We see a heroine being hailed, but why isn’t she our own?
Their winners ascend to the realm of the venerated. They become heroes or heroines, and not just two-week wonders.
Just listen to them still boasting about their World Cup football winners of nearly 40 years ago.
At least that was how I saw it up to one evening recently. Then all changed.
As I watched TV coverage of the arrival home of their latest winner, I braced myself for the usual superlatives about Ellen MacArthur. She was welcomed by thousands as if she was to each one a loving daughter or sister. They were beaming with pride.
That was national pride at its purest. She had touched their hearts and had done for sailing what the moon landing did for flying. Ellen MacArthur is 28 and a mere slip of a thing. Muscle and brawn are no match for the sheer determination and character of this whippersnapper. The fact that she is a most unlikely record-breaker makes it all the sweeter.
She does not come from the ranks of the shiny yacht brigade. On the contrary, she often felt quite scruffy as she roughed it in a Portakabin when not hauling out her modest 21-footer.
If only we could be more like the British.
After all, we have a similar heroine in our midst. And the parallels are amazing.
Our heroine is also 28... also a mere slip of a thing... also our very own brand of whippersnapper.
Without muscle or brawn, but with determination and character in buckets, she - like MacArthur - is modest about her achievement and does not come from the ranks of obvious winners in her field.
She is Samantha O’Carroll from Cork.
Last May 27 she reached the summit of Everest. So modest is she that she did it in a whisper and we could be forgiven for not knowing about it because she does not cultivate the limelight. Had we known about her in advance we would have heard how she trained for the event. She, too, roughed it.
She would place a plank on the stairs of her apartment building at night. Then, weighed down with enormous plastic containers of water on her back and shoulders, she would inch her way up and down the plank for hours in makeshift crampons.
All this after her night-shift in the local pub and slotted in between studies for her degree.
The word from her fellow climbers on Everest was that she took the summit “in style” which, in mountaineering-speak, means something very impressive.
She was the youngest of that group to reach the summit, and the most determined.
As a student of drama and fine art she employed the singularity of thought and motion that she borrowed from Beckett. This helped her form a rhythm as she took one step, one breath at a time as she fought her way to the top.
So why are we not celebrating? Is it because this is not rugby or football or jet-setting celebrity, or is it because we don’t know how?
Are our minds so closed we cannot see real achievement in one so young?
As with Ellen MacArthur, Samantha O’Carroll is a potent symbol of ‘can-do’ youth. All too often we are disappointed when our sporting hopes are dashed because of the whiff of drugs.
The only stimulant for Samantha was fresh air and bottled water. How’s that for purity!
In a country disillusioned with politicians and authority in general, could we not look for the positive elements in our national character that show us off as opposed to showing us up?
Clair Wallace
Belfield Park
Mount Merrion
Co Dublin
