My Team / Your Team

In the first part of his essay concerning his enduring lifelong fandom of Manchester City FC, and the club’s current owners’ wealth vis-á-vis his left-wing politics, Desmond Traynor recounts his origin story as a supporter of the club, and offers a critique of the Irish soccer commentariat’s biased attitude to City’s success. After many years … Read more

Napoli: It Hurts

It’s an exciting time to be Neapolitan right now. Or should I say a supporter of Napoli FC? I have to clarify, as there’s hardly a dull moment to be Neapolitan. Wherever I go, it doesn’t matter whether it’s New York or Tenerife, when I answer the classic question “Where are you from?” so many … Read more

Sport in the Neoliberal Zeitgeist

Despite all the controversies in the run-up, and as with the last World Cup in Russia, most people are now looking beyond the politics, and enjoying the feast of football. For many of those attending sporting fixtures, this is akin to performing a religious duty in a secular age. The rest of us generally slouch … Read more

All Black Inception

The 2010 film ‘Inception’ has scorched the innermost parts of my brain. This big screen feast had concepts that lit all the senses. Visually it was seeing things like the city of Paris fold in and on itself. Aurally, Edith Piaf’s Je Ne Regrette Rien twisted and reborn as a time bending plot device and … Read more

Burren Bliss

During a visit to the Burren in County Clare, Oliver Cromwell’s lieutenant-general Edmund Ludlow wrote of the memorable landscape that it had ‘not water enough to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him’. A spell on a yoga retreat might have opened his eyes to the serene natural … Read more

Rugby: the Four Irish Provinces take to the Field

I yearn for Six Nations matches at this time of year. Despite my worthier self, I cannot take my eyes off a psychological drama and physical spectacle offering respite from interminable winter. The violence is terrible, but it seems life-affirming that these specimens can, for the most part, withstand the battering. At its best, it … Read more

Not in Our Name – the Fall and Fall of Conor McGregor

Greater in combat Than a person who conquers A thousand times a thousand people Is the person who conquers himself Gautama Buddha, the Dhammapada, (third century B.C.E.) There is no opponent Who the fuck is Jose Aldo? There is no Jose Aldo, There is no no-one You’re against yourself, You’re against yourself. Conor McGregor, Interview, … Read more

‘Don’t let me stop you from going for a swim’

Picture this scene. Next to a Martello tower, a grimy concrete shelter below which a motley crew, ranging from whooping lads to fragile ladies, make their way, often daily, into the ocean at Seapoint, Dublin. Some swim significant distances – measured in buoys and other landmarks – others simply ‘take the waters’. There are New … Read more

World Cup Fans Conquer Russia

How to fathom the phenomenon of ‘fandom’? Certainly it is one of the most familiar, most recognisable, and common, of personality traits – yet oddly, one of the least analysed personality traits. We all have a tendency towards being a ‘fan’ of something or other. It is a near-universal inclination evident in everyone from tech … Read more

A Hurler’s Silver Branch Perception

One evening, while walking on Derada Hill, a hare sprung from under my feet. I found myself, all of a sudden, on the ground burying my head in the warm form left in the grass, and I asked that primordial form to act as a poultice, to draw out my expensive European education from my … Read more

A Tiger’s Resurrection

One beauty of the game of golf is the possibility to play it right up until your death. Indeed, many’s the enthusiast who has breathed his last on the fairway. It is often said there are worse ways to go. My own father had the unfortunate experience of attempting to resuscitate a man on the … Read more

What future for Sport?

Don’t hit your head on the way out. Sport is breaking as much as making. The playful testing ground for youth has become an investment vehicle for the idle rich, and is about to come up against the limits of human reality. Sport is being tested, in Law and laboratory, for its ability to not … Read more

Cassandra Voices
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