After the most hectic and unpredictable of weekends, a look at how the Ugly Duckling of Irish sport has turned into a Beautiful Game.
open.substack.com/pub/saturday...
Yanks very excited about netball this morning.
Just to clarify for any foreign readers.
In Ireland "football' is used by the vast majority who follow the League of Ireland and "soccer" by the tiny minority who support the GAA.
South Korea and Australia's wins over Czechia and Turkey and Qatar's draw with Switzerland suggest complaints that there should be more European teams in the World Cup don't hold much water.
I kind of admire our native cunning in selling an image abroad of a progressive nation full of moral fervour. It's a superb con trick. But it'll surely dawn on foreigners some day that our main motivation in most matters is money.
The business of Ireland is business (some of it funny business.)
I guess it's a morbid symptom of authoritarianism, but I would be interested in a psychosocial explanation of this prevalent fantasy that (some? many?) Americans seem to have, that they live in a world of unimaginable wealth & abundance, envied by the world etc.
www.slowboring.com/p/a-german-s...
Some thoughts on the week's events in Belfast and racist attacks in general.
open.substack.com/pub/saturday...
So much ugliness and hatred and bile around, and then there's Ciara Mageean. The best of us.
