Irish Examiner view: Nation gets behind Republic of Ireland at the Women's World Cup
Eight-year-old Leá O'Neill, whose cousin is Republic of Ireland player Abbie Larkin, will be watching as we make our Fifa Women's World Cup debut against Australia. Picture: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
The Ireland Women’s National Team will make history when they take the field against Australia in their opening Fifa Women's World Cup fixture at 11am Irish time on Thursday.
The team has captured the attention of the country, offering a welcome diversion from the grim headlines and front pages of recent times.
The opportunity to track a national side through a competitive tournament is always an entertaining diversion. What makes this different, of course, is that it is a team of women who are the focus of national attention.
It is significant that no one is calling for more support for this Ireland team for one simple reason — there is a strong sense that they already have the backing of the entire country, with personalities as distinct as Megan Connolly and Amber Barrett known to all.
The support and focus is all the more deserving because of the team’s backstory. Six years ago, the squad had to take a stand to demand better treatment and higher standards for themselves and for the players following in their wake. Qualifying for a first World Cup — and the national support now being seen — is the ultimate endorsement of the stance taken in 2017 to improve their conditions.
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This is a critical moment for women’s sport in Ireland, which has rarely been as prominent. Rhasidat Adeleke made her professional sprint debut earlier this week and came second to the world champion. Leona Maguire continues to impress in golf in the US. Katie Taylor looks set to meet Chantelle Cameron in a return bout later this year. Camogie and ladies’ football are approaching their national deciders (with players in both codes seeking better treatment, echoing the women’s football team stance six years ago).
This rising tide has the capacity to be transformative for women in sport in Ireland across any number of fronts. It can help drive equality across society, improve the national health profile, improve facilities and services around the country, boost self-confidence — the positives are almost incalculable if the momentum can be maintained.
Those are concerns for the medium term, but in the meantime, an old reliable can be recycled for today: A nation holds its breath.
RTÉ’s new director general Kevin Bakhurst is still grappling with a variety of challenges, ranging from Ryan Tubridy’s future on the airwaves to the implications for RTÉ of fewer people buying TV licences — not to mention the general perception that those two phenomena are connected.
Bakhurst met RTÉ staff in Cork on Wednesday and, while he fielded questions on the above topics, he also spoke specifically about RTÉ Cork.
The new director general said RTÉ intends to maintain a presence in Cork, saying: “If anything, I would look to do more down here rather than less.”
However, he also acknowledged that, during his visit to Leeside, he planned on seeing potential new premises for RTÉ within the city.
The national broadcaster’s existing studios and office space on Fr Mathew St in Cork City’s centre would certainly be a tempting location for any developer, and the revenues generated by a sale would be welcome within cash-strapped RTÉ.
However, it is worth pointing to Bakhurst’s blunt insistence on the importance of a regional presence, describing it as a “critical part of public service broadcasting... so we can reflect the views of the country to itself”.
This is more than mere lip service. After recent Oireachtas committee meetings with RTÉ, Bakhurst may be understating the importance of regional viewpoints, if anything. Those meetings confirmed for many the suspicion that a managerial cohort within RTÉ was out of touch with the realities experienced by the majority of people in Ireland.
Recognising and facilitating voices outside Donnybrook is vital if RTÉ is to rebuild trust with its audience — and regional centres such as Cork are central to that work.
Thousands of households all over Ireland are grappling with strange terminology right now, from waitlists to pre-sale codes to pre-orders.
Those terms relate to the sale of Taylor Swift tickets, which is due to begin at 11am on Thursday morning. Readers who have friends or relatives among the serried ranks of Swifties would be well advised not to contact those people before their priceless tickets are secured.
And they certainly shouldn’t be too lighthearted with friends or relatives who don’t manage to get tickets. The concerts themselves are scheduled for the Aviva next summer, which is a long time to simmer if Thursday morning’s search proves unsuccessful.
The significance of the concerts is difficult to overstate, given Swift’s importance in the culture at large, not just in the relatively confined spaces of popular music.
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This is not an exaggeration: When Ticketmaster was unable to meet the demand for tickets for Swift’s American concerts last year, the outrage reached such a pitch that congressional hearings investigated the matter — hearings at which Ticketmaster representatives were grilled.
In Ireland, as soon as the concerts were announced for Dublin, there was a similar outcry when hotels in the capital were accused of raising prices to coincide with Swift’s visit — the complaints reached such a pitch that the matter was raised in the Dáil and the Taoiseach himself chipped in, warning hoteliers about price-gouging.
That’s something Swifties will consider in due course. For now, securing a ticket is the stuff of their wildest dreams.
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