Cripes, we get very worked up over these sporting award thingies. How many people did you block on your phone after they argued that Robbie Brady and Thomas Barr should have been shortlisted ahead of Daryl Horgan and Denise Gaule?
That many? And how many did you remove from your Christmas card list because they reckoned UFC should be categorised as criminal activity and not a sport? Seriously?
Barry McGuigan was the first winner of RTÉ’s Sportsperson of the Year in the ancient past of 1985, so long ago that it’s hard to remember if we all fell out over the decision. Did we?
Possibly not, largely because we didn’t have the tweet machine back then, so if folk fulminated they really could only do so in front of their tellies in their living rooms, finding their inner Jim Royle, howling ‘my arse!’ at the announcement. But nobody other than their immediate family got to learn of their displeasure.
For research purposes, then, Twitter was browsed come Sunday morning to see how the nation had responded to RTÉ’s 2016 Sports Awards, and all you could really conclude is that this is a severely divided nation. The healing process wouldn’t know where to start.
Perhaps only Eamon de Valera, Roy Keane and Jedward have divided us as much as Conor McGregor, half the country viewing him as the Second Coming, the other half possibly sharing the view of the Waterford hurlers and Irish senior boxers’ physio Conor McCarthy when, after the public had voted McGregor Sportsperson of the Year, he said: “So the US voted Trump, the Brits for Brexit, and now us for McGregor. 2016 has raised some serious questions about democracy.”
That clinched the bravest but most incautious sporting-related declaration of 2016 because if you’re going to disparage Conor McGregor and/or his devotees, you best don a helmet and prepare for ‘INCOMING!’
“I notice it’s all the culchies giving it large. Stuck in the past farmers,” was one of the kinder responses.
So, is Conor McGregor our Donald Trump? Did the electorate deliver a two fingers and vote for the rather rude gaudy loudmouth whose God is loot, has allegedly big hands, and is derided by the establishment in a snooty kind of way?
We might be on to something bigly here.
There are obvious differences, of course. McGregor’s tax returns are probably viewable and he doesn’t have access to the nuclear codes. Trump, meanwhile, is humble, modest and meek in comparison.
But McGregor is brave enough to be interviewed by Claire McNamara when Trump largely settles for Sean Hannity’s probing questions (“How awesome are you?”).
But there’s the class warfare thing, too. A cricket man, for example, suggested that McGregor’s triumph was “an embarrassment”, which led to the McGregorites accessing the nuclear codes. One, it has to be said not unreasonably, responded: “McGregor is an embarrassment but cricket, a sport you WEAR A JUMPER playing, is acceptable!”
All quite heated, then.
But anyone surprised by the public vote hasn’t left their home in the last year.
‘Séamus Callanan, some man.’ ‘But McGregor!’ ‘Annalise Murphy, awesome.’ ‘But McGregor!’ ‘Paul O’Donovan, legend.’ ‘But McGregor!’ ‘Brid Stack, relentless.’ ‘But McGregor!’
This man is venerated, and most of us still have no clue why. But he is. And we still don’t know whether to include him in the sports section or the overseas news.
Compared to all his rivals on the shortlist for Sportsperson of the Year, he is the Star Wars franchise next to their Ros na Rún, a star so big he need apologise to absolutely nobody.
He was booked for an engagement in Los Angeles, so couldn’t turn up.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make the awards ceremony. You know I love to stick on a good suit and roll in to these awards ceremonies and collect an award, so I’m a little bit upset about that,” he said. But not too upset, he has bigger fish to fry.
As Donald put it, “the beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”
You wonder if Conor writes his laugh lines.
