Had we known they were going to descend into such a boring, miserable welter of self-abasement, the rest of us might well have been inclined just to let the English win Euro 2000, all the while applauding the anarchic, Pythonesque highjinks of their irrepressible fans.
Such foresight would have saved those of us in Britain's "airspace" many hours of tedious national torture in the media. Leaving aside the cringe-inducing personality disorder that reveals itself in England's mood swings about its football abilities, we also had to contend with the upset about the lads' bad behaviour off the pitch.
My favourite twist of agony came from the stentorian Brian Alexander on Late Night Live (BBC Radio 5 Live), introducing yet another "discussion" on yobbishness, and specifically why it manifests itself abroad. Those Englishmen are, he said, "your husbands, your brothers, your sons. They dote on their children. They bring you chocolates on special occasions. They grow orchids in the potting shed . . ."
I can't shake off the pathos of the image: the orchids left to rot in the shed while the loving hand that nurtured them flings a chair through the window of a Brussels cafe. Hurry home, lads, hurry home!
NO danger of self-abasement from Hugh O'Flaherty, anyway. His interview with Eamon Dunphy on The Last Word (Today FM, Monday to Friday) was notable for its measured tones of mild self-admiration. And that's just from Dunphy.
Dunphy, in fairness, was an exceptionally well-briefed and persistent interviewer. O'Flaherty, however, was not taking us into any new territory, and it all lasted too long and wandered too vaguely over the chronology and the issues involved.
Some insight into personality inevitably arose. O'Flaherty clearly prides himself on his liberality and approachability and said his intervention in the Sheedy case - rather than being a matter of compassion or humanitarianism - was a way of facilitating "simple justice". The emphasis was on his role as a team player in the justice system. (Amusingly, he misidentified Dunphy's team, speculating on how the interviewer might react if "by some mischance" he lost his job at "2FM".)
O'Flaherty's judicious capacity to miss the point will have impressed many listeners, as he repeatedly brushed away Dunphy's most potentially stinging questions about the contrast between his solicitiousness on Sheedy's behalf and his role in sentencing a bag-snatching heroin addict to six years in prison.
HIS wife Kay, meanwhile, made a pitch for the nation's sympathy on Marian Finucane (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday). And to judge by the phone calls and e-mails Finucane picked through the next day, the sympathy was largely unforthcoming. (It probably didn't help to bring out the sympathy vote when the same evening she turned up on telly on the doorstep of her luxury home.)
That interview was a Liveline throwback, with Kay O'Flaherty in the role of tragic victim pouring her heart out to Finucane.
"How are you?" Finucane asked first.
"How do you think I am?"
Having sympathised with the Ryan family, and with Finucane herself on the recent death of her mother, Kay O'Flaherty proceeded with her own tragedy. "I was a happy-go-lucky person. I trusted everybody. Now I trust nobody except for my own family."
It certainly made a contrast to the judge himself, who while conceding that the whole business had been "rather distressing", assured us that he'd busied himself with other projects. Kay O'Flaherty surprised those of us who thought the case had been out of the news for some time by telling us that her troubles had gone on "for 14 months non-stop . . . . Every night I go to bed and ask myself: What's going to be in the papers? What's going to be on a radio programme?"
This odd RTE contribution to the story notwithstanding, it wasn't surprising to hear The Last Word playing such an agenda-setting role this week. What was surprising was the fact that other media expressed such surprise at this. If you know what I mean.
Anyway, one RTE radio response to the competitive environment can be heard today, in an initiative straight out of the marketing-manual chapters about building on personalities and creating a sense of "event". The event, rather well-flagged on air over recent weeks and quite insistently promoted elsewhere, is Radio Feile, a day of midsummer madness spread over all the radio platforms - Radio 1, 2FM, Lyric FM and Raidio na Gaeltachta.
Rumours that Gerry Ryan will don a pair of donkey ears and play Bottom are apparently exaggerated, but a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream does indeed figure, along with far more incongruous uses of the big names: Marian Finucane talking about sport; Pat Kenny playing good music . . . And (Kevin Myers take note) Carrie Crowley doesn't figure at all.
On the agenda throughout the day, however, are some enticing real-life sessions in cool spots including Dublin's Smithfield, King John's Castle in Limerick and Cork Opera House.
ALSO surprisingly absent from the agenda, given the day's high-culture cred, is Myles Dungan. Myles may perhaps be feeling the strain of delivering a daily 45-minute dose of art and stuff in the good-but-not-yet-wholly-convincing Rattlebag (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday).
Myles is the good Dramsoc sort who remembers to cross his fingers when he says Macbeth - as he was forced to do for a dismissive Rattlebag discussion of Kelsey "Frasier" Grammar's vanity production of the Scottish play in New York. ("It's such a terrific play," reviewer Marian McKeon helpfully informed us.)
The Mike Murphy trick in this slot is striking that balance between elitism and populism. Rattlebag certainly is trying to avoid too much of the former, turning to what Myles calls "the ultimate critics, the punters" - embracing vox populi via its Yellow Mike segments (elegiacally named, perhaps) and Oprah-style book club. Do you know what? It just might work.
Harry Browne can be contacted at hbrowne@irish-times.ie