Fight for right to watch your own national games

Satellite TV and National Games

Tommy walked into club with a fat lip and swollen left eye that’d be a right shiner by morning.

“You been fighting again, Tommy? Don’t tell me. It wasn’t you. It was the others.”

The 7-years-old lad looked at me straight in the eye.

“Yeh, was,” he whispered, pointing his chin to the ground, looking all sorry for himself.

“Maybe next time don’t wear your Dublin jersey to school, eh?”

At that his head shot up, brow furrowed, eyebrows scrunched together in genuine confusion.

“What’re ya talkin’ bout? Was’n me blaydin’ Dublin jersey. Sligo, Mayo, makes no difference wha’ jersey y’wear. They bate me ‘cos dare a bunch of f**kin’ bolloxes, dat’s why.”

“Language, Tommy!”

“Yeh, sorry. I’ll f**kin’ shut up now so I will.”

I’d only been in Ireland a few weeks and knew precisely nothing about this country. My introduction to the ethos of Gaelic Games came through this encounter with Thomas, while I was working at a post-school project for 5 to 13 year-olds in the Rahoon Flats.

Over the next 25 years, I grew to understand the importance of your sports. In no small way their history reflects the history of your nation. Their prohibition through the days of occupation focusing Republican support; the horrific massacre at Croke Park; the ruins of the GPO on Hill 16.

Gaelic Games start and finish in the parish, just as cricket in England will live and die on the village green. Cricket is the English national game and when it was sold to Sky Sports, there arrived a devastating hole in our culture that can never be filled.

My mate and I used to write off five days of our lives to watch an Ashes Test Match. There’d be pork pies, sandwiches, beers, cards and conversation, but now that’s gone forever.

We lost our national game to satellite TV, but you don’t need to lose yours. There’s a review of the situation due at the end of this season and backed by major figures from the worlds of sport and politics, a campaign is under way to ensure that existing legislation (already used to save ensure free access to the Six Nations Rugby Championship) will be enforced to keep Gaelic Games on terrestrial TV.

For more from Charlie on this topic see this week’s Tribune here