EFFING referee. Granted, it was a county final and swearing at the referee is nothing new in the GAA, writes Pól Ó Muirí(Yes, I have done it myself. Even booed one or two of them off the pitch.) But the swearing that was coming from this club loyalist was at a level I had never experienced.
From the throw-in to the final whistle, he abused the referee with all his being and it was that little Anglo-Saxon four-letter verb and it its seven-letter participle that was his weapon of choice.
I noticed one parent from another club placing his hands over his young son's ears. In my naivety, I thought - momentarily - he was trying to warm his ears for him. Then I realised that he and his son were directly in the path of every word that was coming from your man. Like me, I suppose he realised that it was not worth the bother of turning around and saying: "Excuse me, old bean, do you mind awfully? Can't watch the jolly old Gaelic for all that racket." The GAA loyalist would have taken little notice.
It is not just the common use of the f-words that is so annoying on occasions like this; it is their utter banality. I mean, is that it? Is that the best that the English-speaking Gael can manage from the sideline or terraces? I thought the whole point of the Irish speaking English was that we were supposed to have refined the language, moved it up a notch from mere, materialist English, the language that is good for selling pigs in, and that we were supposed to have given it a melodious, metaphysical dimension that the murderous, pagan, schismatic Saxon could never have imagined.
The standard of swearing and insulting at GAA games has never been so low or, worse, so unimaginative. Witty banter from wily old foxes? Not effing likely. There are, of course, exceptions. I cherish the cheeky scamp who baited former Armagh star Oisín McConville as he approached a free kick with the shout: "Five to one, you don't make it, Oisín." McConville, if you don't know, has had a serious gambling problem. Now, that's a gratuitous insult with no use of the f-word. That's the sort of thing that gets people writing columns in newspapers.
Alas, such rare glimpses of wounding native wit are becoming less and less frequent. Personally, I blame the English language for the f-word. If we were all speaking Irish, we certainly would not be effing and blinding like Royal Marines on shore leave. There is no question that the GAA needs to act and to act now. It is not enough to ask patrons to refrain from swearing. It needs to be more pro-active.
I suggest GAA officials include a few choice insults and curses in Irish in match-day programmes. In fact, once they have finished putting up the words to Amhrán na bhFiannin Irish on the scoreboard, they should add a "curse for the day". Imagine how much more Irish would be spoken during the summer months of championship football if everyone at GAA games came away with one new swear-word?
Of course the really wonderful thing about swear-words is that you can use them in many different situations and that they don't just apply to referees. Yes, the referee may be a "striapach fir", but who else do you know who answers to that description? (Languages truly are the gifts that keep on giving.) I was once told that the most severe curse in Irish was: "Scrios Dé ort" - literally, God's destruction on you. The interpretation I was offered was that the Gael were traditionally a God-fearing lot and that the effect of the curse lay in the fact that God created everything and wishing God's destruction on you was really going to spoil your day.
Still, would it have the same effect in today's cultural climate, when many people do not have the same regard for God, the creator of all things on heaven and earth? We might need to update that one. My suggestion would be: "Scrios baincéara ort." How much more horrifying could you be than to wish the "destruction of a banker" upon someone? That would certainly work on the middle classes and get them using the Irish language.
Another great curse in Irish is: "Bás na bpuisíní ort", which means "the death of kittens on you." Think about it for a moment. How did people dispose of unwanted kittens in days gone by? They put them in a bag and threw in a river to drown. Horrifying imagery and not the sort of thing that you would wish on anyone - except, perhaps, referees and bankers.
Perhaps that might take a little too much time to sink in for those who are more used to the Celtic Tiger than Gaelic kittens. Still, it is not too hard to freshen up the curse and the language. We live in the age of TG4 with its Gael Babes. So, with that in mind, let us recast that curse as: "Bás na subprime mortgages ort." That should be enough to halt even the most anglicised West Brit in their tracks.
Then there is. . . What? You've heard enough? All right.