Days of Heaven by Declan Lynch Read Free Book Online Page B

high-class individuals who had gone to England and had
successful careers.
    There was a man called Peter Molloy who owned a pub in Athlone when I was growing up, who had played for Aston Villa in the 1950s. He was part of a steady exodus of ‘good
professionals’. And then there were players of the very highest order, such as John Giles, Jackie Carey, Liam Whelan, Tony Dunne, Paul McGrath, Ronnie Whelan, Brady and O’Leary and
Stapleton. There were just never enough of them out there at the same time. And even if there had been, their best efforts would no doubt have been thwarted by the machinations of the FAI , the
dysfunctional sporting body that other dysfunctional sporting bodies call ‘the galácticos’.
    So Paddy was perhaps bringing a tad more of his native genius to this than Jack seemed to realise. And now it turned out that there was more of it out there than either of them had realised. Not
that Jack ultimately gave a damn where the players were coming from as long as they did what they were told.
    But for us, the ‘great-grandmother’ rule was about a lot more than fleshing out the squad with useful players. It was a thing of extraordinary psychic and cultural and historical
significance. It had been born out of guilt and shame, this provision in the Irish constitution whereby the children of emigrants could become Irish citizens. It seemed to be saying to the
‘diaspora’ that we could do nothing for them except wave goodbye as they left the country, but if their children were mad enough to want to come back here, we wouldn’t keep them
out. In fact, our citizenship laws back in the 1950s were partly influenced by the number of Irish women who were having illegitimate children in England because they were afraid to have them in
Ireland.
    And there was the ever-present hint of bullshit too, because we knew that the overwhelming majority of those who left Ireland would never return.
    Many of them would get married happily or unhappily in England, but never unhappily enough, it seemed, to risk the boat back. Their children would include the likes of Johnny Rotten and Shane
MacGowan and the Gallaghers of Oasis and all four members of The Smiths, who would enrich the cultural life of England while still maintaining a sort of Irishness. But on the whole, no good had
come to the mother country from this long-standing arrangement, apart from the relief of getting rid of a few more unfortunates whom the Irish economy was unable to support.
    And there was always America, which was now taking in the Irish in numbers which would ensure a full house for Christy Moore every night of the year, if he so wished.
    But the emigration to England was always the most damning and the most disgraceful, not just because it involved the old enemy solving our problems, but because it was so near and yet so far.
What kind of a hole were we running here that they would prefer to be sleeping rough in Camden Town than to be back in the old country for which they pined at closing time?
    And now, through some strange alignment of the planets — or at least the planet football — after decades of this guilt and shame, something happened which would be of benefit to all
sides. A serious effort was being made to recruit the likes of Townsend and Houghton and Aldridge, McCarthy and Cascarino, ye gods, the sons and grandsons of emigrants, as swiftly and as legally as
possible to the Irish football team.
    In Ireland we called it payback for emigration, conveniently ignoring the fact that we probably weren’t entitled to any payback. And for these players the association with the Republic
would be enormously beneficial to their careers.
    Football, which has always been more important than most things in life, had worked a sort of national miracle which politics couldn’t, which religion most certainly couldn’t —
a re-unification of Ireland, the best we were ever going to get.
    The arrival of the ‘English’ players