Michael Moynihan: Flash - Semple Stadium still exists.

A general view of the Semple Stadium grounds during the Allianz Hurling League match between Tipperary and Galway. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Hot take.

Killarney is a great place to visit, but I think Thurles may be better.

Speaking as a Cork person, I realise the above statement is heresy in some quarters, but my experience last weekend leads me to double down on the assertion.

Last Saturday I was in Thurles for a summertime visit, the first of its kind since 2019, and I am glad to report to people on Leeside and beyond that the great palace still stands, open and welcoming.

My reference to Killarney is not one calculated to stir unrest far to the west, but an observation based on the Kerry town’s profile as a tourist destination.

To me this conflates its attractions as a venue for big games with its year-round reputation as a party zone: the stream of Cork visitors — this writer included — who ‘make a weekend’ of Killarney can therefore let the latter influence views of the former.

Thurles is different. The associations with the town are more focused on big games, at least for Corkonians, but the flip side is that when there aren’t big games there’s an air of mystery about Thurles.

And a feeling of concern in Cork. Never mind the tree falling in the forest, does Semple Stadium still exist if there are no games being played there?

There was last year, I hear you say. There were games in Thurles in 2020 — and Munster championship games at that. Surely that counts?

I’m afraid not. Wintry encounters in Semple Stadium don’t qualify — in fact, the surreal games that took place, with the breath visible from the players, the echoing stands, that ending-of-the-year darkness only reinforced the sensation of a ghostly replica, were not the real thing.

All of which underlines how enjoyable last Saturday was. Setting off from Cork I was tempted for a minute to go the whole hog on nostalgia and avoid the motorway, but a quick flashback to two-hour tailbacks through Fermoy many years ago put me straight on that notion.

The sheer difficulty, at times, of getting to Thurles only added to its lustre. Anytime you hop off the motorway at the ‘Jockey Exit you can’t help reminiscing about the Skeheenarinky Passage, and luxuriate in the ease of access afforded by the first-named.

(In another universe I envisage Robert Ludlum weighing the two of them up as possible titles: “The Jockey Exit or The Skeheenarinky Passage? Which, though?”)

This weekend past, the weather was decent as I eased past Thurles Golf Club, the familiar landmarks popping up along the approach before the first enjoyable choice: to make a hard left on the Clongour Road or to carry on to hit Liberty Square?

These are the kinds of choices that generations of Cork people heading for Semple Stadium have puzzled over. Will this turn save us five minutes purgatory in the traffic later? Will it get us nearer our preferred parking spot*? What happened the last time we took this turn compared to the last time we didn’t take this turn?

These matters are usually thrashed out in the 18 seconds the driver has at his disposal before someone behind starts beeping the horn: this is why there are gardaí stationed at such intersections.

(Disclosure: I always take the left.)

Once in the middle of Thurles the landmarks take on a distinct flavour: after making the left mentioned above one ends up on Friar Street, though I have never heard a Cork person refer to it by name as opposed to the ‘street with Stakelum’s’.

Which is apposite.

Rolling up over the train tracks and a hard right brought me in past the church to the stadium itself.

The events therein — Tipperary v Galway — you can read about elsewhere. But I am here to tell you that Tom Semple’s field is still there. And as good as ever.

FIFA, backstabbing you to your face

I know I mentioned Adam Curtis here before, the great documentary maker who creates those immersive, hypnotic, meandering documentaries which are oddly unsettling and fulfilling at the same time.

(If you’re a podcast fan there’s a good one with Blindboy Boatclub interviewing Curtis. Otherwise there are, you know, the documentaries themselves.)

Anyway, Curtis narrates the documentaries himself in a kind of exasperated, half-impatient tone to his voice, and often ends up saying something along the lines of “In fact, the exact opposite happened” about some development in seventies Iran or Mao’s China.

All of which is a longwinded way of saying I had Curtis’s voice in my head when I saw news during the week about the European Super League.

You may recall when this first emerged we saw statements such as “ . . .FIFA and the six confederations once again would like to reiterate and strongly emphasise that such a competition (the ESL) would not be recognised by either FIFA or the respective confederation . . .”

Then, reading the New York Times last week: “ . . according to interviews with more than a half-dozen soccer executives, including one Super League club owner, Infantino was aware of the plan and knew some of his closest lieutenants had for months — until at least late January — been engaged in talks about lending FIFA’s backing to the breakaway league.”

That’s Gianni Infantino. President of FIFA.

Does that translate into Irish as Seáinín an dá thaobh?

Match parking. Where to begin?

Re *parking at matches, mentioned above . . . when is the definitive academic study coming on this matter? I was going to include it in my love letter to Thurles above, but then of course I remembered that the bitterest debates can take place before the car comes to a complete stop. This is a completely different topic.

Do we turn the car to face for home before we get out? How comfortable are you with that N/L plate parked so close behind? If you leave this slot will you get another one? Is parking outside the pub a good idea? Is parking outside the pub a bad idea?

The ideal parking spot near a frequently-visited venue doesn’t exist, of course.

But the frequently-used parking spot does, and people are inflexible when it comes to considering alternatives: this is where we always park and where we will always park, and it doesn’t matter that the clerical outfitters which once stood here has been replaced by a place called Dodgy Freddie’s No Questions Asked Used Car Instant Swap For Cash Emporium.

Parking for the match. Adam Curtis should make a documentary about that.

Goodbye to the Duke, white-collar criminal

Farewell to actor Charles Grodin, who passed away last week at the age of 86. If you had small kids in the nineties - or if you were a small kid in the nineties - you probably remember him from the Beethoven movies, but there was much more to him.

Charles Grodin passed away last week at the age of 86

Grodin wrote several volumes of memoirs, including the memorably-titled How I Got To Be Whoever It Is I Am, which is my excuse for mentioning him here.

My reason for mentioning him - a slightly different idea - is the great movie Midnight Run, which he stole as mob accountant Jonathan Mardukas (“I’m a white-collar criminal.”). Best of luck with the litmus configuration, Duke.

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