CONNECT: Eamon Dunphy has long lived by the sword and that sword was never more lacerating than when he wielded it in the Sunday Independent. Irish nationalists were regularly his target. Now his former employer is savaging him for allegedly being uncaring about Irish national feeling.
You can, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, measure out your life in World Cups. You can, of course, do likewise with Christmases, birthdays and even pop songs embedded in places and periods. But World Cups, staged every four years, span meaningfully chunky periods of time - metaphorical Yorkie bars of history, reflection and nostalgia.
For most Irish people, Korea/Japan 2002 has been as bitter and as sweet as life itself. Our squad's finals began in acrimony and ended in adulation, albeit tinged with frustration and the realisation that nothing can be so unfair as sport.
Certainly, Ireland outplayed Spain and deserved to progress to the last eight. Even the Spaniards admit as much. Then again, Romania outplayed Ireland in Genoa in 1990 before penalties propelled Jack Charlton's team to a quarter-final in Rome. That's football, Jim.
Fans' World Cup pedigree is also part of the game. If you're, for instance, one of the 165 million Brazilians and Brazil doesn't win it - and with panache - you're disappointed. If you're a blasé European, you can be weary of World Cups before you're 30, while Asians and Africans twice your age can have youthful enthusiasm for the whole shebang. There are World Cups of childhood, of teenage years, of early adulthood and so forth on to dotage. Stage of life inevitably conditions viewers' appraisals of the various tournaments.
To this middle-aged Irishman, for whom Korea/Japan 2002 is the 10th consecutive watched World Cup (though I can remember seeing snippets of the 1962 final between Brazil and Czechoslovakia - a country that no longer exists!) the campaign that ended last Sunday marked a watershed for Ireland's image of itself. It betokened an end of innocence, real and contrived, and the consolidation of genuine cultivation. Our side played evolved football, displayed grace under pressure and showed the worth of team effort.
In the 12 years since Genoa, Ireland has yearned to recapture the rapture of the O'Leary moment. It has never quite succeeded and, short of winning the World Cup, perhaps it never will. Every Irish person (from the Republic) - including our greatest players, most perceptive analysts and most fanatical supporters - were, in a sense, World Cup virgins then. We brought different baggage to the Far East than we did to Italy in 1990 or the US in 1994, which was rightly considered as part two of the Italian adventure.
This time, as ever, the bunting and flags went up in Dublin and around the country but the Roy Keane v Mick McCarthy spat had ineradicably soured some of the longed-for fun. There was, too, the distance and expense involved in following the team to the Far East. Nonetheless, McCarthy's Ireland played much more attractive football than Charlton's had ever done: we were, at last, cultured on the field and, the row apart, dignified off it.
There were, as always, media angles to the tournament. Given that football is practically owned by television, that's apposite. In Ireland, Eamon Dunphy, who is co-writing an autobiography of Roy Keane and has successfully mixed football and media for a quarter century or so, became part of the Keane v McCarthy story. It was a bad move. Dunphy's former employer, the Sunday Independent, saw the opportunity for a potentially (and literally!) career-ending tackle and has gone in hard. Expect it to do so again.
Enraged by Dunphy's criticism of aspects of its journalism, the Sindo has bided its time. However, on the morning of the game against Spain, with the Keane row dimmed by the team's success and the match in prospect, it struck. Its page one splash, no less, was used to put pressure on Dunphy's bank balance. An entire inside feature page alleging he had advised Keane against making up with McCarthy and playing for Ireland was, in Indo-speak, pure "payback time".
Suggesting that Dunphy advised Keane to turn his back on the country and, by implication, on the people, the story was vintage Sinnuendo. And it didn't stop at that. "The circling vultures from the dreaded tabloids have already begun to focus on Dunphy's complicated lifestyle," it said. Just as well there were no circling vultures from a dreaded broadsheet. And "complicated" . . . what a suggestive adjective!
Dunphy's alleged drunk driving, his work "over-commitment" causing him to miss certain gigs, his admitted use of drugs, his "expletives" and an alleged "string of obscenities" were detailed. A series of vague attributions: an "RTE insider", a Broadcasting Complaints Commission "spokeswoman", "senior sources at Today FM" and "one worried friend" hammered home the paper's line. All of this culminated in the summation: "There are those who argue that his credibility has been seriously damaged by his conduct during the last month." No doubt there are but perhaps they're very shy.
Anyway, ironies abounded. Media-wise, Eamon Dunphy has long lived by the sword and that sword was never more lacerating than when he wielded it in the Sunday Independent. Irish nationalists were regularly his and the paper's targets. Now, however, his former employer is savaging him for allegedly being uncaring about Irish national feeling. For "most people", the "country comes first . . . always", proclaimed the paper. Dunphy had broken this "core value" and, for such treasonous behaviour, can expect no mercy.
Clearly, the media, every bit as much as football, is a funny old game.
If Keane v McCarthy was rough, the Sindo v Dunphy was thoroughly ruthless. Then again, both rows had, as they say in football, bouts of "previous". A third row was caused by killjoy officials banning a cavalcade through the city centre and banishing the team to the Phoenix Park. Never mind the punters - the Ireland of 40 shades of grey had its way. And you thought the Koreans were ruled by sour and stuffy bureaucrats?
Eamon Dunphy got himself offside by needing Ireland to do poorly in the World Cup in order to vindicate his rabidly pro-Keane stance. The organisers of the homecoming gig left the public with a similar dilemma. Many people wanted to celebrate the team's efforts like they did in 1990, when one million people lined the streets for a city-centre bash, but ended up sending a message to the stuffy ones by boycotting the Phoenix Park.
So far, it's been an appalling summer - perhaps the wettest in memory. Thwarting the sole event of communal fun that has lifted the spirits of ordinary people is unforgivable. In post-scandal Ireland, it's small beer, of course. Beside the clerical, political, commercial, medical and legal disgraces of recent years, it hardly matters. And yet, it's symptomatic of the gap between those who would lead us and the rest of us. Little wonder fewer and fewer people vote.
Anyway, it's over for Ireland now. It's been the strangest World Cup in memory, perhaps the strangest ever. As the first of the 21st century, the first held in Asia and the first with a truly global feel, it has offered a glimpse of the future. The encouraging thing is that Ireland seems set to prosper. For those who measured out decades of World Cups before Ireland ever qualified for the finals, Korea/Japan 2002 has been heartening.
All that's left to do now is to win the bloody thing.