Follow that brionglóid

THE latest round of bad weather to hit the country?

You can maybe put down to a bout of synchronised national inhaling last night.

It came at about twenty past ten, when every man in Ireland watching the documentary on the Ó hAilpín brothers took a deep breath in an effort to flatten his stomach as much as possible. This was the point during the programme at which middle brother Setanta strolled down the hallway of his home in Australia, showing off a physique on which an amazing variety of muscles were jostling for attention.

Less seriously, some random thoughts following the programme included: the impression that Mrs Ó hAilpín would make a fairly decent goalkeeper, given the standard of forward she faced in the family’s back garden over the years; that Setanta’s bushtucker mullet looked far less á la mode than his Del Piero of 2003; that if the secret of Sean Óg’s fitness is the curried octopus he feasted on as a child, he’s welcome to it; and that GAA authorities can rest easy that the only sliotars on offer in remote Rotuma, near Fiji, are offically sanctioned O’Neills-manufactured balls.

Which should make policing puck-outs in the South Pacific a fairly low-maintenance task for referees in the 2007 season.

What was more interesting than the abs and pecks on offer was a comment or two from the brothers, however. Reflecting on the long trip from Rotuma to Cork, Sean Og Ó hAilpín said at one stage about his youth: “I didn’t look Irish. I had to explain the Rotuma bit, because I take my features from my mum. I’m proud of that.”

The trumpeting of Cork’s 2004 All-Ireland captain as a new kind of Irishman is one of the more frequently-repeated cliches to be found in journalism, so it was interesting to hear him speak about the subject himself, even indirectly. The Ireland that the Ó hAilpíns landed into towards the end of the eighties was very different to the Ireland we live in now, and it's ironic that the youngster who didn't consider that he looked Irish is now one of the best salesmen the Irish language has ever had. Maybe that's something for the more excitable anti-immigration voices to consider the next time they consider bringing out the blazing crosses.

Speaking of the Irish language, presumably the programme catalogued the first occasion on which someone had said at an AFL game, “Tá súil agam go mbeidh an bua ag Carlton,” as Aisake introduced a couple of his bemused co-panellists to the camera as Gaeilge (obviously the lessons of Donal O'Grady above in Gaelcholáiste Mhuire weren't confined to hurling).

Setanta didn’t forget the teanga dúchas either. He compared a run-out in the AFL to playing in an All-Ireland hurling final in front of 80,000 people by saying: “Ní chóir go mbeadh eagla ort.”

It could double up as a mantra. For a sports fan it was fascinating to watch one of the Carlton coaches put the 2003 Young Hurler of the Year through his paces with some common-sense technical advice (“You're in the air, you're committed; if you're on the ground you can push off to follow the ball,”), but he echoing slap of the oval ball in the empty stadium brought home to the viewer the enormity of the challenge the young brothers had taken on. It showed that when Setanta said “you shouldn’t be scared,” he meant it: learning a new sport thousands of miles from home, abandoning glittering careers in a game they'd grown up with (mind you, having said all that we'd recommend Aisake reconsider the division of labour when it comes to the cooking duties).

Most touching, maybe, was the testimony of the Ó hAilpín’s cousin on Rotuma. She mentioned how proud everyone was of the Irish branch of the family, and of Sean Óg’s sporting prowess. Rotuma was just a tiny place, she said, but Sean Óg’s fame would mean the island would become well known.

A small place honoured by a strong man on the hurling pitch.

Charles Kickham, the man who wrote Knocknagow and coined the phrase “for the honour of the little village”, would have understood perfectly.

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