They just knocked off a score of 329 to beat England's 327.
Someone write a tune for Kevin O'Brien will they? He pretty much won this game for Ireland by scoring 113 runs off 63 balls including THIRTEEN 4s and SIX 6s!!
Up the Irish! That brightened up my day absolutely no end - I assumed we be gone when I heard Eng had put 327 and we lost a wicket on the first ball, but................ It's one thing to beat the 'ol enemy in any sphere but to take them on and beat them on a world stage, really takes the biscuit. And it wasn't easy - they had to chase a really big score. Brilliant
You may keep your beady eyes off our players now and stop trying to pinch them..
For the record, it was the Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer who died in mysterious circumstances in Jamaica in 2007 one day after Ireland secured a historic victory over his team in the World Cup. The Jamaican coroner recorded an open verdict as to the cause of his death.
Kevin O'Brien played for Notts in 2009 on a one-day contract. The county must be kicking itself that this was never extended.
As for England, any side which concedes more than 900 runs in 150 overs doesn't stand a chance of winning anything.
That's a hell of an achievement. I mean, the feats of Kevin O'Brien, not just Ireland happening to win something that wasn't the Eurovision. After all, they've just won an election. Anyway, some of them have.
Where on earth did they play? The entire Empire is seething with unrest and being convulsed by natural catastrophes. Lords as a rule is either waterlogged or being dug up by excitables. Maybe they were in some Caribbean paradise between extreme weather events and Kevin O'Brien had accessed the powers of Latin America's more formidable vegetation, or insects or tree frogs or something.
I suppose I might explain that cricket would be seen in Ireland as a 'garrison game'. Though that'd be fading now and it's just a tiny minority game in the modern reality. Soccer was also a 'garrison game' but obviously it survived the tag and has a huge following.
The garrisons being the towns where the English troops were barracked and they naturally they set about playing soccer and cricket in these places. It's also said that hornpipes and perhaps some of the marches come from this military tradition into the trad music here - I think there was a sort of official dissaproval of hornpipes for that very reason for many years. Just shows how blinkered, bigots get.
Your average Irish citizen wouldn't have a clue about the ins and outs of cricket, but then very few would know the difference between a jig and a reel! So given that background, it just shows what a phenonemal achievement this was today.
I never knew anyone who played cricket. So how do the 10 or 12 twelve that do play put a team together that can beat the Sassenach? Fair play to them whoever they are..
'It's also said that hornpipes and perhaps some of the marches come from this military tradition into the trad music here.'
Oh, not just those, TWH, but all manner of other dances, such as The Lancers and various foxtrots and waltzes (and, dare I even suggest this?) quite possibly the polka.
Before this thread gets jeremied, I'd just like to say that the England team have been seen coming out of Ladbrokes with big grins on their faces. (Where else?)
Ah you see MacCruiskeen - I knew there was a link between the cricket and the music, somewhere!
Isn't it stange how some things get accepted into local traditions like this and others are rejected.
We have hurling here which is one the great field games with 'stick and ball' of the world (except nobody else plays it!) whilst cricket is one of the great bat and ball games of the world - far superior to that baseball stuff, the Yanks play!!
Ireland winning at an English game. What is the world the coming to. God be with the days when the whole of that Irish cricket team would never be allowed to play Gaelic Games again. When we use to sing that great Catholic (English Hymn) 'Faith of our Fathers' in Croke Park before the All Ireland Finals and the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin use to throw the ball in to start the match, and it was only the Prods that were bigoted. We'll be playing that 'auld jazz' next.
Always struck me as a rather amusing when Brosnan was playing James Bond. The ultimate spy of the Britsh secret service played by an Irish named actor - said secret service being originally set up to defeat Irish sedition and terrorism...
"said secret service being originally set up to defeat Irish sedition and terrorism... "
Eh? Where did you get that from? The only bit I know is the part about them being set up in 1909 to monitor suspicious activity by Germany and Germans generally.
Beg pardon EB, you are of course correct. It was MI5 that took on a greater role in counter espionage with regard to Ireland following WWII.
My rotten memory playing tricks on me. I should check out Wiki, which we all know and trust as a reliable source...am now well of topic and should go boil me head for half an hour.
Like most things of quality, it's only boring if you don't understand what's going on .... like .... er .... diddley music for example? Your average person (Sugarfoot Jack calls them "normal") from anywhere eschews things that require a bit of effort.
I find the 50/50, and certainly the 20/20 a bit predictable, it's a compromise, it's just whack the ball as hard as you can and it doesn't really matter if you're out. It's like diddley music with a rock backing that tries to try to make it popular. Give me the five day game any day, you have intrigue in a good test match.
"Eh.. the match is over.. what should the great cricket nation of Ireland be afraid of?"
Er, I know you didn't get the joke and that the moment has passed, but let me explain. It wasn't a one-off match. It's one match in a big tournament. There are further matches. Do try to keep up. And I agree with Michael about the five-day game. It's the pure drop. Pity bloody Sky have it and I can't watch it.
At least it's still a reasonably civilised game, compared to the last night's old firm game, an utterly disgraceful performance and at times like that I almost feel glad not to live any longer in a city where sectarianism can play such a huge part of daily life. Shocking and sordid. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12631956
I love Kenny MacAskill, though, because I love it when government officials reduce a complicated morass of socio-economic issues to one single problem. This apparently has nothing to do a two hundred-odd year history of sectarianism and a culture where such violence can be sort of permissible; the blame *entirely* rests on "Scotland's damaging relationship with alcohol."
Justice Minister is he?
Is it a 200-odd year history of sectarianism? Not more, going back to 1690? Or is the early 1800's the time when both Irish emigrés (Catholic) and Highlanders (Protestant) descended upon Glasgow as a place to find work? I don't know, hence I ask.
But I agree, to reduce all this to one single cause (albeit a significant contributor) is both dangerous and glib.
Not really Rudall, the addition of drink is the crucial element.
Also not all highlanders were triumphalist billy boys, many were treated in exactly the same way as the Irish immigrants, gaelic was the identifying mark that singled people out and as with all bigots, the bigots of the time didn't waste their time on silly detail such as point of origin when directing their vitriol. To speak gaelic of any dialect, in the 1800's, was to mark ones self as being Irish or a teuchter.
In west central scotland bigotry is alive and well amongst a small but vocal section of society both sides of the fence. IMO to take sides in this national shame singles one out as a peasant and muppet.
Attitudes across the water don't help when one considers that Glasgow is also the second home to both sides in the tension over there. If we could kill sectarianism in the north it would die in Glasgow of natural causes.
Still, drink has a lot to do with it, especially the mobilizing of the part time sectarian, prone to following the crowd when full of the buckie.
@llig:"Come on, the Irish said that Kevin O'Brien batted brilliantly ... they didn't say that the English fielding was sh*te. (it was both, of course.)"
English fielding is irrelevant when O'Brien was hittin' sixes all day.
...and if you can play hurling, surely y'd be able to smack cricket sixes all day. Be afraid...very afraid....
that wasn't Ladbrokes the English team was coming out of...it was the chiropractor after they got their necks clicked back into place after looking at the sky all day.
Agree with Michael about everything? Why, we bludgeon each other to near-death in private messages. Thank Christ for both of us we have good lawyers, that's all I can say. And, clearly, you weren't around a few years ago to witness the frequent bloodbaths. He might well back me up here, but I'm far too bloody scared to ask him to.
I was dating sectarianism back to the early 1800s when immigrants from Ireland (and the Highlands) flooded Glasgow, but you could just as easily use 1690 or some other historical flashpoint of tensions.
"English fielding is irrelevant when O'Brien was hittin' sixes all day."
I was, of course, referring to fielding including the bowling. It doesn't matter how good a batsman you are, you ain't gonna be hittin' sixes all day against even a half decent set of bowlers
"Eh.. the match is over.. what should the great cricket nation of Ireland be afraid of?"
Standing like Easter Island statues for hours and hours in the season wittily described as summer, growing stiff upper lips and developing their characters. You don't want to do this, you really don't. Cricket's for places like India or the Caribbean, where it's nice and warm and they can go bonkers.
It was probably excellent training for standing in squares in the Napoleonic wars and being shot. But I think the rules of cricket were regularised afterwards, when warfare had moved on a bit and people ran around a lot more. Talk about always being ready for the last war.
If the year of his birth seems a little odd, he was my paternal grandmother's (very) elder brother and my own father was born in 1911. Elderly men often married very young women in the 19thc.
So, there you are. I'd be intrigued to know if any other Session listers are related to sporting successes.
Solidmahog:
>Not really Rudall, the addition of drink is the crucial element.
Solid, many people take a drink, but they don't all act like wild pack animals. I agree though that it is a major factor in this, just one of hundreds of such episodes.
As for Highlanders versus Irish emigrés as I read it somewhere years ago, it was a case of divide and rule by the bosses yet again. Whereas the highlanders would get, for example, sixpence an hour for digging holes the Irishman would fivepence ha'penny, thus undercutting the highlander, thus fuelling division. The rest of what you say I completely agree with though.
If the year of his birth seems a little odd, he was my paternal grandmother's (very) elder brother and my own father was born in 1911. Elderly men often married very young women in the 19thc.
So, there you are. I'd be intrigued to know if any other Session listers are related to sporting successes.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by MacCruiskeen
As a real cricket lover, test match rules and all that, I am impressed as I actually know about Bill Lockwood.
As for being related to sporting greats, my own sports career excedes my bodhran greatness.
But that will hardly come as a surprise to my fans.
My Irish grandad occasionally came up on the horses. Does thdt count as sporting success? I might have played cricket for England as a wily left-handed batter if only my mum had made me wear the NHS specs I was prescribed as a teenager.
So where does cricket stand, in popularity, in Ireland amongst all sport?
I know cricket is #1 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
In England I gather that it's football first, followed by rugby and cricket.
In Ireland it's GAA first, is it not? Then futher down, football?
Seems to me that in a way Ireland is like Australia, the US and Canada in that we have our own sports (GAA, Aussie Rules, NFL, baseball, ice hockey, etc) and things like football/soccer and cricket are flying under the radar.
Well, Richard, it all depends upon one's definition of popularity. Do you mean popular by participation, popular by support and/or attendance or popular by a combination of all three?
Whatever the case, cricket comes well down the list below Gaelic football, hurling, football of the Association kind, rugby, horseracing, golf, cycling, athletics, camogie, swimming, greyhound racing and local activities such as shooting anything that moves on one's land or just having a good old bark at the moon.
Cricket comes way down the list. The major reason is that it was and remains a sport closely associated with the English and, though it's been played in Ireland since the 19th century, its 'hotbeds' are the places where the British administration was strongest or where British garrisons were based, such as Dublin, Belfast, County Down, County Derry and, to a little extent, Cork city, the eastern part of Leinster and a few clubs in the west of Munster.
It's definitely a minority sport, but that hasn't stopped Ryanair jumping on the bandwagon.
Still harping on about the Rangers/Celtic thing, here is a quite well-written article from BBC about the problem. I think it's one of those pieces of the jigsaw of Scottish/Irish history that simply should not be ignored, especially by non-Irish non-Scottish people who would play this music - ie so I'm saying you can't play this music in a vacuum, or at least if you do, you're just parroting it.
I'm not justifying it - in fact I despise the Old Firm rivalry, but it can't be ignored: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12664550
I n this case it may be Interesting to note that "Rounders" not unlike Cricket an official Gaelic sport. Albeit lesser known. Im sure uptake of both have some crossover, as would hurling.
the article doesnt mention Belfast Celtic. I fail to see how you could report , albeit summarise, Old firm rivalry and particularly the sectarianism associated with it, without doing so. The crossover in fan base was almost total so the idea of Celtic finding support with "Irish emmigrants" , doesnt paint the full picture.
I have a totally outsider's cynical opinion of this sectarian BS. I'm also pretty cynical of Salmond's summit about it because it does not seem like a problem the Scottish government can solve with just more policing or regulation of alcohol. A lot of the rivalry seems inherited from family and community. If you grew up with a Catholic/Protestant identity supporting Celtic/Rangers and learning from a young age you're supposed to hate the people on the other side of the fence, that's what you do. It's not just about a football club. It's about a cultural identity, and the thing with identity politics is that its much stronger and much more virulent when there is an "other." The history people will know, if they know any at all, will be a historical narrative which "others" the opposing group.
A few years ago coming back from Willie Week I shared the Larne-Cairnryan ferry with a boatload of Orange marchers a day or two after Marching Day. You could see the process of cultural inheritance in action. During the three hour sailing the adults were getting uproariously pished, singing sectarian songs, and generally being loud and obnoxious while their children ran about the ferry. Those kids will be the next generation of adults getting drunk on the ferry.
If Salmond and co. really want to change things, they'd better start investing in community and education, especially in the deprived areas of the country. Oh wait, those are the things under the budget cuts ax.
aye.. i dont agree with the assertion that all Celtic-Rangers supporters are somhow sectarian by proxy. As you said yerseIf "have a totally outsider's cynical opinion".. that is evident.
Alot of great history, stories and characters get overlooked when "outsiders" start tarring everyone with the same brush. Guess this isnt a soccer forum.
I was meaning the ones who riot and generally cause trouble and engage in the sectarian nonsense associated with aforesaid football teams. There are plenty of reasonable people who support one football team or the other, for whatever reasons, but they're not the ones I was writing about or the ones the government is whinging about.
So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
They just knocked off a score of 329 to beat England's 327.
Someone write a tune for Kevin O'Brien will they? He pretty much won this game for Ireland by scoring 113 runs off 63 balls including THIRTEEN 4s and SIX 6s!!
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by I ♥ Dow
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
A mighty result for throwing a ball and hitting it with a stick and trying to catch it, but how did it sound?
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by RockyRoader
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
A priest visits a man who is grieving over the death of his aged father.
‘I’m so sorry to hear of your loss,’ says the priest. ‘Did you try taking him to Lourdes as I suggested?’
‘Yes, we did,’ replies the man. ‘But we’d only been there a few minutes when he passed away.’
‘Was it his heart?’ asks the priest. ‘No father,’ replies the man. ‘He got hit on the head by a cricket ball.’
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
That's really interesting.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by gam
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Wasn't it a loss to Ireland that preceded that Jamaican coaches' mysterious death?
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by HK
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
.. then the same man suddenly remembers that his wife is in hospital expecting a baby, so he decides to phone for a progress report ...
Unfortunately, he mis-dials the number, and gets connected instead to Lords cricket ground.
"How are we doing?", the man says into the phone.
A voice replied: "Well, we've got three out already, and the last one was a duck!"
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Up the Irish! That brightened up my day absolutely no end - I assumed we be gone when I heard Eng had put 327 and we lost a wicket on the first ball, but................ It's one thing to beat the 'ol enemy in any sphere but to take them on and beat them on a world stage, really takes the biscuit. And it wasn't easy - they had to chase a really big score. Brilliant
You may keep your beady eyes off our players now and stop trying to pinch them..
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by the wounded hussar
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
on a world stage, at their own game!!
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by the wounded hussar
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
For the record, it was the Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer who died in mysterious circumstances in Jamaica in 2007 one day after Ireland secured a historic victory over his team in the World Cup. The Jamaican coroner recorded an open verdict as to the cause of his death.
Kevin O'Brien played for Notts in 2009 on a one-day contract. The county must be kicking itself that this was never extended.
As for England, any side which concedes more than 900 runs in 150 overs doesn't stand a chance of winning anything.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
That's a hell of an achievement. I mean, the feats of Kevin O'Brien, not just Ireland happening to win something that wasn't the Eurovision. After all, they've just won an election. Anyway, some of them have.
Where on earth did they play? The entire Empire is seething with unrest and being convulsed by natural catastrophes. Lords as a rule is either waterlogged or being dug up by excitables. Maybe they were in some Caribbean paradise between extreme weather events and Kevin O'Brien had accessed the powers of Latin America's more formidable vegetation, or insects or tree frogs or something.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by nicholas
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I suppose I might explain that cricket would be seen in Ireland as a 'garrison game'. Though that'd be fading now and it's just a tiny minority game in the modern reality. Soccer was also a 'garrison game' but obviously it survived the tag and has a huge following.
The garrisons being the towns where the English troops were barracked and they naturally they set about playing soccer and cricket in these places. It's also said that hornpipes and perhaps some of the marches come from this military tradition into the trad music here - I think there was a sort of official dissaproval of hornpipes for that very reason for many years. Just shows how blinkered, bigots get.
Your average Irish citizen wouldn't have a clue about the ins and outs of cricket, but then very few would know the difference between a jig and a reel! So given that background, it just shows what a phenonemal achievement this was today.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by the wounded hussar
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I never knew anyone who played cricket. So how do the 10 or 12 twelve that do play put a team together that can beat the Sassenach? Fair play to them whoever they are..
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by big_tab
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
'It's also said that hornpipes and perhaps some of the marches come from this military tradition into the trad music here.'
Oh, not just those, TWH, but all manner of other dances, such as The Lancers and various foxtrots and waltzes (and, dare I even suggest this?) quite possibly the polka.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Before this thread gets jeremied, I'd just like to say that the England team have been seen coming out of Ladbrokes with big grins on their faces. (Where else?)
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by gam
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
So Gam
are you implying that England threw a world cup match of course its unthinkable for some people that Ireland could actually beat them fair and square
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by glengarslasher
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
So maybe England's recent Ashes victory was just a fluke, after all!
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by Ptarmigan
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Ah you see MacCruiskeen - I knew there was a link between the cricket and the music, somewhere!
Isn't it stange how some things get accepted into local traditions like this and others are rejected.
We have hurling here which is one the great field games with 'stick and ball' of the world (except nobody else plays it!) whilst cricket is one of the great bat and ball games of the world - far superior to that baseball stuff, the Yanks play!!
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by the wounded hussar
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
And that other one -- netball.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by gam
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
But isn't the whole thing kind of like having a Saxophone player at your local session... even if the Saxophone player was the best musician..
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by Theirlandais
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Free beers for the Irish cricket team, hip hip, gulp gulp, hip hip, gargle gargle, hip hip, gulp gulp, ahhhhhhh, hick up hick up and good on the boys.
# Posted on March 2nd 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Ireland winning at an English game. What is the world the coming to. God be with the days when the whole of that Irish cricket team would never be allowed to play Gaelic Games again. When we use to sing that great Catholic (English Hymn) 'Faith of our Fathers' in Croke Park before the All Ireland Finals and the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin use to throw the ball in to start the match, and it was only the Prods that were bigoted. We'll be playing that 'auld jazz' next.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Free Reed
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Always struck me as a rather amusing when Brosnan was playing James Bond. The ultimate spy of the Britsh secret service played by an Irish named actor - said secret service being originally set up to defeat Irish sedition and terrorism...
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by john knoss
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
that'll be British...typo typo grrr
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by john knoss
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
"said secret service being originally set up to defeat Irish sedition and terrorism... "
Eh? Where did you get that from? The only bit I know is the part about them being set up in 1909 to monitor suspicious activity by Germany and Germans generally.
???
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Where's he from? Where's he going? Where does he live?
Perhaps he's a double native.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by nicholas
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Beg pardon EB, you are of course correct. It was MI5 that took on a greater role in counter espionage with regard to Ireland following WWII.
My rotten memory playing tricks on me. I should check out Wiki, which we all know and trust as a reliable source...am now well of topic and should go boil me head for half an hour.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by john knoss
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
"should go boil me head for half an hour" john knoss
Try the full hour, works for me sometimes.
I think beating the english at their own game is a fantastic achievement, not be sniffed at.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Cheers Solidmahog - already got the kettle on...
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by john knoss
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Watch it now, lads. When England lose a match they always "take positives." Therefore, be afraid. Be very afraid.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Eh.. the match is over.. what should the great cricket nation of Ireland be afraid of?
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by big_tab
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
England were missing their best one day player.
Mind you, he is Irish so I suppose Ireland were missing him as well...........
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by bodhran bliss
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
"Your average Irish citizen wouldn't have a clue about the ins and outs of cricket"
Most normal English people aren't that bothered either. It's one heck of a boring game.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Like most things of quality, it's only boring if you don't understand what's going on .... like .... er .... diddley music for example? Your average person (Sugarfoot Jack calls them "normal") from anywhere eschews things that require a bit of effort.
I find the 50/50, and certainly the 20/20 a bit predictable, it's a compromise, it's just whack the ball as hard as you can and it doesn't really matter if you're out. It's like diddley music with a rock backing that tries to try to make it popular. Give me the five day game any day, you have intrigue in a good test match.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
When England lose a match they always "take positives."
Sure you don't mean "test positive"?
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Come on, the Irish said that Kevin O'Brien batted brilliantly ... they didn't say that the English fielding was sh*te. (it was both, of course.)
And the very Brittish/English BBC headline was:
"Brilliant Ireland shock England"
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
"Eh.. the match is over.. what should the great cricket nation of Ireland be afraid of?"
Er, I know you didn't get the joke and that the moment has passed, but let me explain. It wasn't a one-off match. It's one match in a big tournament. There are further matches. Do try to keep up. And I agree with Michael about the five-day game. It's the pure drop. Pity bloody Sky have it and I can't watch it.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
There was no joke.You agree with Michael about everything.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by big_tab
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I understand what's going on, been to matches etc. and it's still boring, whether it's a thing of 'quality' or not.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
At least it's still a reasonably civilised game, compared to the last night's old firm game, an utterly disgraceful performance and at times like that I almost feel glad not to live any longer in a city where sectarianism can play such a huge part of daily life. Shocking and sordid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12631956
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I love Kenny MacAskill, though, because I love it when government officials reduce a complicated morass of socio-economic issues to one single problem. This apparently has nothing to do a two hundred-odd year history of sectarianism and a culture where such violence can be sort of permissible; the blame *entirely* rests on "Scotland's damaging relationship with alcohol."
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Justice Minister is he?
Is it a 200-odd year history of sectarianism? Not more, going back to 1690? Or is the early 1800's the time when both Irish emigrés (Catholic) and Highlanders (Protestant) descended upon Glasgow as a place to find work? I don't know, hence I ask.
But I agree, to reduce all this to one single cause (albeit a significant contributor) is both dangerous and glib.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Well of course it was a classic Gentlemen v Players match, and the Gentlemen won because no-one told them it was supposed to be difficult.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Trevor Jennings
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Not really Rudall, the addition of drink is the crucial element.
Also not all highlanders were triumphalist billy boys, many were treated in exactly the same way as the Irish immigrants, gaelic was the identifying mark that singled people out and as with all bigots, the bigots of the time didn't waste their time on silly detail such as point of origin when directing their vitriol. To speak gaelic of any dialect, in the 1800's, was to mark ones self as being Irish or a teuchter.
In west central scotland bigotry is alive and well amongst a small but vocal section of society both sides of the fence. IMO to take sides in this national shame singles one out as a peasant and muppet.
Attitudes across the water don't help when one considers that Glasgow is also the second home to both sides in the tension over there. If we could kill sectarianism in the north it would die in Glasgow of natural causes.
Still, drink has a lot to do with it, especially the mobilizing of the part time sectarian, prone to following the crowd when full of the buckie.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
@llig:"Come on, the Irish said that Kevin O'Brien batted brilliantly ... they didn't say that the English fielding was sh*te. (it was both, of course.)"
English fielding is irrelevant when O'Brien was hittin' sixes all day.
...and if you can play hurling, surely y'd be able to smack cricket sixes all day. Be afraid...very afraid....
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Flynner!!
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by big_tab
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
that wasn't Ladbrokes the English team was coming out of...it was the chiropractor after they got their necks clicked back into place after looking at the sky all day.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
hiya tabber. I see y're boldly holdin the front line by yer pat malone against the hoards. Good man yerself.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Agree with Michael about everything? Why, we bludgeon each other to near-death in private messages. Thank Christ for both of us we have good lawyers, that's all I can say. And, clearly, you weren't around a few years ago to witness the frequent bloodbaths. He might well back me up here, but I'm far too bloody scared to ask him to.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
And there was a joke. It's just the way I tell 'em.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I was dating sectarianism back to the early 1800s when immigrants from Ireland (and the Highlands) flooded Glasgow, but you could just as easily use 1690 or some other historical flashpoint of tensions.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Probably back to the Big Bang.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
"English fielding is irrelevant when O'Brien was hittin' sixes all day."
I was, of course, referring to fielding including the bowling. It doesn't matter how good a batsman you are, you ain't gonna be hittin' sixes all day against even a half decent set of bowlers
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
and don't get me started on the catching
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I agree with everything you said there, Michael.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
A great win. But the discussion is boring.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
"Eh.. the match is over.. what should the great cricket nation of Ireland be afraid of?"
Standing like Easter Island statues for hours and hours in the season wittily described as summer, growing stiff upper lips and developing their characters. You don't want to do this, you really don't. Cricket's for places like India or the Caribbean, where it's nice and warm and they can go bonkers.
It was probably excellent training for standing in squares in the Napoleonic wars and being shot. But I think the rules of cricket were regularised afterwards, when warfare had moved on a bit and people ran around a lot more. Talk about always being ready for the last war.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by nicholas
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
OK, Ben, well known Californian cricket lover, how would you enliven this discussion?
My great-uncle, Bill Lockwood, actually was a test cricketer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lockwood
If the year of his birth seems a little odd, he was my paternal grandmother's (very) elder brother and my own father was born in 1911. Elderly men often married very young women in the 19thc.
So, there you are. I'd be intrigued to know if any other Session listers are related to sporting successes.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
My sister's called Nell. Does that count?
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Solidmahog:
>Not really Rudall, the addition of drink is the crucial element.
Solid, many people take a drink, but they don't all act like wild pack animals. I agree though that it is a major factor in this, just one of hundreds of such episodes.
As for Highlanders versus Irish emigrés as I read it somewhere years ago, it was a case of divide and rule by the bosses yet again. Whereas the highlanders would get, for example, sixpence an hour for digging holes the Irishman would fivepence ha'penny, thus undercutting the highlander, thus fuelling division. The rest of what you say I completely agree with though.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
OK, Ben, well known Californian cricket lover, how would you enliven this discussion?
My great-uncle, Bill Lockwood, actually was a test cricketer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lockwood
If the year of his birth seems a little odd, he was my paternal grandmother's (very) elder brother and my own father was born in 1911. Elderly men often married very young women in the 19thc.
So, there you are. I'd be intrigued to know if any other Session listers are related to sporting successes.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by MacCruiskeen
As a real cricket lover, test match rules and all that, I am impressed as I actually know about Bill Lockwood.
As for being related to sporting greats, my own sports career excedes my bodhran greatness.
But that will hardly come as a surprise to my fans.
# Posted on March 3rd 2011 by bodhran bliss
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
My Irish grandad occasionally came up on the horses. Does thdt count as sporting success? I might have played cricket for England as a wily left-handed batter if only my mum had made me wear the NHS specs I was prescribed as a teenager.
# Posted on March 4th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I won a race on the Ancient Greek running track at Olympia, Western Greece.
My competitors were other English TEFL teachers, presumably more hungover even than myself.
# Posted on March 4th 2011 by nicholas
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
It wasn't very long.
# Posted on March 4th 2011 by nicholas
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
So where does cricket stand, in popularity, in Ireland amongst all sport?
I know cricket is #1 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
In England I gather that it's football first, followed by rugby and cricket.
In Ireland it's GAA first, is it not? Then futher down, football?
Seems to me that in a way Ireland is like Australia, the US and Canada in that we have our own sports (GAA, Aussie Rules, NFL, baseball, ice hockey, etc) and things like football/soccer and cricket are flying under the radar.
# Posted on March 4th 2011 by Richard D Cook
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Well, Richard, it all depends upon one's definition of popularity. Do you mean popular by participation, popular by support and/or attendance or popular by a combination of all three?
Whatever the case, cricket comes well down the list below Gaelic football, hurling, football of the Association kind, rugby, horseracing, golf, cycling, athletics, camogie, swimming, greyhound racing and local activities such as shooting anything that moves on one's land or just having a good old bark at the moon.
Cricket comes way down the list. The major reason is that it was and remains a sport closely associated with the English and, though it's been played in Ireland since the 19th century, its 'hotbeds' are the places where the British administration was strongest or where British garrisons were based, such as Dublin, Belfast, County Down, County Derry and, to a little extent, Cork city, the eastern part of Leinster and a few clubs in the west of Munster.
It's definitely a minority sport, but that hasn't stopped Ryanair jumping on the bandwagon.
http://bit.ly/exbpjP
# Posted on March 4th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Still harping on about the Rangers/Celtic thing, here is a quite well-written article from BBC about the problem. I think it's one of those pieces of the jigsaw of Scottish/Irish history that simply should not be ignored, especially by non-Irish non-Scottish people who would play this music - ie so I'm saying you can't play this music in a vacuum, or at least if you do, you're just parroting it.
I'm not justifying it - in fact I despise the Old Firm rivalry, but it can't be ignored:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12664550
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
that's right...you have to hold your breath too long in a vacuum, and when you exhale, you'd only get one tune out.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I n this case it may be Interesting to note that "Rounders" not unlike Cricket an official Gaelic sport. Albeit lesser known. Im sure uptake of both have some crossover, as would hurling.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Miss Mulligan
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
http://www.gaarounders.ie/
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Miss Mulligan
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
What did you think of the article, Skull, a true reflection as you are aware of it?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
the article doesnt mention Belfast Celtic. I fail to see how you could report , albeit summarise, Old firm rivalry and particularly the sectarianism associated with it, without doing so. The crossover in fan base was almost total so the idea of Celtic finding support with "Irish emmigrants" , doesnt paint the full picture.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Miss Mulligan
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I have a totally outsider's cynical opinion of this sectarian BS. I'm also pretty cynical of Salmond's summit about it because it does not seem like a problem the Scottish government can solve with just more policing or regulation of alcohol. A lot of the rivalry seems inherited from family and community. If you grew up with a Catholic/Protestant identity supporting Celtic/Rangers and learning from a young age you're supposed to hate the people on the other side of the fence, that's what you do. It's not just about a football club. It's about a cultural identity, and the thing with identity politics is that its much stronger and much more virulent when there is an "other." The history people will know, if they know any at all, will be a historical narrative which "others" the opposing group.
A few years ago coming back from Willie Week I shared the Larne-Cairnryan ferry with a boatload of Orange marchers a day or two after Marching Day. You could see the process of cultural inheritance in action. During the three hour sailing the adults were getting uproariously pished, singing sectarian songs, and generally being loud and obnoxious while their children ran about the ferry. Those kids will be the next generation of adults getting drunk on the ferry.
If Salmond and co. really want to change things, they'd better start investing in community and education, especially in the deprived areas of the country. Oh wait, those are the things under the budget cuts ax.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
yes, perpetuation in all things seems to begin at home doesn't it.
rounders looks a lot more like baseball than cricket to me.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
aye.. i dont agree with the assertion that all Celtic-Rangers supporters are somhow sectarian by proxy. As you said yerseIf "have a totally outsider's cynical opinion".. that is evident.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Miss Mulligan
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
Alot of great history, stories and characters get overlooked when "outsiders" start tarring everyone with the same brush. Guess this isnt a soccer forum.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Miss Mulligan
Re: So.. the Irish can play cricket after all?
I was meaning the ones who riot and generally cause trouble and engage in the sectarian nonsense associated with aforesaid football teams. There are plenty of reasonable people who support one football team or the other, for whatever reasons, but they're not the ones I was writing about or the ones the government is whinging about.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by DrSilverSpear