Southern Men on the march
A word of warning to those disgusted by alleged Cork triumphalism: leave town. The men from the Deep South are on the way.
In terms of ramblin', rovin', courtin', sportin' and suckin' black porter, the hurling fans are merely coy debutantes in comparison with
the Cork football fan.
The Cork hurling fans are mainly drawn from the city. They have managed to acquire a thin veneer of civilisation. The football fans
are true Corkmen, drawn from the wider county and the Beara Peninsula in particular.
We will be here next week and, let me tell you, we are determined to wrest the crown of most-hated county back from those
halfbreeds from Meath.
The question here is: why do Cork people get under your skin?
Let's take a look at the place itself. The city of Cork is a double-sided, mixumgatherum sweep of humanity on the south coast. To
look at it, you would think it was like any other town of comparable beauty and aspect. Monte Carlo, Florence or maybe Ancient
Troy.
Such architectural riches should not on their own account for the massive begrudgery shown to Cork.
Nor should the beauty and character of its women though this is, it must be said, considerable.
So what is it?
The word arrogance surfaces again and again. Last week on the radio a Corkman went through the impressive list of recent
plunderings.
The All-Ireland, obviously, the All Ireland rugby league, the Rose of Tralee, the Tidy Towns, the UEFA Champions League.
And you think this is arrogance? Nonsense! For heaven's sake he didn't even mention Montenotte's Patricia Carey, who last week
clinched the All Ireland Garden Award!
The anti-Cork feeling would seem to be - like many of history's most heinous diversions - rooted in nothing but misinformation and
the false pleasure of fuzzy malice.
"I hope ye're crowd don't win the double or ye'll be unbearable".
I have heard that sentence - or similar sentiments - dozens of times since the proud Rebel Gael lowered the colours of the Pale's
representatives last Sunday in the hurling final.
Over the past 10 years quaint little counties such as Clare and Donegal have won All-Ireland titles. They are treated with indulgence.
Rural halfwits entitled to a day out in the Smoke.
When Cork win something we are expected to go back on the next train.
The problem for Dubs is that Cork people don't treat them with the respect they think they deserve.
Some poor slob from Carlow will come to Dublin and act like it's a strange place. He will be unsure of himself, know that he's an
outsider.
Someone from Cork will come and treat Dublin as the capital of his country. It belongs to the nation.
That, to many Dubs, is a touch too familiar.
The problem is not that Cork people are arrogant - their problems are far more complex than that, boy - it's just that Dubs have a
leadership complex. They think because they have a Dart and a pipe to the Kinsale gas field they are born leaders.
What amuses me most is the little Dub who considers that he has a greater historical claim on the capital than the Corkman.
His forebears probably ran errands for the British army and tugged their scrawny little moustaches deferentially at their superiors, yet
he thinks he owns the place.
Let me not suggest that Corkmen are all made of good stuff. As the venerable Tom Barry, IRA general and master tactician, once
said of the inhabitants of Skibbereen, "its inhabitants were a race apart from the sturdy people of west Cork. They were different,
and with a few exceptions were spineless . . .
"If Satan himself appeared in the Skibbereeen of 1920-21, the great majority would doff their hats to him, and if he wagged his tail
once in anger he was sure to be elected high in the poll to the Skibbereeen District Council".
But does the fact that Satan is a Skibbereen man not prove that God is indeed a rebel?