Scenes from a week in the life

Monday lunchtime, September 6

ON the noon train out of Heuston Station back to Cork after the All-Ireland final. Tipperary people everywhere, all of them serene and relaxed. There’s a toss-up when it comes to highlights. Just a couple of seats away a snappily dressed gent in his 20s is informing the two middle-aged ladies in blue and gold jerseys of his reasons for going to the Premier County: he’ll be telling his parents he’s gay.

Or the mature couple across the way, also in Tipp colours, are reassuring a student from the north of Ireland that she won’t be murdered on the streets of Cork if she wears a Down jersey. When the train stops in Thurles a few of the lads who lurch off swerve around an elderly gent rolling a suitcase down the platform.