Now, it's not as bad as the days - not too many years ago - when the early arrivals at provincial venues were often treated to several minutes of earsplitting screeches as the proximity of the microphone to the amplifier caused what the technical bods call 'howl around.' Howl around is right, begor, says An Fear Rua. This was usually followed by a sepulchral voice chanting: 'Testing... Testing... One... Two...Testing... One...Two...Three... Testing... ' for several minutes. These 'testing' calls were sometimes interrupted by heavy tapping noises on the microphone and even more 'howl around'. And, more often than not, despite all these preparations, the first 'ofeeshal' announcement was usually preceded anyway by a further extended burst of 'howl around'.
For some reason or other, these technical arrangements were often in the hands of fellas with names like Louie, Ambrose, Cecil or Cyril, who hadn't the slightest interest in the GAA, but were the only local experts in sound reproduction and amplification. Very often, the equipment being used had been deployed the previous Sunda' for broadcasting the Rosary and hymns to the entire town during a Corpus Christi or May procession or maybe for an after-Mass harangue by the local TD. Often Louie, Ambrose or Cyril was the proprietor of the local dance hall or supermarket or maybe ran a small dance band in his spare time. These would be portly lads, with a virtually see through egg-stained fawn pullover stretched to breaking point over their ample abdomens, a 'Carrolls No.1' or 'Sweet Afton' 'fag' permanently creating a haze of smoke in front of their eyes and a Jackie Healy-Rae hairstyle of strands of hair plastered across their balding pate and held in place by lashings of Brylcreem.
These musings are prompted by the reports An Fear Rua has received from correspondents who were present in Pearse Park, in Longford, for the recent AIB All Ireland Club semi-final between Crossmolina of Mayo and Na Fianna from Dublin's Northside. The referee, a dacent man named Paddy Russell, was preparing for the throw-in at the centre of the field. There being no band present on the day, a disembodied voice came over the public address system requesting the 6,000 or so spectators to stand for a rendition of 'Amhrán na bhFiann'. As the crowd shuffled to their feet, and the more patriotic among them cleared the remaining phlegm from their throats, prior to giving voice, all that could be heard was a series of loud clicking noises from the strategically-placed loudspeakers. These clicks continued for some time as an increasingly red-faced Louie, Ambrose or Cyril or whoever was in the control box struggled to get the tape machine going. After about two minutes of this embarrassment, a voice came over the airwaves with a 'Fógra Speisialta' on the lines of : 'Eh, ya betther shtart her up there, Paddy...'. Shades of the old catchphrase 'Roll it there, Collette' from Uncle Gaybo's days as ringmaster on 'The Late Late Show'. The good Paddy duly 'shtarted her up' and a good game got underway. Na Fianna, inspired by Dessie Farrell, now go on to meet Crossmaglen Rangers in the final on Saint Patrick's Day.
In Croke Park itself on a big match day, you'd often hear public address announcements requesting 'So-and-so from Ballygobackwards' to meet their father under the Hogan Stand immediately after the match. An Fear Rua sometimes wondered what domestic dramas were being played out at such times. Was the young lad maybe trying to dodge the oul fella and so have an excuse for staying the night in Dublin? But the best 'Fógra' of all was made during a fiercely contested hurling All Ireland Final at the beginning of the Eighties, involving Kilkenny and Galway. There was a huge crowd present, and a couple of the boyos living close to Croke Park procured a ladder and climbed the Railway End wall behind the Nally Stand, where they took up vantage points on the roof of the stand. This prompted the microphone man, in a demonstration of either innocence or pure naivete, to make this announcement: 'Would the patrons standing on top of the Nally Stand please resume their seats…'
The Longford incident, of course, is just a reminder of the increasing carelessness and disrespect being shown to the national anthem at GAA games. At most big matches now, the norm is that the anthem is completely drowned out from about a third or half way through by a rising crescendo of 'Yahoos', 'Yeehahs', 'Geh Up Ya Bhoy Ya' and sundry other shouts. Now there almost seems to be competition between the rival groups of fans to see who can get the first shout in. At the rate the anthem is currently being eroded, An Fear Rua estimates that by the year 2005 or 2006, the Artane Boys Band will have just played the 'Sinne Fianna Fáil...' bit at the start, when the rest of the tune will be drowned out by the baying of the assembled fans. AFR notices that this trend has been developing only in recent years and he has a theory - a difficult one to prove, of course - that it more or less coincided with the arrival of the Clare hurlers on the national scene.
People in Ireland tend to get their underwear in a bit of a twist over the question of the anthem. This arises from a natural revulsion at the abuse of nationalism and nationalist symbols by the Provie boyos over the past thirty years or so. Sometimes, we hear calls for 'Amhrán na bhFiann' to be scrapped and replaced by a song with less militaristic sentiments. But the experience of former major British colonies like Canada and Australia in writing modern day anthems ('O Canada/Au Canada' and 'Advance Australia Fair' respectively) has not been a happy one - they turn out to be even drearier than the one the replaced.
An Fear Rua's advice is that the anthem you know is better than the anthem you don't know, but that the GAA top brass (or should that be the top brass and reed?) should look urgently at some kind of educational programme for fans to reverse this growing tendency towards disrespect, before we really get into the championship season.Fógra Speisialta: After only two rounds of the National Hurling League, the experiment of abolishing the throw-in at the start of the game is becoming even more visibly absurd. An Fear Rua has attended two League matches where many people in the crowd actually missed the opening puckout. More incongruous, however, was the fact that, during both games, each referee had occasion to throw in the ball on seven or eight occasions to re-start play, after various inconclusive stoppages. In neither match, during any of these throw-ins was there anything remotely resembling 'an unseemly incident'. If the GAA were being logical about the danger of 'unseemly incidents', surely they should have abolished the throw-in completely? This one has all the look of a hastily conceived, knee jerk reaction and the sooner it is consigned to the dustbin the better for all concerned.