A higher plane

Though the world’s eyes are on the World Cup, which is just beginning to gather momentum in Brazil, it is hard not to see the sports events in Limerick this weekend as far more meaningful and — in human terms — far more important.

They are certainly more uplifting. In Brazil, there is a mixture of dilettantism, excess, vanity, social exclusion, an all-powerful, defining commercialism — and a failure to deliver the social dividend promised by the tournament’s organisers. In so many ways, it will be a festival of elitism and privilege. There is more than a whiff of corruption — and a shameful crisis in human trafficking to meet the demand for child prostitutes.

In Limerick, on the other hand, 1,500 special needs athletes will take part in 14 sports to decide who will represent Ireland in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2015. There will be little or no commercialism, no corruption, little or no vanity. There will however, be plenty examples of the indomitable human spirit, from competitors, their families and their supporters. The richness of striving, the honest endeavour, puts the Limerick festival on a far higher plane.