Paul Rouse: Bursting with the energy of a match soon to be played

It’s not easy to be a kid now; they're mobile phone screens change an awful lot. It offers a portal to many different realities – good and bad – even in the space of a bus journey.

Ronan Connolly and Ben Currivan of Cashel Community School lift the Harty Cup in 2023. Pic: Brendan Gleeson

A TEENAGE boy sits down beside me on the top deck of a Dublin bus. He’s in his school uniform. It’s not too long after 8am and the boy does what so many others of all ages do now — in public as in private — he takes out his mobile phone.

He puts the phone out onto his knees, which are folded against the seat in front, and pushes headphones into his ears. So far, so new normal: No teenager now has a conscious memory of a world without smartphones.