IN olden times, Ireland’s icons were comely maidens strumming harps or perhaps mythical heroic warriors such as Cuchulainn, bravely besting the enemy in his lair. In more recent times, a flame-haired temptress called Maureen O’Hara fit the bill.
Not any more.
Shortly, the symbol of Ireland to millions worldwide is just as likely to be a Black athlete, speaking with a British accent, who knows just enough about Ireland to get by in a casual conversation.
Welcome to the new Irish diaspora. This one was created by an Englishman.
Around June 18 at 4 p.m., if you happen to be in Giants’ Stadium outside New York City, you can witness this diaspora in action. From Australia to Aherlow, millions of Irish world-wide will join you. Ireland will play Italy in the first round of soccer’s 1994 World Cup.
In Sydney it will be breakfast time Sunday when the tens of thousands of Irish fans tune in. In California, fans will have just eaten breakfast on Saturday by the time the match is ready for showing.
In Ireland it will be nine at night, and O’Connell Street in Dublin, the main drag, will resemble Chernobyl after the nuclear accident, so ghostly will the silence be. Across the land, in every hamlet and household, the summer chores will go undone, not a child will be washed.
In New York, every Irish bar in the tri-state area will be jammed, as will several conference and convention centers. All roads will lead to New Jersey and Giants’ Stadium, where tickets for the event are currently selling for $500 minimum. The Irish team competing in the World Cup will carry more than the hopes of a nation with them. They have also become, in an astonishingly short time, the icon of that nation abroad, replacing De Valera, Kathleen Ni Houlihan, blarney and shamrocks, bacon and cabbage, Aer Lingus, Paddy McGinty’s goat, et al.
Managed by an Englishman, Jack Charlton, the team’s success has been as surprising as it has been welcome. For decades the Irish soccer team was a poor relation in Europe, then came Charlton, an English soccer hero and a compromise choice as Irish manager who took the job almost as an afterthought. Around the same time the international soccer authorities relaxed the rules about nationality which, given the huge Irish exodus over the past century, was bound to help the Irish side.
Now players who could prove a grandparent came from Ireland could wear a magical green jersey. Thus, the refrain “Did your granny come from Ireland” suddenly lost its music hall resonance as Charlton and his assistants scoured Britain for top flight soccer players with an Irish link.
With up to 10 million British of Irish extraction, the search was fruitful. Soon a top level side mingling Irish-born and British-Irish players was skillfully put together by Charlton.
Several players on the team are black. The most famous name is that of Paul McGrath, born of a Nigerian father and an Irish mother, who was brought up in an Irish orphanage. In a tale that Horatio Alger would have blushed to write, he escaped the orphanage, reunited with his mother, and created a career in top class soccer in England which has made him a million-aire and hero to a generation of Irish children.
And now the team has qualified for the 1994 World Cup, getting the vital last point in a heart-stopping tie against Northern Ireland in Belfast in a match that had Irish fans running the gamut from despair, when Northern Ireland scored, to delirium, when Ireland equalized.
The exodus from Ireland to the World Cup in America will be astonishing, with up to six flights per day from Aer Lingus alone during the peak period, which means that there will be a broad swathe of green across the stars and stripes this summer.
They will be present at the first two locations in New York/New Jersey, where Ireland will face Italy and Norway, and Orlando, Florida, where they will play Mexico.
Perhaps you will be lucky enough to see them in your area. If you do, remember the players are like all of us, emigrants or descended from emigrants, who strapped their dreams on their back and departed the old sod. Now they, or their descendants, are making it in the big time. Give them an extra Irish cheer.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the May/June 1994 issue of Irish America. ♦
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