Colin Sheridan: Ireland's heart still beats. Hope, however battered, remains renewable

Saturday night, in the Aviva, came something both familiar and absurd.

Mon, 08 Sep, 2025 - 06:19

Colin Sheridan is a writer and columnist. A former officer in the Irish Defence Forces he has extensive deployment experience as a peacekeeper with the United Nations, having lived and worked in the former Yugoslavia, West Africa, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine.

Being a Republic of Ireland football fan is less a pastime and more a neverending PhD in masochism. You don’t “watch” Ireland. You endure them, like tax returns or a Bank Holiday Monday in IKEA. Every campaign begins with hope, cascades through hubris, collides with reality, and ends with expectation gently lowered like an old dog into the boot of a Ford Granada.

And yet: Saturday night, in the Aviva, came something both familiar and absurd. Ireland went 2–0 down to Hungary - a nation that produced Puskás - only to haul themselves, improbably, joyfully, back to 2–2 in the dying embers. It wasn’t just a draw. It was a parable, a sermon on the Irish condition, a love letter to suffering.