IN THE CALM before throw-in at Derry’s Celtic Park on Sunday, I drew my nine-year-old son’s attention to the historic backdrop of the game. “You see up there on top of that hill?” I said, pointing away into the distance, where a Union Jack fluttered from the ramparts. “Those are the famous Walls of Derry. They’ve been the cause of a lot of trouble over the years.”
Then we settled back to watch a football match, or so I thought. But the fellow Monaghan supporter beside me, a seasoned individual better versed than I in the Ulster GAA’s ancient honour code, hinted that there might not be much football during the next hour and a half. “We need a strong referee here today,” he confided in hushed tones. “Otherwise, they’ll bate us into the ground.”
Considering his dire words, I glanced with concern at my son. Suddenly the wisdom of bringing an impressionable child from Dublin to an Ulster Championship first round match, in which there had been a build-up of hostility from the two previous years, with the result that the home side now had a point to prove, seemed very questionable.
What on earth had I been thinking? Clearly I needed to protect his innocence, in order that he could return to his under-10 games with enthusiasm undiminished. So as the grim spectacle unfolded before us, I told him that the scheduled football match had been cancelled at the last minute because it clashed with a local arts festival; and that, as part of the latter, what we were witnessing instead was a 40th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of the Bogside.
“The men in red are pretending to be the B-Specials,” I explained, after the game’s early exchanges. “And the ones in blue are playing the part of unarmed civil rights activists, protesting over corrupt housing policies, gerrymandering, and the need for political reform generally. See how they’ve erected barricades across their 45-yard line? The area behind that is supposed to represent Free Derry.”
So it continued until, as the “re-enactment” reached a climax, my son inquired who the man in black with the whistle was meant to be. “That’s the then taoiseach, Jack Lynch,” I explained. “He’s very concerned about what’s going on, and he’s threatening to not stand idly by. But really, he’s helpless to prevent the mayhem.” Sure enough, another two players hit the ground in front of us, pretending to fight. “It’s very realistic, isn’t it?” I said.
IT'S ALWAYSdisappointing to be knocked out of the Ulster Championship in round one. But since the advent of the back-door system, being knocked out of the Ulster Championship, with its Sicilian-style feuds and vendettas, is also its own consolation.
And as we trooped home from Celtic Park afterwards, our eyes red from tear gas, at least the exotic possibilities of the qualifier draw were now open to us.
Oh for a beaker of the warm south, we thought. Maybe we’d get Tipperary. Or Waterford. Or any of those lovely, relaxed places down the country where hurling is prized and football is kept alive only by an eth?ic minority. Not that it had to be Munster, either. Even a visit to the balmy climes of Tullamore, or Longford, seemed seductive.
Then we hit the first of a long series of traffic jams on the road home, and the mirage of Munster and Leinster gradually receded. Stuck in a tailback among the red-white-and-blue kerbstones of New Buildings, three miles out of Derry, we experienced our first yearning for the sight of a traffic cop. It was, as all such yearnings subsequently would be, unrequited.
Not long ago, it was still common to hear Northern Ireland described as a police state. But on Sunday last, from Aughnacloy to the Walls of Derry and back again, we didn’t see a single police-person anywhere. As a consequence, the whole excruciatingly long way south to the Border, we were at the mercy of rogue – apparently DUP-designed – traffic lights, that absolutely refused to turn green in any circumstances.
We realised then it wouldn’t be so easy escaping the North, even through the back door. Last year, after all, our reward for early elimination from Ulster was draws against Derry and Donegal. It was only when we ran of Northern teams to beat that, like a shot to an injured horse, they gave us Kerry.
Two hours south of Celtic Park, still in bumper-to-bumper traffic, we were resigned to the utter certainty of getting the losers from next Sunday’s Tyrone-Armagh match in the qualifiers. And to add to the torture, John O’Shea of Goal (and Kerry) was on the radio pontificating about his embarrassment about having to watch the game earlier among American tourists. It felt like we were stuck in some GAA version of the seventh circle of hell; although on closer inspection, it was only the ring road around Omagh.
fmcnally@irishtimes.com