1. “After he pinned Lesnar, McIntyre looked directly into the camera to thank the fans and then climbed the ropes to celebrate with an imaginary audience while a felled Lesnar laid comically in the background. The “thank you” was meant to thank fans for their support, but it might as well have been for sticking out the show.”
Sport is thin on the ground, but The Ringer’s David Shoemaker writes that the Wrestlemania soap opera is finding innovative ways to keep the show on the road.
2. ‘I suppose I could have flashed my ‘necessary worker’ ID, but I doubt any garda would have believed I was heading for a press conference in the cemetery in Kilcully.’
In The Examiner, Michael Moynihan writes to the departed he was unable to visit.
3. “By the end of the year, the war had reached its crescendo and on 10th of December, the British government declared martial law in Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Kerry. Mass gatherings of young men were forcefully terminated, often with tragic repercussions.
“On the 7th of February 1921, a military patrol opened fire on a body of civilians near Knocknagree, who were thought to have been armed. Two boys, aged nine and eleven, were wounded as they were “hurling in a field adjoining the village”. Michael J. Kelleher, aged fourteen, was killed. That year, almost no G.A.A activity occurred in Cork.”
Eoin O’Cathain takes us on an enthralling walk through the 1920 Munster Championships.
4. “Clubs accustomed to the unyielding loyalty of fans have managed to alienate even their most ardent followers. Players, more accustomed to being seen as heroes, have been accused not only of failing to help their teams stanch losses, but of the much more serious offense of not offering financial support to Britain’s overworked health service.”
For the New York Times, Rory Smith and Tariq Panja detail the row between Premier League players and clubs that is leaving both sides bloodied.
5. “Some way, he is still not sure how, his mother Meg filled that house with books and he devoured the western novels of Zane Grey, the speeches of Winston Churchill and the collected Shakespeare. A library to fire an imagination and a thirst for discovering the wider world.”
Dave Hannigan catches up with Michael Dowling, a Limerick man working to co-ordinate New York’s response to the pandemic. for the Irish Times.
