Welcome home party turns into holy show

If your name’s not down you’re not coming in.

Those lyrics, made famous by the Klaxons’ song The Bouncer, were the first to spring to mind as the shambles that was Team Ireland’s return from the London Olympics unravelled at Dublin Airport yesterday afternoon.

With the public denied the chance to welcome home those who had donned various green uniforms at the Greatest Show On Earth, the inevitable result was a scramble for the golden tickets that would grant access into the building’s inner sanctum.

Some unlucky folk actually did have their names down but were still turned away by staff having forgotten to tuck passports or drivers’ licences into back pockets in their haste to meet and greet the returning heroes.

Children cried, volunteers decked out in the blazers of various sporting bodies cursed and cajoled and, even if a fair few of them eventually managed to blag their way in, it was all so unseemly and unnecessary but typical a chaotic and unfulfilling day.

The reception — for want of a better word — was held at Gate 426, an isolated wing at the farthest reach of Terminal 2 and stealth was the order of the day as the plane carrying the athletes wasn’t even listed with the rest of the day’s traffic on the arrivals screens.

It was almost as though this Airbus A321 was transporting a cargo of potentially infectious origin, or perhaps a new inductee into the witness protection scheme, rather than the most successful Irish Olympic outfit in over 50 years.

The scene that awaited them was one of confusion.

Though the Dublin Airport Authority and Olympic Council of Ireland had agreed to set up one backdrop for the press conference, the Irish Amateur Boxing Association had done likewise with a smaller version set up along the concourse.

Something to do with sponsors’ logos, it seems, and there were we thinking the days of Irish Olympic turf wars were a thing of the past. How sad. It used to be that the Irish were renowned for their ability to party, now we can’t even get that right.

In fairness to the near 30-piece Garda band, they did their best to keep spirits high as the plane arched over the Irish Sea with renditions of a random selection of familiar tunes. New York New York was among them. So was Ghost Riders in the Sky.

That latter seemed all the more appropriate as the minutes ticked by and the aircraft’s designated landing time of 1.25pm came and went. When it eventually touched down, over half-an-hour later, it was shepherded in by four fire engines.

That seemed entirely fitting, not just because the plane they were escorting was christened the St Aidan, who happens to be the patron saint of firefighters, but because of the potentially combustible atmosphere back inside.

It was only when Katie Taylor poked her head and gold medal out the cockpit window that you remembered what everyone was actually there for and the day’s business could get under way — which it did in a less than dignified manner.

Katie and her father Peter were the focus for most. Journalists, photographers, ground crew, dignitaries, family and friends all scrambled for a piece of their time while others like Billy Walsh and John Joe Nevin were similarly overwhelmed by demands.

It took an emotional Sonia O’Sullivan, the team’s chef de mission, to strike one of the occasion’s few fulfilling moments when she summed up the memories she would take from what was her fifth Olympic Games.

“I am very proud to have been part of this team and I feel that for the very first time in all my Olympic experiences that the Olympic spirit transpired throughout the team in the form of the encouragement and support the athletes gave each other, particularly when each athlete finished competing and continued to respect and encourage their team-mates across a wide range of sports and not just their own.”

And then it all went and ended with a row over where, how and when to celebrate their achievements. When will we ever learn?