No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”
I
And Brian Tyers’ commentary on TG4 is not intended for me.
Beyond that which I can comprehend – names, a poc saor and the occasional “go hálainn” reserved for a brilliant score – his use of the Irish language erects a barrier between us.
Though the inability to converse in languages that are not one’s own is a common regret, the disconnect between an English-speaking Irish listener and a Gaeilgeoir can feel acutely frustrating. The Irish language is a beautiful thing and to exist beyond the parameters of understanding is to find yourself at a loss.
Idir bhia agus staidéar idir lámha ag an bhfoireann roimh thús an aicsin! #SuperSunday #SárDomhnach #GAABEO pic.twitter.com/bwrbgajxvD
— GAA BEO TG4 (@GAA_BEO) March 26, 2023
I find it all the more remarkable then how Brian Tyers accommodates my unknowing. As he speaks I do not understand, yet I feel.
II
“Finally I turned to the sports sections. Even then I did not begin reading about the Giants. I was like a child who, having been given a box of chocolates, eats the jellies and nuts first and saves the creamy caramels till last. I read about golf in Scotland, surf-boarding in Oahu, football as Harvard imagines it played, and deep-sea fishing in Mexico. Only then did I turn to the Giants, having by then already torn from the Times and stuffed into my pocket Arthur Daley’s column, which I always saved to read but a couple of minutes before kick-off, the biggest caramel of them all. I read every word of these articles over and over again. Knowing precisely what I was looking for, I sought assurance that by five that afternoon the Giants would have another victory, some statement that would allay my mounting anxiety.”
Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes
III
On Saturday evening, Tyers was on commentary duty for Limerick’s National Hurling League semi-final against Tipperary.
Contrary to the success that Limerick have enjoyed in recent years, I do not take great enjoyment from watching their games. The “mounting anxiety” Frederick Exley feels for his New York Giants on an NFL Sunday is sickeningly familiar to me.
Throughout a game, every action that goes in Limerick’s favour exhilarates me. Any move against feels dreadful. Although I can differentiate the importance between league and championship hurling, no slight is so imperceptible as if to make it entirely irrelevant. When Limerick lost their league opener to Cork then, a game broadcast on RTÉ and called by Marty Morrissey, Shane Kingston’s late winner prompted a definitive claim: “The Rebels are back!”
It’s silly, really, and largely a consequence of getting caught in the moment, but the partisan nature of Gaelic football and hurling being what it is, I find myself more at ease with the likes of Tyers where my ignorance of what is being said is a touch more blissful. It’s silly, for sure, but it is also something rather new for me I’ve realised.
Once upon a time, I, like Exley in his 1968 “fictional memoir,” wanted to devour all available GAA television coverage. Whether I agreed or not with what was said didn’t matter; there was satisfaction enough in just feeling a part of the conversation.
Recently, however, that conversation has grown and continues to grow exponentially. Between the increase in watchable games (be they televised or streamed) and the coverage that follows (online media, television and podcasts; a dedicated podcast for every county now, probably), the conversation may more readily be viewed as a series of concurrent conversations; deafening in their collective desire to be heard.
The GAA media market has something for practically everyone now, leaving anything remotely generalist more likely to annoy than entertain.
IV
“I see frustration all around me from the team working on it,” he states. “Utter frustration. All of my colleagues are frustrated. Everybody’s trying hard to make it the best programme it can be. The amount of talented people involved, cutting these games – which isn’t an easy job – is huge.
“But regularly now, we’re showing up to 15 games. How do you get 15 games into 106 or 108 minutes? You can’t.
“I used enjoy making The Sunday Game a hell of a lot more. You could have the craic, a bit of a laugh. We miss laughter on the programme, a little spontaneity. I miss it. Because the programme just doesn’t have room to breathe in my opinion. But there has to be structure and the more matches you squeeze in, the more structured it has to be.”
Des Cahill speaking to the Irish Independent, June 4, 2022
V
Allianz League Sunday, or The Sunday Game as it will resume to be known in a few weeks, is out of step with these modern trends in GAA coverage.
In a world of specialists, it still strives for generality.
This is no reflection on the people involved with the making of the programme. As the previous host Des Cahill acknowledged in conversation with Vincent Hogan last year, no amount of hugely capable personnel, from his replacement Joanne Cantwell down, can render something meaningful from the circumstances in which they are compelled to work.
Last Sunday, they attempted to show highlights of and create a discussion around (of differing lengths, admittedly) four different games of hurling. After that, they tried doing something similar for four divisions’ worth of Gaelic football.
Time-wise, it is a preposterous task, that much is obvious. Unfortunately, it opens up the substance of what is said weekly to enormous scrutiny. While the extent of what Colm Cooper cannot tell us about Kerry football or the teams competing within that highest echelon isn’t worth knowing, it seems to me (and I use that word, seems, in the event that I may be doing Cooper or any of the programme’s top tier guests a disservice) that he cannot have seen enough of Sligo or Leitrim, for instance, to share a worthwhile thought on after Sunday’s decisive Division 4 clash.
And why should he, really? There is no feasible way two pundits can cast an equal eye over so many games spread across the one day. Although nobody watching is under the impression that every game is given fair coverage, the pundits are nevertheless required to make a judgement about where the X county is at under Y coach and what it will all mean come championship.
Before the specialisation of GAA coverage, supporters of lower tier counties had to satisfy themselves with simply being mentioned at all. The dynamic has shifted, however, and even the most moderate of GAA supporters now have access to insights and information that heighten their sensitivity to the brief, general assessment of a casual onlooker.
In the last few weeks alone, supporters have had access to an hour of Jim McGuinness and James Horan on the Irish Examiner’s podcast, Paddy Andrews and James O’Donoghue every week on The Football Pod, Wicklow manager Oisin McConville and Paul Flynn on Second Captains, Galway star Shane Walsh on The GAA Social, and four-time All-Star Colm Boyle on Off The Ball. And that’s only a random scattering of Gaelic football coverage going on in one portion of the media landscape.
It is no longer enough for any production to rely on a big name alone to carry them home.
VI
All those conversations vying for your attention.
Only, I suppose, they really are conversations now with the dialogue going both ways. The trade-off for our accessibility to so much coverage has been the development of an incessant back-and-forth primarily carried out across social media.
Sometimes it is brilliant; often times disastrous.
The less frustrating days working The Sunday Game that Des Cahill recalls pre-empted the ability and willingness of a clued-in audience to engage with what they were seeing. What we once thought of as the GAA conversation being had was something more closely resembling a sermon.
They talk, and we listen.
In a critical climate whereby the previously passive listener finds their voice then, the original speaker must show a willingness to adapt. It is not enough to keep doing what has always been done and pretend as if things are as they once were.
All of which brings me back to Brian Tyers.
VII
“His late work still remains process, but not as development; rather as a catching fire between the extremes, which no longer allow for any secure middle ground or harmony of spontaneity.”
Theodor Adorno, “Late Style in Beethoven”
VIII
It is unquestionably twee to reach for the adjective “musical” when describing Brian Tyers’ commentary. Can there be a more cliched way of referring to the Irish language being spoken? As I listen to his voice uncertain of what is being said, however, the process carries within it a certain musicality.
Although I cannot understand what is being said, he is nevertheless communicating something to me. What the German philosopher Theodor Adorno located in Beethoven’s later works, I can just about comprehend listening to Tyers.
Fractured compositions lacking in the unifying control their composer once held over music itself, Beethoven’s chronologically late works did not satisfy as his earlier work had. His new inability to formulate something whole and understandable was not inherently negative, however. Within such imperfections there was room for new revelations.
Of course, it should not be said that Tyers is anything but coherent. In this instance, it is the inarticulate listener who’s left grappling for some semblance of what’s going on. Listening to a match on TG4, my mind drifts; when you cannot understand the words it is unrealistic to expect that the game’s sound will keep you compelled.
And yet, as Adorno heard in the late Beethoven, I am captivated by Tyers’ ability to sporadically catch fire for me. When Limerick retook the lead mid-way through the second half of Saturday’s game, I immediately reached for the television’s remote control to turn up the volume.
I haven’t a clue what he said, but I just wanted the full hit of how it sounds. This was a league semi-final, a game of certain significance, but even in the depths of winter when he is covering some nondescript club game, Tyers’ voice retains that same enthusiasm for a beautifully executed piece of play.
He is both confusing and clear to me. Unintelligible, and yet, somehow, understandable.
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