IT HAS BEEN another week to sit back and behold the extraordinary capacity of the Irish mind.
Where history once wrote us off as irredeemably impulsive Celts much too emotional to chart our way to freedom, this sporting week has proven that with our independence we have evolved to join the ranks of world leaders in cognitive dissonance.
As Keegan says in Shaw’s “John Bull’s Other Island”, “Let not the right side of your brain know what the left side doeth. I learnt at Oxford this is the secret of the Englishman’s power of making the best of both worlds.”
And while Paddy might not be making the best of both worlds at the moment, he is making his best at limping through this one.
Our franchise player in this respect is sports minister, Patrick O’Donovan.
On Monday, as a postscript to his urgent diatribe against flares and football on RTÉ Radio One, the minister was asked whether he believed Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Israel should go ahead.
The game should go ahead, he said, given that the Israeli football team is not the Israeli government, adding the following day that the Irish people’s issue is not with the Israeli football team.
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Now, the latter part of that is factually incorrect, given 93% of the FAI’s delegates voted last November to call on the Israeli football team to be suspended by Uefa because of alleged breaches of the rules by the Israeli football association.
But of more concern to us here is the minister’s recanting of the government line on the Israel fixture, that the football team is not the government. And while this is true in the sense the Israeli cabinet are not presently togging out to play – in spite of their profusion of right-wingers – the philosophy of his argument that sport and politics don’t mix was undermined just a tad the following day, as O’Donovan stood beside the Minister for Foreign Affairs by the Aviva Stadium pitch on which the Israelis will soon play and beneath a scoreboard displaying in giant letters the words INTERNATIONAL SPORTS DIPLOMACY.
So, yes, on Monday the sports minister was out there telling us that sports and politics don’t mix and on Tuesday he was ballyhooing the codified benefits of Ireland’s politicians engaging with other politicians through the medium of sport.
Let’s briefly quote from the policy document’s website to give you a flavour of Ireland’s new and official attitude to the mingling of sport and politics.
“[Sport] is a powerful point of connection with Irish communities overseas, an opportunity to raise awareness of and showcase modern Ireland, and increasingly an important platform to promote Ireland to international audiences as a location for investment, trade and to visit. Sport can also play an important role in Ireland’s international partnerships, and as a means to advance and promote our values and interests.”
So just to make the State’s attitude very clear to you here: we will be using sport to promote our values and interests, but thankfully the Israelis won’t.
The sports minister wasn’t too interested in diplomacy regarding the other football story of the week, condemning the throwing of flares at Oriel Park as “thuggery” and the actions of “gougers” and “hooligans”, defying even the opinion of the Taoiseach in plaguing all houses in pausing all funding to LOI astro projects. This column asked O’Donovan on Tuesday whether he regretted his use of language to describe football fans, given its obvious parallels with Thatcherite Britain.
“I don’t regret it”, he said. “If my calling this group of hooligans, a group of hooligans offends them, I’m not going to apologise for that.” We just hope he remains consistent in his language should the trend of pyro in GAA grounds and at schools’ rugby games continue.
At the same press event, he was asked by a journalist whether it was incumbent on Joanna Byrne TD, Sinn Féin spokesperson for sport and Drogheda co-chairperson, to come out and condemn the incident, he agreed that everyone in a political context had a responsibility to condemn what they had seen. This is an entirely reasonable point, even though it struck us as another entanglement between sport and politics that went unacknowledged.
The FAI CEO David Courell was in attendance at the sports diplomacy launch, and the following day returned to the Aviva Stadium to speak to the press about the Israel game, where he very clearly explained the FAI’s position: we know the opposition to this but we are paying the games, because the alternative would involve forfeiting the points and so we might get relegated from the Nations League and harm our seeding for Euro 2028 qualification.
This solemn respect for the sanctity of the Nations League came as a surprise to this column, given this is an organisation that allowed the manager they claimed to have identified in February 2024 to take an effective hands-off brief for two Nations League games that September. Plus, given we are co-hosts of Euro 2028, seeding and campaign performances have never had less relevance for our tournament qualification prospects.
But the FAI deserve credit for at least stating their position and giving a clear shape to the terms of the debate to follow over the coming months.
The same cannot be said for Patrick O’Donovan and his government, whose view that the Israeli football team is not the Israeli government is not a means of entertaining or contributing the debate but an act to shut it down; a means of telling the country that ‘You can feel strongly about Palestine, but this football match is not relevant to those feelings.’
It’s time for the government to tell us why they believe the FAI’s worrying about six Nations League points is worth overriding the sentiments of their General Assembly members, and why they believe the game should be staged in Dublin.
Patrick O’Donovan, our straight-talking minister so committed to the betterment of Irish football that he is unafraid even to appear out of step with the Taoiseach on an urgent issue, strikes us as just the right man for this job. Plus, it doesn’t do him well to continue to engage so superficially on the topic, given the aforementioned Joanna Byrne has made clear her stance on playing the Israel game, at the cost of some apparently bruising internal politics at Drogheda.
We await his explanation, because the country can see what the right and left sides of the official Irish mind are currently doing.
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Sport and politics don't mix in Ireland - except when we want them to
IT HAS BEEN another week to sit back and behold the extraordinary capacity of the Irish mind.
Where history once wrote us off as irredeemably impulsive Celts much too emotional to chart our way to freedom, this sporting week has proven that with our independence we have evolved to join the ranks of world leaders in cognitive dissonance.
As Keegan says in Shaw’s “John Bull’s Other Island”, “Let not the right side of your brain know what the left side doeth. I learnt at Oxford this is the secret of the Englishman’s power of making the best of both worlds.”
And while Paddy might not be making the best of both worlds at the moment, he is making his best at limping through this one.
Our franchise player in this respect is sports minister, Patrick O’Donovan.
On Monday, as a postscript to his urgent diatribe against flares and football on RTÉ Radio One, the minister was asked whether he believed Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Israel should go ahead.
The game should go ahead, he said, given that the Israeli football team is not the Israeli government, adding the following day that the Irish people’s issue is not with the Israeli football team.
Now, the latter part of that is factually incorrect, given 93% of the FAI’s delegates voted last November to call on the Israeli football team to be suspended by Uefa because of alleged breaches of the rules by the Israeli football association.
But of more concern to us here is the minister’s recanting of the government line on the Israel fixture, that the football team is not the government. And while this is true in the sense the Israeli cabinet are not presently togging out to play – in spite of their profusion of right-wingers – the philosophy of his argument that sport and politics don’t mix was undermined just a tad the following day, as O’Donovan stood beside the Minister for Foreign Affairs by the Aviva Stadium pitch on which the Israelis will soon play and beneath a scoreboard displaying in giant letters the words INTERNATIONAL SPORTS DIPLOMACY.
So, yes, on Monday the sports minister was out there telling us that sports and politics don’t mix and on Tuesday he was ballyhooing the codified benefits of Ireland’s politicians engaging with other politicians through the medium of sport.
Let’s briefly quote from the policy document’s website to give you a flavour of Ireland’s new and official attitude to the mingling of sport and politics.
“[Sport] is a powerful point of connection with Irish communities overseas, an opportunity to raise awareness of and showcase modern Ireland, and increasingly an important platform to promote Ireland to international audiences as a location for investment, trade and to visit. Sport can also play an important role in Ireland’s international partnerships, and as a means to advance and promote our values and interests.”
So just to make the State’s attitude very clear to you here: we will be using sport to promote our values and interests, but thankfully the Israelis won’t.
The sports minister wasn’t too interested in diplomacy regarding the other football story of the week, condemning the throwing of flares at Oriel Park as “thuggery” and the actions of “gougers” and “hooligans”, defying even the opinion of the Taoiseach in plaguing all houses in pausing all funding to LOI astro projects. This column asked O’Donovan on Tuesday whether he regretted his use of language to describe football fans, given its obvious parallels with Thatcherite Britain.
“I don’t regret it”, he said. “If my calling this group of hooligans, a group of hooligans offends them, I’m not going to apologise for that.” We just hope he remains consistent in his language should the trend of pyro in GAA grounds and at schools’ rugby games continue.
At the same press event, he was asked by a journalist whether it was incumbent on Joanna Byrne TD, Sinn Féin spokesperson for sport and Drogheda co-chairperson, to come out and condemn the incident, he agreed that everyone in a political context had a responsibility to condemn what they had seen. This is an entirely reasonable point, even though it struck us as another entanglement between sport and politics that went unacknowledged.
The FAI CEO David Courell was in attendance at the sports diplomacy launch, and the following day returned to the Aviva Stadium to speak to the press about the Israel game, where he very clearly explained the FAI’s position: we know the opposition to this but we are paying the games, because the alternative would involve forfeiting the points and so we might get relegated from the Nations League and harm our seeding for Euro 2028 qualification.
This solemn respect for the sanctity of the Nations League came as a surprise to this column, given this is an organisation that allowed the manager they claimed to have identified in February 2024 to take an effective hands-off brief for two Nations League games that September. Plus, given we are co-hosts of Euro 2028, seeding and campaign performances have never had less relevance for our tournament qualification prospects.
But the FAI deserve credit for at least stating their position and giving a clear shape to the terms of the debate to follow over the coming months.
The same cannot be said for Patrick O’Donovan and his government, whose view that the Israeli football team is not the Israeli government is not a means of entertaining or contributing the debate but an act to shut it down; a means of telling the country that ‘You can feel strongly about Palestine, but this football match is not relevant to those feelings.’
It’s time for the government to tell us why they believe the FAI’s worrying about six Nations League points is worth overriding the sentiments of their General Assembly members, and why they believe the game should be staged in Dublin.
Patrick O’Donovan, our straight-talking minister so committed to the betterment of Irish football that he is unafraid even to appear out of step with the Taoiseach on an urgent issue, strikes us as just the right man for this job. Plus, it doesn’t do him well to continue to engage so superficially on the topic, given the aforementioned Joanna Byrne has made clear her stance on playing the Israel game, at the cost of some apparently bruising internal politics at Drogheda.
We await his explanation, because the country can see what the right and left sides of the official Irish mind are currently doing.
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column FAI Patrick O'Donovan Republic Of Ireland