‘10 minutes before the game is about to start you see the stare in their eyes’

“Ah, there’s nothing hi. A few factories up there in the Industrial Estate. Apart from that, you have the few pubs and shops and that’s it. Things just seem to be closing down every few months. It’s getting worse instead of getting better.”

A familiar refrain, coming out of rural communities all over Ireland. This is the time of year that the problems in the marginalised villages towns and parishes are aired through the prism of joyous sporting occasions.