Tuesday, August 26, 2008
“Every four or eight years, Ireland is forced to rally round young men from this class…”
I want to come back to the Olympic theme in more detail both here on Slugger and elsewhere. But this piece by Fintan O’Toole is worth flagging up for the pure politics of it, than anything to do with sport. The Ross O’Carroll-Kellys of elite Equestrianism failed to deliver, whilst the frequently maligned urban working classes once again provided the country with its only Olympic medal glory (boosted partly by the strange failure of the US and Cuba).
As so often in the past, national pride was salvaged by those of whom the nation generally feels least proud: young, working class men from marginalised communities. While the horsey set, with all their money and self-regard, were making a show of us yet again, the competitors who demonstrated honesty and discipline, pride and passion, were from the invisible Ireland that is represented only in court reports.
And:
Kenny Egan’s north Clondalkin, for example, is almost literally a non-place. It is the product, not of democratic planning, but of the shenanigans that are the subject of the Mahon tribunal. Its “town centre” is a shopping centre that most locals can’t afford to patronise. The struggle to turn it into a home has been harsh: a decade ago, when Egan was starting to box, an astonishing 57 per cent of those aged between 14 and 23 in north Clondalkin had experienced homelessness.
This is an Ireland largely bypassed by the glossy high-tech economy. Just 6 per cent of its men and 5 per cent of women have a third-level education. Even now, there’s a 30 per cent chance of a child leaving primary school with serious literacy problems and a 50-50 chance of even sitting a Leaving Certificate.
There are no silver medals for north Clondalkin in the deprivation stakes - it scores 10 out of 10 in the economist’s index. Yet, there’s more to this story than deprivation - there’s the struggle against it.
And he believes the dominant narrative in the Irish media about this ‘underclass’ is faintly somatic and comforting to the easy affluence of the chief beneficiaries of the Celtic Tiger years:
It finds it convenient when young men from the working class reservations live up to the stereotypes, when they wear hoodies and white socks and throw shapes and sip cans of Dutch Gold lager on the back seat of the bus. The threatening signals allow for the maintenance of a reassuring distance. These people are stupid and crude and potentially violent, and it’s best to stay out of their way.
But “every four or eight years, Ireland is forced to rally round young men from this class and adopt them as our great national hopes”:
.We get to hear them speak in their guttural urban accents - and discover that they have something to say for themselves. We get to meet their families - oddly enough, they’re nice, decent people. The cameras are brought into their homes - which turn out to be strangely clean and bright and comfortably furnished. We find, rather disturbingly, that a place like north Clondalkin is full of people with the same aspirations and ambitions as everybody else and that some of its young men make far better representatives for the country than their supposed social betters.
Boxing matters to these young men because it creates a world in which hard things are expected of them. Violence is controlled, restrained and sublimated. Wildness is the ultimate sin and discipline the ultimate virtue. Bodily power is nothing without intelligence.
Manliness is asserted, not by bullying, but by behaving honourably and respectfully towards an opponent inside the ring and, outside it, by a stoical acceptance of defeat and even of unfairness. Above all, boxing is a fatherly culture. Older men - trainers and mentors - treat younger men like sons, giving them the benefit of their own experiences and receiving, in turn, the gift of being listened to. And the young men learn, in the process, not just how to box, but how to be fathers themselves. They learn about encouragement and discipline, about cajoling and warning, about the ways in which different generations can talk to each other.
Boxing does for these young men, in other words, what education and community and society ought to do but don’t. It treats them as people who can achieve very tough things, not just in sport but in learning to be a man. It gives them respect and demands in return that they respect themselves. It defines them as individuals - in few sports is the competitor quite so nakedly alone - but it also creates its own family and its own community. It has no time for self-indulgent victimhood. It both teaches and recognises the dignity that is won in struggling against unfavourable circumstances
If you had a tune you could sing to that. And yet, ironically, it would not be far from the one nation Tory revivalism of David Cameron. Yet, perhaps, if Irish Labour (or any of the opposition parties) is listening, that might be the route to go in a mixed economy which in its understandable dash towards prosperity has lost track of just who provides the bedrock of the industrious new Republic.
Reconnecting the bottom with the top may be an old Tory tactic, but it’s an obvious counterpunch to the semi-permanent and highly expedient governance of Fianna Fail & Co.
Mick Fealty @ 10:22 AM
The cameras are brought into their homes - which turn out to be strangely clean and bright and comfortably furnished.
So what was he expecting? Dickensian hovels? Maybe Fintan’s view of the working class is the one that’s out of date.
How clean is strangely clean?
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 11:31 AMWelcome back Henry! I think he means ‘strange’ to the media accounts he mentions elsewhere in the text.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 11:47 AMStrange article. It reads as though O’Toole is the one with the problem.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 12:53 PMIt reads as though O’Toole is the one with the problem.
He often gives an insight into his own perceptions while trying to claim that this is what everybody (’the social betters’) think. Something which I personally doubt.
‘Reconnecting with the bottom’ will be become a greater priority in the months and years ahead though…
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:21 PMGreat post..
My part of Irish America is, and always has been, quite proud of these fine Irish Olympians. They are the hard working, expat lads we see every day! You’ll see when they eventually visit stateside. We’re already planning the celebrations!!
This bit details the qualities that the liberal dems in this country want to marginalize, (look at our single parent stats) and feminize. Don’t let them slip out of Irelands’ hand.
‘Manliness is asserted, not by bullying, but by behaving honourably and respectfully towards an opponent inside the ring and, outside it, by a stoical acceptance of defeat and even of unfairness. Above all, boxing is a fatherly culture. Older men - trainers and mentors - treat younger men like sons, giving them the benefit of their own experiences and receiving, in turn, the gift of being listened to. And the young men learn, in the process, not just how to box, but how to be fathers themselves. They learn about encouragement and discipline, about cajoling and warning, about the ways in which different generations can talk to each other.
Boxing does for these young men, in other words, what education and community and society ought to do but don’t. It treats them as people who can achieve very tough things, not just in sport but in learning to be a man. It gives them respect and demands in return that they respect themselves. It defines them as individuals - in few sports is the competitor quite so nakedly alone - but it also creates its own family and its own community. It has no time for self-indulgent victimhood. It both teaches and recognises the dignity that is won in struggling against unfavourable circumstances’
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:34 PMShameful comment to say that the lad only won because of the “strange failure of the US and Cuba”.
He won his medal fair and square.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:35 PMFintan O Toole writing about men and manliness.
I hope he checked this with the sisterhood...........
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:41 PMHenry94 everything about Fintan is out of date lol
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:43 PMBoxing will not teach them that as young working class fathers (especially if they are not married to the mother) they have no right to be a father to their child.
Still Fintan this is a baby step for you...........
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:50 PM“It reads as though O’Toole is the one with the problem.”
Yes, I read the piece this morning and wondered how it would take someone to go on the interspazz and make that precise point.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:59 PMIreland was cheated in the boxing out of good medals by the Chinese. To think that a chinese country can defeat Ireland in boxing is unthinkable we produce the best boxers in the planet. Ireland has bread a fighting race which defeated the English, yet we are powerless against a chinese olympics. It is about time we Irish started to fight once again.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 02:24 PMIreland was cheated in the boxing out of good medals by the Chinese.
There was certainly a degree of home side bias in all the ‘judging’ sports - as well as boxing, things like diving and gymnastics. I can see the point as far as Kenny Egan goes but not others. Take Paddy Barnes. As Paddy is a real local to me, I obviously want to say Paddy is the best and we wuz robbed, and while he was certainly cheated out of a few points, with the greatest of respect to anyone, Paddy had the shite knocked out of him by the Chinese fella.
To think that a chinese country can defeat Ireland in boxing is unthinkable we produce the best boxers in the planet.
Well, there’s the minor detail that there are 220 of them for every 1 of us. That’s going to give them a certain built in advantage in finding people with the necessary raw talent.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 03:43 PMShane,
“Ireland has bread a fighting race which defeated the English, yet we are powerless against a chinese olympics.”
Ignoring the historical inaccuracy of the first part of your statement I’m not sure that by reducing boxing to terms of militarism helps to prove your point that Ireland should be beating China!! Hasn’t China had the longest period of continuous development of military culture of any civilisation in world history??? Just a thought
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 03:53 PMLamaria I think Shane was joking............
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 04:12 PMSammy Morse-apart from the demographic advantage it is the military operation of a totalitarian state which was their olympic effort.
No contest really.Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 04:15 PMWhat Fintan wrote is nothing compared to the Marty Morrissey incident, for which I believe he should have at the very least never been allowed hold an RTE microphone again, where he asked Francie Barrett’s mother on television whether he ever hit her.
I’m sure that similar stories to Fintan’s were written about Carruth, McCullough and others at the time. What he said is factually fairly true - boxing is the acceptable face of violence in many low-income parts of Ireland and one of the few paths to better oneself - and even then there’s no guarantee of prosperity beyond a post-amateur fights.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 04:16 PMIf you had a tune you could sing to that. And yet, ironically, it would not be far from the one nation Tory revivalism of David Cameron.
I’ll bet Paddy Barnes little thought that he would one day be shoe-horned into being a poster-boy for the Tory party…
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 04:27 PMIn Ardoyne, the speak of little other than David Willets’ Green Paper on extending opportunity…
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 08:03 PMLOL Sammy- you’d me near tears with that last one!
This reads as a shockingly patronising attempt to chide the elites of Irish society for displaying the very snobbish tendencies to which O’Toole reveals himself in the piece.
Mick
The Yanks and Cubans were abysmal in the boxing this time round- I’d expect a different picture in London 2012 as both will have pride to restore (and with ample talent to deliver.)Having said that, the three Irish lads could only be expected to fight those put in front of them- three medals in the boxing is still a good return, even if it propagates the entirely bogus notion that this was a “successful” Olympics (tied 62nd and all that crap) to be declared by some in the media.
When we’re left boasting, as an RTE presenter did live on radio, that at least our man [Paul Hession] “is the fastest white 200m sprinter” in the world after failing to make the final, then surely we’ve bottomed out…
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 08:24 PMOld GBS speaks on Slugger regularly..
“Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.”
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 09:12 PMChris,
On the sporting end of things, I keep going back to that Tom Humphries quote about ‘Ole, ole, ole’ not adding up to a sporting culture.
Boxing (Love it or hate it, and I confess some ambivalence on that score) does spring from a genuine sporting culture. There are others, but none quite seem to have serviced their athletes with the same attention and ambition as boxing.
The observation that other countries with larger populations and stronger traditions across a broader range of sports than Ireland’s fared as badly if not worse this time out is a fair point.
But what Britain has shown is that targeted investment in in strong sports over an eight to twelve year period pays off.
I suspect Martin Cullen’s late conversion to targeting may come too late to significantly boost Ireland’s performance by 2012, which is a shame, because London is as close to a home venue as Irish athletes are ever likely to get on the Olympic level.
Some in Northern Ireland may benefit from UK lottery schemes, but big infrastructure developments like the velodrome in Manchester (and later London) take levels of strategic capital investment which Irish governments seem to have been unable to manage heretofore.
A decent sports strategy would take half a generation to show tangible long term improvements.
Paddy,
Your Mexican slip is showing again… Is Paddy B the intended target of Fintan’s polemic? Didn’t seem that way to me.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 09:42 PMMick
On the sporting end of things, I keep going back to that Tom Humphries quote about ‘Ole, ole, ole’ not adding up to a sporting culture.
It was a bullshit comment the first time, and hasn’t improved since. Again, since your slow:
Munster - European Champions
Padraig Harrington - Double Major winner
GAA sportsmen - incredibly committed and I doubt that’d be a phrase you wish to repeat in front of many of them.Moreover, the “Ole ole” culture really helped give a boost to Irish soccer as shown by the normally competitive international team in tough European groups and a noticeable improvement in the home game, if at the cost of some clubs struggling.
If you cannot generate enthusiasm, you cannot generate success. You should be ashamed to repeat that comment.
Boxing (Love it or hate it, and I confess some ambivalence on that score) does spring from a genuine sporting culture. There are others, but none quite seem to have serviced their athletes with the same attention and ambition as boxing.
Ireland do indeed have a “genuine sporting culture” in Boxing. It’s been 16 years between medals. We are limited by the amount of talent available, and the opportunity cost of potential Olympic Athletes taking other options is magnifified in a small country.
A decent sports strategy would take half a generation to show tangible long term improvements.
Ireland already have a High Performance programme. Only Boxing performed, and it should be looked at. But if you are going to pump more money in, put it at grassroots and schools level. It will do the country a power more good than sticking it in a vanity project. A poor medal haul is a disappointment, but not an existential crisis of decline as it is perceived in England. It’s not an idea we should be picking up, either.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 10:04 PMMick,
Nothing strange about the “failure” of Cuba.Four of their five gold-medallists from Athens 2004 defected or tried to defect in the interim and weren’t “available for selection”.
That said the Cubans took a young team to Beijing and came away with a load of medals, just no gold. Lots of talent just lacking experience.
As for the US, they went for central coaching I believe, not allowing each boxer to work with his own “father figure” as Fintan would call them, leading to the odd situation where six of the team were disciplined or tried to walk out on the US team in the year running up to Beijing 2008.
It showed in the ring with the only guy winning a medal one who took up the sport three years ago.
But even if the US and Cuba did not have as strong teams as usual, there were Chinese, Kazakhs, Mongolians, Thais, Russians, British, Italians etc etc, who all had top boxers in Beijing.
The only disappointment for me was Sutherland, who appeared beaten and happy with bronze before he went into the ring.
As for targeting sports, does Ireland really want to spend a couple of hundred million on a velodrome or some such like so we can have four top track cyclists?
Put the money into the sports people are involved in and if we win something well and good. If not, who cares.
I would much rather use elite sports money to see a scholarship type scheme set up where the top cyclist goes to the UK, top swimmers to the US/Australia, top archer to Korea etc. than spending it on the odd state of the art facility that will only be used by a tiny minority.
As for Fintan’s article, it reads like it was written by someone who only thinks of places like Clondalkin ever four years himself. The time to write this article was two years ago, not now when the medals have been won and the media circus has camped down there.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 10:23 PMGeorge,
For the sake of clarity, I mentioned the Velodrome as a practical example of how targeting and resourcing was actually done in Britain, it was not intended to be read as a specific suggestion (or deficit) for Ireland.
Your piggybacking idea has potential. The rise in Irish cricket comes partly from the ICC’s encouragement of minor international teams in recent years, and the use of foreign born players. But it also has benefited from the fact that more Irish players are getting English county experience.
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 10:54 PMWhen we’re left boasting, as an RTE presenter did live on radio, that at least our man [Paul Hession] “is the fastest white 200m sprinter” in the world after failing to make the final, then surely we’ve bottomed out…
Posted by Chris Donnelly on Aug 26, 2008 @ 09:24 PM
“The fastest Caucasian in the world” I heard him described as by some twit on RTE radio.
That’s up there with C4’s Phil Liggett claiming Stephen Roche as “the first Anglophone winner of the Tour de France”!
Posted by on Aug 26, 2008 @ 11:03 PM
