I HAD TO LAUGH – albeit a little bitterly – when the success of our boxers in London led certain people to revive stereotypes of the “fighting Irish”.
Yes, to be sure, boxing is a form of fighting. And yes, as a nation, we do seem to excel at it. But then many Olympic sports have violent origins and the record – in London and elsewhere – suggests we’re not conspicuously good at them.
It’s no exaggeration to say, indeed, that a large part of the modern Olympics is sublimated warfare, mimicking the real thing as practised by the ancient Greeks.
Thus if you stood in the wrong part of the track-and-field stadium at the wrong time last week, you could still have been seriously injured by a flying spear, or one of the various projectiles used in the modernised stone-throwing competitions.
Sword-fighting remains a key Olympic sport. As of course does shooting. So, boxing apart, do various forms of hand-to-hand combat, from wrestling to the eastern martial arts.
Where were the fighting Irish in all of these last week? Well, bar shooting and judo, we appear to have maintained our official policy of complete neutrality. And even in shooting and judo, our involvement was fairly peaceful.
We did, it’s true, have competitors in the most conspicuously military event of all: the amusingly named “modern pentathlon”. It’s only called the modern pentathlon to distinguish it from the ancient pentathlon, which was based on the skills a Greek soldier needed (running, wrestling, spear-throwing, jumping across rivers, etc).
But even when the “modern” version was introduced, back in 1912, it must already have appeared old-fashioned. In fact, Baron de Coubertin – the Olympic revivalist who personally championed the discipline – based it on the skills required by a 19th-century cavalry man who found himself behind enemy lines.
Hence the travails last weekend of the unfortunate South Korean competitor who, as well as having to shoot, run, fence, and swim, had to jump on obstacle course on an unfamiliar horse. Not only was the horse unfamiliar, in his case, it seemed to have been enemy-trained: rearing up and throwing him off at the first chance.
No such problem for the Irish competitors, the male one of which went by the splendid title of Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe. Such a name would not have been out of place in a 19th- century cavalry man. Which said, Arthur’s performance – although very respectable for a 20-year-old at his first Olympics – was not especially militant.
PRECISELY BECAUSEit's considered old-fashioned, by the way, the modern pentathlon is under review as an Olympic sport. It may or may not feature in Rio de Janeiro. And I suspect that, if it is to survive, the format needs to be updated again.
The organisers could go one of two ways with this. The first would be to stay with the military theme but have the competitors demonstrate the skills required of a 21st-century soldier on special service.
The new disciplines might include parachuting onto a target, crawling through barbed wire, and swimming across a moat (sharks optional).
There might also be a technological component: say, having to disable a sophisticated alarm system. Finally, each competitor would have to assassinate an enemy general in his bed without waking the guards. Of course, all this would need to be codified for sports purposes, and to make it work on television.
But maybe in the zany spirit of the London Olympics, the organisers could go a different route altogether. To this end, I propose a “postmodern pentathlon”, drawing on some of the skills to which ordinary people – non-athletes and even couch potatoes – could relate.
Off the top of my head, I suggest that, for the first round, competitors might be required to drink three pints of strong German beer within a set time.
Immediately afterwards, they would have to compose a short poem on a subject allocated at random. Then they would have to send the poem to a friend, as accurately as possible but using predictive text, while cycling a bike in the wrong direction down a one-way street. Something like that, anyway: I’ll leave it to Baron de Coubertin’s successors to work out the finer details.
GETTING BACKto the fighting Irish, meanwhile, and now that even Katie Taylor is on temporary ceasefire, this might be a good time to mention an event happening down the road from her home town next Tuesday.
It’s called “Wicklow Warriors”, but that apart, it has to nothing to do with Katie. In fact, it might be closer to Baron de Coubertin’s idea of fighting. In any case, it’s organised by Roundwood District Historical Folklore Society and aims to educate people about “war and politics in medieval Wicklow”.
Between 6pm and 9.30pm on Tuesday, visitors to Roundwood’s Áras an Tóchar GAA Complex will be treated to re-enactments of Gaelic woodkern and gallowglass fights, along with a display of medieval armour: swords, shields, battle axes, muskets, helmets, etc.
On a more peaceful note, there will also be music, with Roundwood Comhaltas friends. And the evening will be rounded off by a lecture from historian Emmett O'Byrne entitled "Terra Nova and the Irish of Wicklow". Details at: roundwoodhistoricalsociety.com