Mayo's football management could have learned something from the early Christian church and how it dealt with paganism. Rather than rely on its positive message to prevail against the powerful pagan festivals of old, the founders of organised Christianity opted for a man-marking job, in which religious holidays were strategically deployed to snuff out their opponents, writes Frank McNally
Thus it was that the feast-day of the star player himself (December 25th) was placed in direct opposition to the winter solstice and the debauched Roman festivities of Saturnalia. Similarly, John the Baptist (June 24th) was given the task of covering the potent summer solstice, with its long-established traditions of sun worship.
In a blanket defence strategy, a combination of all-saints and all-souls was deployed against the might of Halloween. And not even the spring and autumn equinoxes were left alone. By a logical regression, the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th) took care of one, while responsibility for the other was devolved to the evangelist Matthew, whose feast-day is today. The autumn equinox was not the wildest celebration in the pagan calendar. Which is just as well, because St Matthew's holiday never quite took off. Maybe his unpopular pre-Christian role as a publican/tax collector (they were the same thing in biblical times and, in a sense, they still are) worked against him. At any rate, compared with other religious holidays, there are very few folk customs associated with September 21st.
A notable exception is the old English tradition that credits St Matthew's Day with a seasonal shift in the weather. Specifically, it was supposed to bring three windy days: the "windy days of the barley harvest". I read this yesterday as the tail end of Hurricane Gordon swept in from the Atlantic. And while the saint's scoring record cannot always have been so impressive, there was no questioning that this time he had delivered the goods.
Never mind the barley harvest. The crop of most concern to Ireland this week is the one sown in fields near Straffan: a delicate growth that could be levelled if the winds continue into the weekend. The good news for the Ryder Cup is that, as well as tax collectors, Matthew is also the patron saint of accountants, bankers, book-keepers, financial professionals generally, and security guards. That should cover the corporate village, anyway.
The saint can only approve of the K Club's rules governing spectators, with their emphasis on sacrifice, denial, and clean living. Thanks to the ban on alcohol, picnic boxes, briefcases, portable TVs, pushchairs, bicycles, lawn chairs, and pagers, the event promises to be the nearest many golf fans have ever got to attending the Lough Derg pilgrimage.
The prohibition on electronic equipment is particularly striking. The weather should also ensure that dress codes are suitably sombre. And as far as I can tell, therefore, the only thing that will differentiate the crowd in Straffan from a gathering of the Amish community will be the official Ryder Cup radio headsets, available at a tenner each.
Inspired or not, the storms have speeded up the process for which Americans call this season "the fall". Suddenly, the signs of autumn are everywhere. Leaves are gathering on the ground. Leaflets advertising cut-price gym memberships are clogging up the letter-box. And, in a sure indication of the evenings drawing in, an Irish Times reader has noticed that the ESB is leaving lights on all night at its Stephen's Green headquarters (Letters, Wednesday).
Bringing my six-year-old son home from school this week, we stopped in the park to gather chestnuts, a now annual September ritual in which Patrick stuffs all his pockets and continues homeward looking like he's dressed in bubble-wrap. It seems to be a bumper year for chestnuts. But then it always does. There can hardly be another fruit so plentiful, so lovely to look at, and - in Ireland at least - so useless.
Ever since the great conker amnesty, circa 1975, no schoolboy deploys them as weapons any more. And unlike other nations, we can't eat them either. In Paris or New York, nothing says autumn like the smell of roasted chestnuts on street corners. But without the sort of preparation that would take all the fun out of it, Ireland's horse-chestnut is generally considered to be somewhere between inedible and poisonous.
In our house, we collect hundreds each autumn. Then, in another ritual, we gradually allow them to get scattered into places where we find them first thing in the morning with the soles of our bare feet, a semi-religious experience that causes us to invoke Jesus, Mary, Joseph, St Matthew, and anyone else we can think of. Then we throw them out. It seems such a waste.
There is one possible use, that falls under the heading of "entertainment". I discovered it while downloading recipes (for the edible version), most of which agree that before roasting, you should first cut an X into one side of each nut, before baking for 15 to 20 minutes with the cut side up. This allows steam to escape.
The recipes note that if you do not aerate the nuts, they will "explode". This must apply equally to the horse variety, and it's just the sort of detail that would appeal to a six-year-old boy. He'll discover it independently soon enough. In the meantime, I must remember to keep our nut collection well away from the microwave.