A Guide To Barstool Republicans

18th May 2011

Dublinmen in Manchester United shirts have attacked the Irish police for assisting the British monarch, whose domain, for the geographically inept, extends over Manchester itself,  visit Ireland. Others brought slices of ham to throw at Gardaí. Who are these deeply weird people and what’s really going on inside their heads? Here’s our guide to barstool Republicans and the things that bother them….

Statistics
Stats are the enemy of barstool pontificators everywhere. In the last survey of its kind in 2009 by the Economic Social Research Council only 21% of the population of Northern Ireland favour ending partition.

Worse still for Republicans who reject the Good Friday Agreement is that despite a majority being in favour of it, only 40% of Catholics would like to see Irish unity. Uncomfortable reading - for those barstool Republicans who actually can: could it be that a majority of green flecked Nordies look south in the same way a hungry man might look at mouldy bread?

The only statistics important in our man’s head though are the one’s he made up himself: Anglo Irish Bank was set up by the Brits to ruin the country to get us back into the Commonwealth – sure just look at it’s name!

He's so proud to be a Scotish soccer fan on a day like this.

Sport
The true barstool republican is invariably a soccer fan. Nothing wrong with that but when it comes to indigenous Irish sports like hurling and football, they are for boggers and muck savages. Local soccer teams are out too because they’re not ‘big-time’ enough and if he was to go and support them he’d actually have to leave the pub because the games are not on Sky Sports.

The oval ball causes a big dilemma for most barstool Republicans. It’s a quintessentially English game but we’re good at it and we’ve enjoyed beating them a lot in the last few years. The big problem for the bar stool republican though is that it’s played by posh people from Rochestown so that means it must be bad because poshies are just rich langers.

But! Then again it’s a unified Ireland rugby team and soccer is as English a creation as rugby. This is a dilemma which often overheats the barstool Republican’s brain so it’s easier to ignore the realities. More cider! Brits out!

The National Anthem
Asking him to sing Amhrán na bhFiann is like asking a hamster to do long division. Just don’t go there. It’s everyone else’s fault that he can’t remember any Irish from school too. He heard that the Brits deliberately made up loads of difficult grammar rules in the 1920’s and sneaked them into the curriculum so people couldn’t learn the language.

An Gardaí Síochána
More than the British army, more than Rangers winning the Scottish league, more than marching Orangemen waving Union Jacks there’s no group these cábógs hate more than An Garda Síochána aka ‘The Guardians of the Peace’.

Every extreme left or right wing group has to have a group they can take their frustration out on and here in good old Éire it’s the misfortunate Gardaí. The handy part about this for cowardly groups like Éirigí is that they never have to confront any Englishman or woman directly with their irrational blather.

Oh I do love Ay-rah!
Barstool Republicans hate the way the English refer to Ireland as ‘Éire’. There’s nothing worse than people respecting you enough to refer to your country by its name in the native tongue, right?

Éire?? Must be some a deliberate mispelling of Ireland forced on us by the English

Fashion
Barstool Republicans purchase all their wardrobe collections in sports shops. The only time of the year they go shopping is when the new strip for their favourite British team is launched. Celtic tops are a favourite ‘cos the Glasgow lads are hard and sectarian. The Irish rugby or soccer jerseys just don’t say ‘Brits Out’ quite the way a Celtic top does. Who cares if all profits from Celtic merchandise go to the United Kingdom instead of Irish associations who’ll put the money directly back into their respective sports here in Ireland?

Who was Michael Collins?
In table quizzes the barstool Republican likes to show off his knowledge by being the first to blurt out that Michael Collins is the name of the astronaut who stayed behind when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon.

Michael Collins, init?

Favourite Irishman
It’s always Tony Cascarino.