In the backstage are of my blog I can see a little bit about what kind of people wander onto my blog. It tells me it tells me 26% of you people use Firefox while 11% use Safari. It tells me where you all come from too. The majority of you fine, fine folk log on from Ireland, followed by the UK, the US and a string of other weird countries like Bermuda and... France.
Those of you back home in Ireland probably won't need much help with the next few paragraph. The Bermudaens amongst you, though, might need a wee bit. So I'll talk slow.
There's an amateur sporting organisation in Ireland known as the Community Games. It's mostly for young folk and covers a wide variety of sports such as Gaelic football, swimming, hockey and Judo. Throughout the year children compete in local tournaments and, over the summer, the regional champions come together in Ireland over a few weekends to see who comes out on top.
Needless to say, I attended the finals a few times. Oh yes. Me and Ireland's finest young people in Mosney holiday centre. What did I participate in? Oh, well, that's not important. This blog post works perfectly well without you knowing that.
Oh, fine, I took part in the under-14s quiz, draughts, art and... recitation.
Recitation, the past-time of KINGS. Loser kings who liked boring the tits off their friends with woeful poems.
Yeah, I did the shite stuff. The kind of activities I got up to had their own weekend. The "special activities weekend". A nation of thirteen year old oddballs with inhalers, Gameboys and thick glasses came together to see who was the best at board games or knew the capital of Peru.
One thing that always raised attention, however, was the Variety show. For this, a team of youngsters would get together on-stage for fifteen minutes to sing songs, dance a bit, do a few comedy sketchs and get the audience clapping. Even though it wasn't a true sport like draughts, folk went mad for it.
I was watching this back in August 2001. I can specify the month because I remember the country reeling from something else at that time. Joe Lynch had died.
Joe Lynch was a familiar face on Irish television. He played Dinny Byrne on Glenroe, surely the best thing to watch on a Sunday night for ten years running. For those of you still here not familiar with Irish culture or heritage, Glenroe was a little like... Emmerdale? It was a weekly soap set in a village with storylines centered around farming, praying and adultery. It was, for many young, folk, the last bit of television they'd get before going back to school on a Monday morning and, tragically, the subject of many schoolyard conversations at wee break.
But let's get back to the variety show. Monaghan had a good show that year. I half remember a song from Grease, and there might have been a sketch about cavemen or something. Someone definitely wore a Fred Flintsone costume. The audience were mesmerised. We had it in the bag.
The next few acts didn't change that. Cork were woeful. Sligo looked like they wrote their show the night before on the back of an envelope. With their bad hand. Monaghan were cocky. We were smug. But that changed. Another county came on stage near the end of the day. I can't for the life of me remember who so we'll go with Carlow. Fucking Carlow. Ten minutes of mediocrity did little to wow the audience but then, out of nowhere, a familiar tune chimed through the PA system.
The sly bastards low-blowed the entire country and played the Glenroe theme tune. Someone came on stage in an old trenchcoat and wellies and walked around in circle with a picture of Joe Lynch on a placard while the song played overhead. To an outsider it would look like madness but, to an Irishman, it was... beautiful.
They'd done it. They'd played the Dinny card. Carlow (or whatever county it was, it sure as fuck wasn't Monaghan) won the Community Games Variety competition 2001.
Pricks.
Those of you back home in Ireland probably won't need much help with the next few paragraph. The Bermudaens amongst you, though, might need a wee bit. So I'll talk slow.
There's an amateur sporting organisation in Ireland known as the Community Games. It's mostly for young folk and covers a wide variety of sports such as Gaelic football, swimming, hockey and Judo. Throughout the year children compete in local tournaments and, over the summer, the regional champions come together in Ireland over a few weekends to see who comes out on top.
Needless to say, I attended the finals a few times. Oh yes. Me and Ireland's finest young people in Mosney holiday centre. What did I participate in? Oh, well, that's not important. This blog post works perfectly well without you knowing that.
Oh, fine, I took part in the under-14s quiz, draughts, art and... recitation.
Recitation, the past-time of KINGS. Loser kings who liked boring the tits off their friends with woeful poems.
Yeah, I did the shite stuff. The kind of activities I got up to had their own weekend. The "special activities weekend". A nation of thirteen year old oddballs with inhalers, Gameboys and thick glasses came together to see who was the best at board games or knew the capital of Peru.
One thing that always raised attention, however, was the Variety show. For this, a team of youngsters would get together on-stage for fifteen minutes to sing songs, dance a bit, do a few comedy sketchs and get the audience clapping. Even though it wasn't a true sport like draughts, folk went mad for it.
I was watching this back in August 2001. I can specify the month because I remember the country reeling from something else at that time. Joe Lynch had died.
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| Joe Lynch, 1925-2001 |
But let's get back to the variety show. Monaghan had a good show that year. I half remember a song from Grease, and there might have been a sketch about cavemen or something. Someone definitely wore a Fred Flintsone costume. The audience were mesmerised. We had it in the bag.
The next few acts didn't change that. Cork were woeful. Sligo looked like they wrote their show the night before on the back of an envelope. With their bad hand. Monaghan were cocky. We were smug. But that changed. Another county came on stage near the end of the day. I can't for the life of me remember who so we'll go with Carlow. Fucking Carlow. Ten minutes of mediocrity did little to wow the audience but then, out of nowhere, a familiar tune chimed through the PA system.
They'd done it. They'd played the Dinny card. Carlow (or whatever county it was, it sure as fuck wasn't Monaghan) won the Community Games Variety competition 2001.
Pricks.
