becoming parents. We feel we are part of a club now that lets you into the secret of life. In a few weeks we will become responsible for a little person. To mould them and to teach them and to give them the confidence to set forth into this mad world.
But the thing I’m learning now is that this small child has so much to teach me. He or she will make me a Father and that’s the greatest gift I will ever receive.
“Well, I used to be one” I said. “I was a lot fitter back then, mind you. I weighed 9 pounds, 4 ounces but I’ve been stacking it on ever since”.
She didn’t laugh. Years’ working as a midwife obviously numbs you to baby jokes. I was going to try my old favourite “I like babies but couldn’t eat a whole one” but thought better of it and slunk away to find a place among the other parent’s to be. It was a motley crew it must be said. Two lesbian couples who looked a little smug. This is probably due to the fact that they have double the output capacity of the other couples. Two women who arrived on their own and muttered darkly whenever they mentioned their absent husbands and just three blokes (including myself) who had turned up with their partners.
We were asked to introduce ourselves to the group and I had the honour of going first. “Despite my bulging tummy and man boobs”, I said. “I just want to point out that I’m not actually pregnant”.
The fat bloke two seats to my left glared at me and said “You’ve stolen my bloody line”.
I also mentioned that I’m Irish and breastfeeding is about as common there as ham sandwiches are in Israel. Helen looked at me as though I was a caveman and shook her head. I slunk back into my seat and buried my head in the handout we received at the start. The first thing I noticed was a glossy colour pamphlet with the heading “poo chart”. To my disappointment it contained nothing about a cuddly bear called Winnie, but had lots of pictures of excrement. I’m learning new things every day, but apparently it’s OK for a small child to have bright green poo, and they don’t even have to consume a bottle of Creme de Mente like their father does.
I now know what to expect when I open those 72 nappies that will be needed in the first week of juniors’ existence. To be honest, I’ll probably be more concerned about the condition of my own poo in that week as I don’t respond well to lack of sleep and a diet of takeaway food.
The class was pretty boring, until they introduced the live demonstration. Two women had brought along their little boys and we were expected to stand round in small groups and stare at their mammaries. I was a little uncomfortable. The last time I’d paid that much attention to boobies, outside of a loving relationship, was when I first stumbled upon a topless beach in Spain. I say stumbled, because I tripped over an elderly German tourist on a sun lounger while staring at somebody else.
The little boys were 4 and 8 months and the younger one fitted the breastfeeding stereotype that was in my head. It was brought to the feeding station and held there while he filled himself up. The older one was more mobile and he treated his Mother as more of a self service option. Every hour or so, he would crawl over to where she was sitting. He would then climb up and start unbuttoning her blouse. Pretty soon he’d be getting a mouth full while his Mother read a book. We were there to learn how to breastfeed but the thought struck me that she would actually have a harder job teaching her kid when to stop. If it’s that easy, why would you ever bother with the pureed vegetables that other kids are forced to eat?
Two weeks later, we went to our first ante natal class. I’ve been talking to a lot of Dads recently and one thing that always comes up is the horror movies that are shown at these classes. Thankfully, ours was more old school and the presenter decided to showcase her acting skills by playing out most of the action that would normally be seen on screen. This involved lots of moaning and face pulling that would not be out of place at a Pentecostal speaking in tongues festival.
The gathering here was much more conventional with equal numbers of Dads to Mums. Naturally, it focused on the females but we men did get the occasional mention. It’s our job to drive to the hospital (and home again two days later) and to be the chief forehead wiper and back masseuse. We are also expected to be strong and supportive, particularly during that point in labour when it is pointed out that all this pain is actually our fault.
In two weeks time, we get a tour of the hospital. Apparently these days, the delivery rooms are en suite with TVs and vending machines. We’re expecting an 18 hour process, so I might bring along a Box Set of the Sopranos. It’s all very different to when I was a nipper. Mammy won’t be lying down for the delivery it seems. These days you are encouraged to lie across a large exercise ball or to be on all fours. It all seems terribly undignified to me, but then there is very little dignity involved at the start of the baby making process either.
The first class was fun and it gave us a chance to meet other people in our area who are also close to becoming parents. We feel we are part of a club now that lets you into the secret of life. In a few weeks we will become responsible for a little person. To mould them and to teach them and to give them the confidence to set forth into this mad world.
But the thing I’m learning now is that this small child has so much to teach me. He or she will make me a Father and that’s the greatest gift I will ever receive.
Monday, 26 September 2011
That game played by men with odd shaped balls
I sat in the back of a cab in Singapore discussing English football with the Taxi driver. He was up to date on the latest transfer speculation and even knew which player was doing immoral acts with grannies or farm yard animals. He asked me who I supported and I told him “Arsenal” which at the time was not the subject of ridicule that it is now.
He nodded sagely and left a gap in the conversation for me to return the question. “And who do you support?” I asked. “Goalkeepers” was his response. “I watch games and I want to see the keepers do well. Best game for me is one that finishes 0-0”. I thought he might have been extracting the urine, but Singaporean taxi drivers are not known for their humour.
I thought about his comments afterwards and while his support is unusual, it’s no dafter than attaching your fanaticism to a bunch of sulky millionaires who play for the same team in a league at the other side of the world.
Being a sports fan is crazy when you think about it. You will inhale the occasional whiff of high octane when your team does well but given the odds, you are far more likely to experience heartbreak. Leagues tend to be made up of 16 or more teams. Only one can win and the rest must wallow in the sport’s fans biggest fanciful dream, which is that next year will be better.
Last weekend, Ireland beat Australia for the first time at a World Cup. One headline I read said “One night in paradise makes up for 24 years of pain”. But is that true? Perhaps it is appropriate to a sailor on shore leave after a long stint at sea, but it doesn’t really apply to the rest of us. I could have switched teams for example and barracked for the All Blacks if I wanted success (or maybe not, given their World Cup record). I could have given up following Rugby completely, which in Melbourne at least would make me the same as everyone else.
The other complication is that for every team I like, I tend to passionately despise another. You might think that evens out my chances of being happy. But actually it tends to double the pain. I’m naturally drawn to underdogs and as a result I tend to dislike cocky favourites. The problem is that the cocky ones are usually favourites for a reason, as are the underdogs.
In AFL for example, I follow Carlton, a team that hasn’t won anything in sixteen years and were bottom of the league when I arrived in Australia. I am just as happy to see them win as I am to see Collingwood lose. They are the self appointed giants of AFL and strut around like peacocks in heat. I’ve put up with four years of disappointment, watching Carlton stumble at a crucial stage of the season and at the same time seeing Collingwood rise to the top.
This year I made the mistake of getting my hopes up. We finally found some form and made a late run for the title. That dream ended last Saturday night when they went down by 3 points in Perth. What was worse for me (apart from the fact that Collingwood still look odds on to win again this year) is that the Carlton game was on TV immediately after Ireland’s historic win against Australia in the Rugby world cup. Nothing highlighted the swings and arrows of outrageous fortune more than those few hours. I went from being ecstatic to been downright grumpy, with the beer I’d drunk being a catalyst to swing my mood.
At least now that Carlton are out of the running in the AFL and Arsenal never even got into a running stride, I can devote my attention to the Rugby. I have a chequered past in that respect. Despite my size and obsession with sports, I never actually played the game. In my hometown, Rugby was the preserve of the Doctor and Solicitor community with the occasional social climber from my working class end of the street. I followed games on TV and became fascinated with the complicated rules of the sport. But to the outside world, I maintained a well nourished chip on my shoulder about the middle class roots of the game.
Then of course I met a nice middle class girl whose Father happened to be President of the Munster Rugby Union. And so it came to pass that the first ever live game of Rugby I attended was the World Cup Final in 1991. We obtained 11 tickets from her Father and distributed them among the few people we knew in London at the time who had a passing interest in the game. That only amounted to 7 and so we watched the sell out final from the West Stand at Twickenham with 4 empty seats beside us.
After that nice middle class girl turned out to be not so nice after all, I rebelled a little against Rugby and mocked the pretensions of its yuppy supporters. But like Michael in the Godfather, I tried to get out but they pulled me back in again. I started going on away trips to Rome and following club matches and before I knew where I was, I was back in the warm embrace of those with money and manners.
Alas, I won’t make it to any games at this World Cup. Upcoming fatherhood brings other priorities. But I am at least in the right time zone to enjoy the matches and I find that I don’t dislike any of the teams with the sort of venom I reserve for the likes of Manchester United and Collingwood. So if Ireland doesn’t win, I won’t be too distressed about the team that does.
If Ireland does win of course, that will be a different matter. My cries of joy will be heard as far away as the taxi ranks of Singapore.
He nodded sagely and left a gap in the conversation for me to return the question. “And who do you support?” I asked. “Goalkeepers” was his response. “I watch games and I want to see the keepers do well. Best game for me is one that finishes 0-0”. I thought he might have been extracting the urine, but Singaporean taxi drivers are not known for their humour.
I thought about his comments afterwards and while his support is unusual, it’s no dafter than attaching your fanaticism to a bunch of sulky millionaires who play for the same team in a league at the other side of the world.
Being a sports fan is crazy when you think about it. You will inhale the occasional whiff of high octane when your team does well but given the odds, you are far more likely to experience heartbreak. Leagues tend to be made up of 16 or more teams. Only one can win and the rest must wallow in the sport’s fans biggest fanciful dream, which is that next year will be better.
Last weekend, Ireland beat Australia for the first time at a World Cup. One headline I read said “One night in paradise makes up for 24 years of pain”. But is that true? Perhaps it is appropriate to a sailor on shore leave after a long stint at sea, but it doesn’t really apply to the rest of us. I could have switched teams for example and barracked for the All Blacks if I wanted success (or maybe not, given their World Cup record). I could have given up following Rugby completely, which in Melbourne at least would make me the same as everyone else.
The other complication is that for every team I like, I tend to passionately despise another. You might think that evens out my chances of being happy. But actually it tends to double the pain. I’m naturally drawn to underdogs and as a result I tend to dislike cocky favourites. The problem is that the cocky ones are usually favourites for a reason, as are the underdogs.
In AFL for example, I follow Carlton, a team that hasn’t won anything in sixteen years and were bottom of the league when I arrived in Australia. I am just as happy to see them win as I am to see Collingwood lose. They are the self appointed giants of AFL and strut around like peacocks in heat. I’ve put up with four years of disappointment, watching Carlton stumble at a crucial stage of the season and at the same time seeing Collingwood rise to the top.
This year I made the mistake of getting my hopes up. We finally found some form and made a late run for the title. That dream ended last Saturday night when they went down by 3 points in Perth. What was worse for me (apart from the fact that Collingwood still look odds on to win again this year) is that the Carlton game was on TV immediately after Ireland’s historic win against Australia in the Rugby world cup. Nothing highlighted the swings and arrows of outrageous fortune more than those few hours. I went from being ecstatic to been downright grumpy, with the beer I’d drunk being a catalyst to swing my mood.
At least now that Carlton are out of the running in the AFL and Arsenal never even got into a running stride, I can devote my attention to the Rugby. I have a chequered past in that respect. Despite my size and obsession with sports, I never actually played the game. In my hometown, Rugby was the preserve of the Doctor and Solicitor community with the occasional social climber from my working class end of the street. I followed games on TV and became fascinated with the complicated rules of the sport. But to the outside world, I maintained a well nourished chip on my shoulder about the middle class roots of the game.
Then of course I met a nice middle class girl whose Father happened to be President of the Munster Rugby Union. And so it came to pass that the first ever live game of Rugby I attended was the World Cup Final in 1991. We obtained 11 tickets from her Father and distributed them among the few people we knew in London at the time who had a passing interest in the game. That only amounted to 7 and so we watched the sell out final from the West Stand at Twickenham with 4 empty seats beside us.
After that nice middle class girl turned out to be not so nice after all, I rebelled a little against Rugby and mocked the pretensions of its yuppy supporters. But like Michael in the Godfather, I tried to get out but they pulled me back in again. I started going on away trips to Rome and following club matches and before I knew where I was, I was back in the warm embrace of those with money and manners.
Alas, I won’t make it to any games at this World Cup. Upcoming fatherhood brings other priorities. But I am at least in the right time zone to enjoy the matches and I find that I don’t dislike any of the teams with the sort of venom I reserve for the likes of Manchester United and Collingwood. So if Ireland doesn’t win, I won’t be too distressed about the team that does.
If Ireland does win of course, that will be a different matter. My cries of joy will be heard as far away as the taxi ranks of Singapore.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Rugby as non International Sport
Don is an American and very proud of his country. Although not so proud that he would actually live there (the irony of me being proud of my country is not lost on me). I want to watch Ireland’s games at the World Cup in the company of somebody from the country against which we are playing. Rugby is a deeply illogical game and having somebody to banter with is the only way of making it even mildly entertaining.
We played the yanks on September 11th, a day that is important to them for obvious reasons. Don got emotional during the minute silence before the game. I thought it might be a good time to bring up some of the conspiracy theories that surround that day. I don’t mean the ones about the towers been brought down by preset explosives or the van load of Israelis who were seen cheering as the towers collapse. I mean the one about how America used the events of that day to press their crazy date system on the rest of the world. Days are followed by months which are followed by years and that’s the logical way to express a date. So why does the world talk about 9/11? Let the Americans call it that if they want. But to the rest of us it should be 11/9.
I think this is a slippery slope and soon we will not just be using their date format, but we’ll scrap metric and return to pints and gallons. I think there is also room to speculate that the London bombings in 2005 were orchestrated to happen on the 7th July so that the English could talk about 7/7. This allows them to simultaneously keep their American paymasters happy by using the Yankee date format while pretending to the rest of the world that their using their format too.
After Don had dismissed my theories with a disdainful look, we turned our attention back to the pre match entertainment. The Auckland choral choir stepped up to sing the Irish anthem. Except of course it wasn’t the Irish anthem. It’s a made up song designed to not upset anyone but in the process pleasing no one. “Ireland’s Call” is a dirge that would not be out of place in a Michael Flatley musical.
To make matters worse, the Auckland choir decided to only allow its female singers to participate, which made the aforementioned call sound like a screech from a pack of banshees who had just had boiling water poured on them. The male members of the choir followed with a powerful rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” which was almost enough to encourage me to buy a helicopter and head off to some Middle Eastern country on a bombing mission. The contrast between the two anthems could not be starker.
Don, like many Americans, has some Irish blood racing through his veins. It’s mixed with some German, Cherokee Indian and lots of cocaine, if his bulging eyeballs were any guide. When the fine ladies of Auckland had finished butchering Ireland’s Call, Don looked at me with a quizzed expression. “That’s not the song they used to play at the end of the night in Dropkick Murphys in Boston”, he said. I sighed, because I knew that I was about to set off on an explanation of Ireland’s twisted nationhood for the thousand time since I arrived on this fatal shore.
I should say upfront that I voted for the Good Friday agreement which was the definitive Irish solution to an Irish problem. That agreement allows people in Northern Ireland to choose between British and Irish citizenship. I might be wrong, but I think this is the only place in the world that allows this duality. You can be in Ireland all your life but choose not to be Irish. As a country of course “Ireland” doesn’t actually exist. Geographically, it is an island off the North West coast of Europe. But politically, in terms of the United Nations and all that, it’s made up of the Republic of Ireland and a dysfunctional province which is part of the United Kingdom.
Many Australians think Ireland is part of the UK as the media likes to use those two letters as shorthand for anything in that far off neck of the word. This pricks my national pride as it is only Northern Island that is part of the United Kingdom, but we southerners don’t help the confusion by using the shorthand of “Ireland” to represent our part of the country.
Don’s eyes were drooping as I continued with an explanation of dominion status in the 1930s. None of it matters of course, except when it comes to sport. Ireland has two soccer teams which reflect the political structure of the Island. It sends one team to the Olympics which is drawn from the whole island but only includes those who have chosen to be Irish. The only sports in which we present an All Ireland team are Rugby, Hockey and Cricket. Which are of course, the old middle class garrison games of British occupation.
None of these teams fly the Irish flag or play the Irish anthem before games. To complain about this sets you out as a petty minded nationalist. Yet these teams participate in International sport. Which of course contains the word “nation” at its heart. Sport between countries is all about nationhood. The feeling of representation that it brings and the pride in being from a particular place. We Irish are the only participants at the world cup that come from a compromise of two countries. And that compromise dilutes us all I think.
But they wear the green and at the end of the day that’s enough for me. I think we have a good chance of winning, even though Don thinks it has already been fixed that New Zealand will lift the trophy. He likes a good conspiracy theory it must be said.
We played the yanks on September 11th, a day that is important to them for obvious reasons. Don got emotional during the minute silence before the game. I thought it might be a good time to bring up some of the conspiracy theories that surround that day. I don’t mean the ones about the towers been brought down by preset explosives or the van load of Israelis who were seen cheering as the towers collapse. I mean the one about how America used the events of that day to press their crazy date system on the rest of the world. Days are followed by months which are followed by years and that’s the logical way to express a date. So why does the world talk about 9/11? Let the Americans call it that if they want. But to the rest of us it should be 11/9.
I think this is a slippery slope and soon we will not just be using their date format, but we’ll scrap metric and return to pints and gallons. I think there is also room to speculate that the London bombings in 2005 were orchestrated to happen on the 7th July so that the English could talk about 7/7. This allows them to simultaneously keep their American paymasters happy by using the Yankee date format while pretending to the rest of the world that their using their format too.
After Don had dismissed my theories with a disdainful look, we turned our attention back to the pre match entertainment. The Auckland choral choir stepped up to sing the Irish anthem. Except of course it wasn’t the Irish anthem. It’s a made up song designed to not upset anyone but in the process pleasing no one. “Ireland’s Call” is a dirge that would not be out of place in a Michael Flatley musical.
To make matters worse, the Auckland choir decided to only allow its female singers to participate, which made the aforementioned call sound like a screech from a pack of banshees who had just had boiling water poured on them. The male members of the choir followed with a powerful rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” which was almost enough to encourage me to buy a helicopter and head off to some Middle Eastern country on a bombing mission. The contrast between the two anthems could not be starker.
Don, like many Americans, has some Irish blood racing through his veins. It’s mixed with some German, Cherokee Indian and lots of cocaine, if his bulging eyeballs were any guide. When the fine ladies of Auckland had finished butchering Ireland’s Call, Don looked at me with a quizzed expression. “That’s not the song they used to play at the end of the night in Dropkick Murphys in Boston”, he said. I sighed, because I knew that I was about to set off on an explanation of Ireland’s twisted nationhood for the thousand time since I arrived on this fatal shore.
I should say upfront that I voted for the Good Friday agreement which was the definitive Irish solution to an Irish problem. That agreement allows people in Northern Ireland to choose between British and Irish citizenship. I might be wrong, but I think this is the only place in the world that allows this duality. You can be in Ireland all your life but choose not to be Irish. As a country of course “Ireland” doesn’t actually exist. Geographically, it is an island off the North West coast of Europe. But politically, in terms of the United Nations and all that, it’s made up of the Republic of Ireland and a dysfunctional province which is part of the United Kingdom.
Many Australians think Ireland is part of the UK as the media likes to use those two letters as shorthand for anything in that far off neck of the word. This pricks my national pride as it is only Northern Island that is part of the United Kingdom, but we southerners don’t help the confusion by using the shorthand of “Ireland” to represent our part of the country.
Don’s eyes were drooping as I continued with an explanation of dominion status in the 1930s. None of it matters of course, except when it comes to sport. Ireland has two soccer teams which reflect the political structure of the Island. It sends one team to the Olympics which is drawn from the whole island but only includes those who have chosen to be Irish. The only sports in which we present an All Ireland team are Rugby, Hockey and Cricket. Which are of course, the old middle class garrison games of British occupation.
None of these teams fly the Irish flag or play the Irish anthem before games. To complain about this sets you out as a petty minded nationalist. Yet these teams participate in International sport. Which of course contains the word “nation” at its heart. Sport between countries is all about nationhood. The feeling of representation that it brings and the pride in being from a particular place. We Irish are the only participants at the world cup that come from a compromise of two countries. And that compromise dilutes us all I think.
But they wear the green and at the end of the day that’s enough for me. I think we have a good chance of winning, even though Don thinks it has already been fixed that New Zealand will lift the trophy. He likes a good conspiracy theory it must be said.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
We Can Be Heroes
They say that you should never meet your heroes because you’ll find that they are human like everyone else. I don’t hold to this belief. I want to see my heroes as real people. It makes me realise that anything is possible. You don’t have to be superman to become a writer or a football star.
I had the pleasure of meeting two of my heroes recently. Martin Flanagan writes about sport and culture in the Melbourne Age. I noticed him shortly after arriving in this fine city when an article about the aboriginal contribution to Australian Rules Football appeared in the paper. He seeks out the spirituality of sport and delves into its emotions. His book “Southern sky, Western Oval” was almost enough to make me give up my new found love of Carlton and pledge my allegiance to the Bulldogs.
He is the first person I look for in the Saturday newspaper and I was delighted when I found out last month that he was booked to speak in our local, at an event called “Spirituality in the Pub”. This is aimed at what might be charitably described as cafeteria Catholics. There were about 300 hundred people there, but it felt like he was making the speech directly to me. Like many Australians he has an Irish surname and through his writing I know that he is proud of his heritage and has visited the old country on many occasions.
His story that night began in 1977 when as a troubled Tasmanian teenager; he made his first journey to Roscommon where the Flanagans originate from. He found himself at a Mass rock in the wild countryside and felt a homecoming. It wasn’t to the land of his forefathers however. Instead, he finally felt a connection to the aboriginal people of his homeland and he had to travel to the other side of the world to discover it.
He went on to explain that Irish and Australian indigenous spirituality is basically the same. I could tell that this was shocking most of the audience, who being Catholic, were largely comprised of third and fourth generation Paddies who had risen to the middle class ranks of Melbourne society. While many would have a strong social conscience, there is an undercurrent of racism in Australian society and they would not like to think that the Irish culture to which they cling to so proudly could be connected to the black fellas of Australia that they spend so much of their lives avoiding.
But I was fascinated. I suddenly saw that the things we did as children were similar if not the same as that done by aboriginals. They walk many miles to a particular tree in the desert to sing a song and eat a meal that reminds them of their ancestors. They treasure rocks such as Uluru and hold them sacred and they have a connection and affinity to the land and sky.
In Ireland, we climb Croagh Patrick in our bare feet. We leave fairy mounds untouched while ploughing large fields. When we were kids we would regularly climb into the car on a Sunday and travel to a place called Faughart. The back door would open and the five of us would pour out and make our way to a stone in the centre of an ancient graveyard that had a strange indentation.
We would touch this indentation and then climb back into the car. At other times of year we would visit a holy well and wait for a spring to miraculously appear. Luckily the rainfall in Ireland means that you can justify a puddle as a spring and we were always satisfied that a miracle had occurred.
It suddenly all made sense. We are an indigenous people and we share a spiritual connection to our brothers across the world. When I shook his hand at the end of the lecture, I realised that he was a humble man who was happy to chat about his possible cousin, Ming Flanagan, part time pot smoker and full time politician.
I still search for his stories first each Saturday and, if anything, meeting him in person has increased my fascination with the man.
Last week I met another hero. On my second day in Melbourne I went to an AFL game. Carlton was playing Melbourne at the MCG in front of a bored crowd. It later transpired that the Blues were bottom of the league and Melbourne weren’t much higher. I had pinned my colours to the Blues mast before landing on these shores because they contained among their playing list a guy who had thrilled me on the hurling pitches of Ireland. His name is Setanta O’hailpin and he plays AFL like nobody else. Which is why he regularly gets dropped from the team.
I met him at a local footy oval where Ireland was playing New Zealand in the semi finals of the International Cup, a sort of World Cup for Aussie Rules without the inclusion of Aussies. I built up the courage to approach him and planned to say something erudite and witty. In the end I gushed in a high pitched voice “you’re my hero”.
He had the good grace to ignore my teenage fan club impersonation and we ended up speaking for ten minutes on diverse issues such as whether Jim Corr is gay and the obvious mutual dislike that exists between Setanta and the Carlton coach.
I came away feeling that my hero worship had been justified and I’ll be screaming support for him on Saturday night when he plays against St Kilda.
Ireland went on to win that International Cup in a come from behind victory against Papua New Guinea. It was a day when a group of ordinary Irishmen became heroes on the majestic open spaces of the MCG. It showed me in the most spectacular way that we can all be heroes and if not, we can at least talk to a hero every now and again.
I had the pleasure of meeting two of my heroes recently. Martin Flanagan writes about sport and culture in the Melbourne Age. I noticed him shortly after arriving in this fine city when an article about the aboriginal contribution to Australian Rules Football appeared in the paper. He seeks out the spirituality of sport and delves into its emotions. His book “Southern sky, Western Oval” was almost enough to make me give up my new found love of Carlton and pledge my allegiance to the Bulldogs.
He is the first person I look for in the Saturday newspaper and I was delighted when I found out last month that he was booked to speak in our local, at an event called “Spirituality in the Pub”. This is aimed at what might be charitably described as cafeteria Catholics. There were about 300 hundred people there, but it felt like he was making the speech directly to me. Like many Australians he has an Irish surname and through his writing I know that he is proud of his heritage and has visited the old country on many occasions.
His story that night began in 1977 when as a troubled Tasmanian teenager; he made his first journey to Roscommon where the Flanagans originate from. He found himself at a Mass rock in the wild countryside and felt a homecoming. It wasn’t to the land of his forefathers however. Instead, he finally felt a connection to the aboriginal people of his homeland and he had to travel to the other side of the world to discover it.
He went on to explain that Irish and Australian indigenous spirituality is basically the same. I could tell that this was shocking most of the audience, who being Catholic, were largely comprised of third and fourth generation Paddies who had risen to the middle class ranks of Melbourne society. While many would have a strong social conscience, there is an undercurrent of racism in Australian society and they would not like to think that the Irish culture to which they cling to so proudly could be connected to the black fellas of Australia that they spend so much of their lives avoiding.
But I was fascinated. I suddenly saw that the things we did as children were similar if not the same as that done by aboriginals. They walk many miles to a particular tree in the desert to sing a song and eat a meal that reminds them of their ancestors. They treasure rocks such as Uluru and hold them sacred and they have a connection and affinity to the land and sky.
In Ireland, we climb Croagh Patrick in our bare feet. We leave fairy mounds untouched while ploughing large fields. When we were kids we would regularly climb into the car on a Sunday and travel to a place called Faughart. The back door would open and the five of us would pour out and make our way to a stone in the centre of an ancient graveyard that had a strange indentation.
We would touch this indentation and then climb back into the car. At other times of year we would visit a holy well and wait for a spring to miraculously appear. Luckily the rainfall in Ireland means that you can justify a puddle as a spring and we were always satisfied that a miracle had occurred.
It suddenly all made sense. We are an indigenous people and we share a spiritual connection to our brothers across the world. When I shook his hand at the end of the lecture, I realised that he was a humble man who was happy to chat about his possible cousin, Ming Flanagan, part time pot smoker and full time politician.
I still search for his stories first each Saturday and, if anything, meeting him in person has increased my fascination with the man.
Last week I met another hero. On my second day in Melbourne I went to an AFL game. Carlton was playing Melbourne at the MCG in front of a bored crowd. It later transpired that the Blues were bottom of the league and Melbourne weren’t much higher. I had pinned my colours to the Blues mast before landing on these shores because they contained among their playing list a guy who had thrilled me on the hurling pitches of Ireland. His name is Setanta O’hailpin and he plays AFL like nobody else. Which is why he regularly gets dropped from the team.
I met him at a local footy oval where Ireland was playing New Zealand in the semi finals of the International Cup, a sort of World Cup for Aussie Rules without the inclusion of Aussies. I built up the courage to approach him and planned to say something erudite and witty. In the end I gushed in a high pitched voice “you’re my hero”.
He had the good grace to ignore my teenage fan club impersonation and we ended up speaking for ten minutes on diverse issues such as whether Jim Corr is gay and the obvious mutual dislike that exists between Setanta and the Carlton coach.
I came away feeling that my hero worship had been justified and I’ll be screaming support for him on Saturday night when he plays against St Kilda.
Ireland went on to win that International Cup in a come from behind victory against Papua New Guinea. It was a day when a group of ordinary Irishmen became heroes on the majestic open spaces of the MCG. It showed me in the most spectacular way that we can all be heroes and if not, we can at least talk to a hero every now and again.
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