The group of foreign sports administrators sat in their coach while the official Government guide expounded on the virtues of the Irish bid to host the 2008 Olympics. Around them their garda outriders were trying to disentangle themselves from the wall-to-wall traffic blocking Dublin city centre. The only garda not jammed in was forlornly legging it after a brace of motorbike thieves as they scattered pedestrians down the pavement on his BMW. Kevin Myers writes.
"Yes," intoned the official guide, "We feel that here in Ireland we have all the essential ingredients to host a really successful Olympic games. We have first-class training facilities, excellent stadiums, superb hotels and a population which is warm and welcoming." At which moment, a brick smashed through a window, felling the delegate from Ghana. Outside, two gardaí promptly bent down to do up their shoelaces, and a third paused only for a moment before arresting a conspicuously innocent person on the wrong side of the bus, thumping him hard in response to his strangled protests as he dragged him away.
The official guide wiped his brow with his handkerchief and smirked awkwardly. "Boys will be boys," he said. "One of our little local welcoming rituals. I'm sure no harm was intended. Here, mop up the blood with this."
The poor African on the coach-floor blinked in a baffled, bloodied fashion, as some delegates insisted that he needed a doctor. "No point in taking him to hospital," replied the official guide cheerily. "By the time he's reached casualty, he'll have bled to death, ha ha ha. You'll be right as rain in no time at all, won't you, Sambo? Ah, look! A gap in the traffic. Let's go!"
Unprecedented event
The delegates exchanged glances as the bus inched out of Dublin city centre towards their first venue, what was promised to be a state-of-the-art athletics stadium and health complex, connected to the capital by high- speed train. They were scheduled to get there by 11 a.m., but a wholly unprecedented event - a 14A bus arriving on time - had paralysed the city, and it was after 12 when they reached their destination.
The delegates stepped down from their coach, gazing around them like time travellers arriving in the wrong century. They could see no stadium in any shape or form, merely a lean-to made of corrugated iron and a muddy oval track around a bog.
"There isn't even a railway station here," muttered the little delegate from Chad. The delegate from Kzyrkzyrkystan, the newest republic in the world, simply spat in disgust.
"Ha ha ha, no, no, don't be deceived by appearances, no indeed, this is the site of the Patrick Pearse National Athletics Stadium, which I have drawings of - let me see now, somewhere here, ho ho ho." The guide hurriedly scrabbled through a large architect's file before finally opening some huge fold-out plans of a towering stadium, complete with heliport, interlinking motorways, a multi-storey car park and a light railway, populated by tiny men and women in little hats.
"This, now, is what you should be judging our submission on. Isn't a modern infrastructure like this exactly what you're looking for?"
The Chadian delegate eyed the plans more closely. "Hmmm. According to this, your railway station opens next Saturday. You've got a busy week ahead of you."
Behind schedule
The guide slammed the folder shut and sniffed haughtily. "We're just a bit behind schedule, that's all. Nothing to be concerned about. Now, what about a spot of lunch in one of Dublin's famous hotels, the envy of the world."
Alas, lunch was over by the time they had fought their way through Dublin traffic. As they trooped back out of the hotel, gaunt and weak with famine, they were just in time to see their coach being hauled away by gardaí. Outside the pub opposite, beside two Garda outriders discussing the previous night's football, a delivery lorry parked on double yellow lines was starting a traffic jam that within half-an-hour would bring the entire city to a standstill.
"Let's walk!" cried the guide, as if freely smitten by a brilliant idea. "The exercise will do us good. This way, please." And he bustled off busily towards Lansdowne Road, waving the delegates after him.
When they reached their destination, the party fell silent. "What is this, please?" asked the Danish delegate finally. "A sheep-dip? Is this where you keep your firewood? Your wheelbarrow? Listen. Where will we play rugby, please?"
Mountjoy Square
The guide sniffed huffily, and with an imperious gesture waved them northwards towards his pièce de résistance. As the delegates wove through Mountjoy Square, totteringly bearing the weaker of their number on stretchers, they suddenly beheld the unspeakable magnificence of Croke Park, with its vast butterfly-wing stands and its soaring cathedral buttresses.
"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare," croaked the little Chadian delegate with his dying breath. While some of his colleagues busied themselves with spades - it being perfectly clear from recent bitter experience that no hearse could possibly arrive before the sad lad from Chad had turned bad - the US delegate confessed his admiration for Croke Park.
"Fantastic. Absolutely perfect for soccer and rugby," he whispered, awe-struck. "Truly enough to win my vote." Chuckling uneasily behind his hand, the guide examined his shoelaces and said nothing.