Peter Anderson ⚽ With all the furore around the Republic of Ireland's women's team and a new article in TPQ, I thought I'd add my tuppence worth. 

Like DUPers at election counts shouting "no surrender", or Trumpite MAGA republicans chanting "U-S-A!, U-S-A!", the singing of "Ooh ahh up the RA" makes me feel highly embarrassed on behalf of the singers. I'm scundered for them. Call me a liberal North Down snob if you want, but there is something uncouth or cringey about it all. It's as if they think they are hard or edgy or cool, when the opposite is true. After the latest rendition, unionists went ape, all faux outrage and all. The girls were "retraumatising victims" in a "republican hatefest", not having the least titter of wit to understand that, by the same logic, wearing a poppy could be said to retraumatise victims of the British Army.

I doubt the girls had much idea about what they were doing. They had just qualified for the World Cup finals, a massive achievement for a country such as the RoI, with limited resources and a limited soccer profile in the women's game. The girls will be in the spotlight next summer, playing football in a tournament watched by millions, with the whole country behind them. It will be a highlight of their careers, the highlight for most. I'm sure a few shandies had been imbibed after the game, and the songs were in full swing. One or two republicans started the chant and the rest joined in. I am very sure that no hurt was intended, yet now they face two investigations, by Police Scotland and UEFA, for glorifying terrorism. Hopefully they will get the all clear as soon as possible and not have this hanging over them. Their night of triumph ruined, they had to face the cameras the next day to apologise. They certainly didn't deserve what came their way.

That being said, the most disappointing aspect to it all was that catholic/nationalist victims of IRA violence were completely overlooked. The Provos murdered dozens of Republic of Ireland citizens during the Troubles, garda, Irish Army, politicians and innocent civilians, for example those who just happened to be visiting their bank when "The Boys" were robbing it. Surely these victims deserve better from RoI's women's team? This is supposed to be the football team that represents the whole country. This was not a GAA team from some republican backwater, this was the national football team and so must be held to a higher standard of behaviour. The hundreds of Republic football supporters who lost family, friends and neighbours to the IRA during the conflict deserve better from their own team. The girls shouldn't have apologised to the British or unionists, they should have apologised to their own people.

Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports.

Uncouth

Peter Anderson ⚽ With all the furore around the Republic of Ireland's women's team and a new article in TPQ, I thought I'd add my tuppence worth. 

Like DUPers at election counts shouting "no surrender", or Trumpite MAGA republicans chanting "U-S-A!, U-S-A!", the singing of "Ooh ahh up the RA" makes me feel highly embarrassed on behalf of the singers. I'm scundered for them. Call me a liberal North Down snob if you want, but there is something uncouth or cringey about it all. It's as if they think they are hard or edgy or cool, when the opposite is true. After the latest rendition, unionists went ape, all faux outrage and all. The girls were "retraumatising victims" in a "republican hatefest", not having the least titter of wit to understand that, by the same logic, wearing a poppy could be said to retraumatise victims of the British Army.

I doubt the girls had much idea about what they were doing. They had just qualified for the World Cup finals, a massive achievement for a country such as the RoI, with limited resources and a limited soccer profile in the women's game. The girls will be in the spotlight next summer, playing football in a tournament watched by millions, with the whole country behind them. It will be a highlight of their careers, the highlight for most. I'm sure a few shandies had been imbibed after the game, and the songs were in full swing. One or two republicans started the chant and the rest joined in. I am very sure that no hurt was intended, yet now they face two investigations, by Police Scotland and UEFA, for glorifying terrorism. Hopefully they will get the all clear as soon as possible and not have this hanging over them. Their night of triumph ruined, they had to face the cameras the next day to apologise. They certainly didn't deserve what came their way.

That being said, the most disappointing aspect to it all was that catholic/nationalist victims of IRA violence were completely overlooked. The Provos murdered dozens of Republic of Ireland citizens during the Troubles, garda, Irish Army, politicians and innocent civilians, for example those who just happened to be visiting their bank when "The Boys" were robbing it. Surely these victims deserve better from RoI's women's team? This is supposed to be the football team that represents the whole country. This was not a GAA team from some republican backwater, this was the national football team and so must be held to a higher standard of behaviour. The hundreds of Republic football supporters who lost family, friends and neighbours to the IRA during the conflict deserve better from their own team. The girls shouldn't have apologised to the British or unionists, they should have apologised to their own people.

Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports.

9 comments:

  1. I didn't find them uncouth, just earthy.

    I find this a fair piece that tries to capture the essence of what happened.

    I speculate that the author is probably right to feel the women were not paying much attention to what they were doing.

    The IRA viewed as a tradition rather than an organisation raises the angle that the modern state their team represents exists because of the IRA. The IRA took on the imperialists, bloodied their nose, and the result was the state we have today. While the Ra has become associated with the Provisional IRA, it is an abbreviation of IRA. I allow for the possibility that the women were not consciously singing about any IRA but just celebrating.

    Taking all that in, there is absolutely nothing wrong with people celebrating the IRA tradition. As Peter points out, are we going to MOPE about the poppy because of what the British military did in Ireland? Shortly the British will remember their war dead including their war criminals. Many people will find that offensive. Still, there is no right not to be offended. Let them get on with it; just don't demand that we all wear poppies.

    I always look at the chant Up The Ra as a gesture of defiance to the prison system. I would no longer use it because I would feel self-conscious and oafish. After the blanket protest when we were in the workshops and the screws were trying to keep us separated from the Loyalists, Raymond McCartney shouted Up Celtic. He aimed it at the screws and not the loyalists. What he was doing was a parody to show just how ridiculous the screws OTT concern was; as if we were Celtic supporters waiting to get into the Rangers men. We were no more gonna attack the loyalists in the workshops than we were on the visits. Up The Ra today is a bit like up Celtic.
    Not for me.

    In my view the song was sang by the women in a spirt of soccer triumph, and not out of republican triumphalism.

    Fine piece Peter.

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  2. Would it be okay to cant # Up Al Qaeda ? Considering the genocide financed by the average Harry & Betty taxpayer in Vietnam , Afghanistan , Iraq etc , the Yanks got a taste of their own medicine on 9 / 11 # Reap what we sow

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    1. That's a despicable comment. As well as doing some elementary spell checking you may wish to brush up on recent history as the Afghanistan and Iraq wars took place after 9/11. 3,000 plus non combatant Americans no more deserved their "medicine" than would civilians in Moscow.

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    2. Barry did you seriously just call out someone for spelling errors?

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  3. Peter, very sensibly written piece. Anthony's take on it is well argued and this is coming from someone who would no more chant "Oo ah Up the Ra" than "Two World Wars and a World War Too." Let's hope the Police Scotland and UEFA investigations come to nothing. Let's all move on.

    I suppose I cannot leave Peter's weekly column without giving my shilling's worth on the real crisis of the moment - that at Elland Road. I am not going to deny that Leeds United are in a bad place and that pundits are entitled to forecast relegation for us. As Anthony pointed out last week we have accumulated fewer points at this stage of the season than we had under Bielsa at the same time last season (although we have not had to wait for six weeks for our first win). It is pointless, like so many of the LUFC twitterati do, to rake over the sacking of Bielsa. I am not calling for regime change right now but if we fall four points short of safety then that is the time to act.

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    1. Barry - sounds like you are bracing for the drop. It would be bad to see. Bielsa got fired, whatever the rights or wrong - the same attitude will probably kick in against the current coach. His mojo is demonstrably not working.

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  4. A lot of bollocks. They won a game to qualify for the WC so got carried away in the moment and sung a catchy tune with little awareness of it's broader implications. Big deal. There are far bigger things to get worked up about. Most of them weren't even born when the conflict was going on.

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  5. Another one for the Irish beating the English at their own game in the T20 Cricket world cup....I love it when any Irish team beat England ....

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