Ah! I gnash my hair and tear out my teeth by the handful that I have just missed one of the greatest sporting events of recent times - and it so close to my home! I speak of course of the camogie match between Kiltegan and Annacurra in Pearse Park in Arklow the weekend before last, in which all 30 players became involved in a savage brawl: fists, boots and camans, writes Kevin Myers.
When the encounter began to resemble the Third Battle of Ypres (though without any of the mercy which occasionally illuminated that melancholy encounter) the referee, Martina Kennedy, sent all 30 players to the dressing rooms - no doubt with much booing from the spectators, who were only just getting warmed up.
The GAA's great Jack Boothman once declared that the definition of peace was half-time in a Wicklow camogie game. He clearly did not have Annacurra-Kiltegan matches in mind, where half-time is rather like the Assizes after the 1798 Rising: pitch-cappings, hanging and drawing, gibbets and the stocks, and with a few quartered oranges thrown in. And then it's back to the fray! Such athletic ardour is not a recent phenomenon. Camogie aficionados speak fondly of the very first match known to history, in which the girls were equipped with clubs, and fought - as was the fashion in those days - completely in the nude. This guaranteed a large attendance, though of course many Wicklow farmers were puzzled at the sight: up until then they thought naked women were covered in wool and walked on all fours. Certainly, their girlfriends all did.
So with the men so preoccupied, Wicklow women, being creatures of considerable resource, found solace with one another: ovaried rather than ovine companionship. Theirs was a practice known as Lisburniasm, after the Antrim town where the local women sought pelvic refreshment with one another rather than consort with the Sassenach soldiers who were garrisoned there. Lisburnians - as those who practise this activity are known - are deeply patriotic, and since the earliest times, camogie has proved to be an attractive game to them, especially after open-plan showers were introduced by camogie-playing nuns, The Divine Little Sisters of the Sliotar.
One of the most famous encounters between the clubs occurred during the First Geraldine Wars, after a comely young Wicklow maid by the name of Fallopia McMinge fell in love with a burly young slip of a girl, Concepta McQuimlick. Alas, as with the Capulets and the Montagues, this was a match doomed from the outset, for Fallopia played right full forward for Annacurra, while Concepta was a doughty left corner back for Kiltegan.
They had lovers' trysts in the hedgerows around Glendalough, whence their happy cries would nightly issue: they were young and in love, and it seemed the entire globe was their bivalve mollusc. But one night, after Concepta allowed her throaty roars exceed the Health & Safety recommended level, a Ban Garda (as she-gardaí were called in those days) named Angela Gland went to investigate. Imagine her consternation when she found her fellow Annacurra player, Fallopia, entwined limb by limb with a player from the sworn enemy! Worse still, Angela had long nursed a deep Lisburnian passion towards Fallopia, which she nightly slaked in her imagination. And now, she found her loved one in the arms of the mortal enemy! Without more ado, she threw her faithless team-mate into the lock-up in Dunlavin.
Next Sunday, however, was the annual Annacurra-Kiltegan match, always a grudge encounter, but now embittered by the sexual rivalry between Angela and Concepta. Both teams lined up, as per usual, in the nude, their hair (of every kind) having been dyed to denote club membership. Within seconds, Concepta had deliberately driven the sliotar right into Angela, hitting her fairly and squarely in her team-colours, and bringing tears to the ban-garda's eyes. Holy war ensued, with half a dozen deaths, and no little cannibalism.
Thus, a taste for human female flesh became one of the defining characteristics of this fixture - though Annacurra meat was thought to be rather stringy, while Kiltegan tissue was held to be just a trifle rancid (but much improved if dipped in castor sugar). Yet these encounters still remained sporting at heart, and Annacurra discovered that a Kiltegan head could be rolled like a bowl. However, Kiltegan argued hotly that that this smacked of a foreign code: after all, Sir Francis Drake had played bowls. This meant the game was played by an Englishman bearing the name of a male bird legendary for its predatory chauvinism. This use of Kiltegan heads was accordingly banned by a Special GAA congress in 1703.
Divisions extended to other areas of life. Kiltegan took Parnell's side, Annacurra sided with the bishops. Kiltegan went with the Treaty, Annacurra opposed it. Annacurra was in favour of the Mother and Child Scheme, Kiltegan declared it would be the ruin of Irish family life.
All this of course added to the piquancy and the passion of their annual encounters in Pearse Park (to which the Massey family have the hereditary funeral rights, thus making their fortunes).
In more recent times, the girls have taken to wearing jerseys. I am even told - though I scarcely believe such a scandalous allegation - that Lisburniasm is rarely practised in the clubs. In these dark and terrible times, when ancient verities wither like vines in the desert wind, it would be good to know that the womenfolk of Kiltegan and Annacurra hold fast to their ancient Wicklow ways.
Mmm. Pass the soap, Fallopia.