I'm pondering a profession in punditry. Yes, that's right. I've decided that after five years of writing the Garlic in The Irish Times, it's time to stretch my journalistic wings and do something new, writes Pól Ó Muirí.
So, I'm pondering a profession in punditry. Not any old punditry, you understand, not that old political punditry. I bhfad uaim an t-olc. I have no interest in spending my life weighing up the fortunes of political parties and guessing who is going to win this seat and lose that one.
I want to be a proper pundit whose opinions will be of interest. I want to tell people about things that matter. In short, I want to be a GAA pundit. I've been observing this strange species over the last number of years and I've decided that it's the job for me. GAA pundits traditionally only work during the summer. True, you will find GAA punditry while the National League is on during the spring but that is only pretend punditry, the warm-up stuff.
Proper punditry begins with the championship. Like the arrival of the swallow, the Sunday papers suddenly fill with opinions on this game and that game, the chances of Roscommon storming out of Connacht, how many points Westmeath will lose to Meath. It's a wonderful feeling, spending your Sundays reading of these opinions about teams that I - and many of the pundits - have never seen kick a ball in anger.
While the old provincial championship held true, pundits had a reasonable chance of getting it right. Now that the qualifiers have been introduced, however, pundits are being shown up again and again for their lack of nous outside of their traditional stomping grounds.
There are a number of things that have attracted me to this new profession - and I use 'profession' in the loosest sense of the word. Indeed, I use it in the same loose sense as when loyalists say straight-faced that they are still on 'cease-fire'.
What attracts me most to punditry is the fact that, well, how I can it put this delicately...? I can't. I'll just be blunt. What attracts me most is that the pundit can be wrong. And not just once or twice. But again and again and again. Indeed, were the GAA pundit to have a proper job - like an accountant or teacher - they'd be given their cards by the end of the summer.
Thankfully, punditry doesn't work like that. The GAA pundit can get it wrong, spectacularly wrong, entirely wrong, make an absolute hames of his predictions, week after week and still, oh glory, still practise punditry.
Few examples
I'll draw a few examples from the Ulster Senior Football Championship as that's the one I know best. Readers will no doubt have their own fond memories of punditry puke. Take the opening game between Tyrone and Armagh. The pundits - with only one exception that I remember - went for Tyrone. No doubt. Tyrone were on the up and Armagh were on the way out. Armagh won - after a replay.
Sligo versus Tyrone had taught pundits no humility. Sligo were for the chop. I mean the chop, boy. Shouldn't even bother turn up. Ditto Donegal versus Meath. Hardly worthwhile for the Donegal boys to put on a jersey.
Sligo dumped Tyrone and Donegal put the kibosh on Meath's challenge.
Now, did a single pundit lose his job - and they are all hes - over these rubbish predictions? No. Were there any Dunphy-like announcements from RTE telling us that they had decided to let the pundits go because they had got the results wrong once too often?
Not at all. Pundits don't get fired for getting it wrong, they simply flannel their way out of trouble. Words such as "surprising", "unexpected", " astounding" find their way onto the airways and into the pages of the press.
It is astounding that in this day and age when the GAA are constantly monitoring referees' performances that unlicenced punditry is still allowed. After all, you can't sell a hamburger outside of Croke Park without proper authority and meeting some basic hygiene regulations. But pundits can unloose sporting salmonella with immunity.
Admittedly, the TV pundit has to think on his feet. Those boys are the elite of planet punditry. The newspaper pundit has hours to come up for a plausible excuse as to where he went wrong. Even more importantly, he can hope that the reader might mis-remember what he had originally predicted or confuse him with another journalist on another paper.
"Did you see what that tube Paddy MacPeil wrote in The Irish Times about Armagh? Said they'd lose?"
"Was it not Liam O'Liathroid in the Indo said that?"
"I can't remember. Well, he was wrong anyway. The git."
No such escape is possible for the TV pundit. They and their opinions are beamed straight into the living room. We can't escape them and they can escape us. They get it wrong and get away with it and still we can't escape them. Were they politicians, they would have lost their seats years ago for misreading the situation and public mood so often. But those boys can produce spin that Shane Warne would envy.
And I want to sign up. I too can be wrong - for a generous fee - week after week. Give me a call. My greatest strength is that I know nothing.
Pól Ó Muirí