Cork V Dublin: Hell on the Hill

16th Aug 2010

Hell on the Hill

This Sunday, Cork's gallant footballers will take on the men from Dirty Old Town in the All Ireland football semi final at Croke Park. For once Corkonians will be excused from their duty on Hill 16. With the repulsive treatment of Cork fans in Dublin over last few years the chants of "the hill is for Dublin only" will be gladly implemented.

Dubliners have brought Gaelic games to a new low. And that's not just off the pitch (we'll come to the game itself later). Their fans are to the GAA Championship what English clubs like Millwall and Chelsea's dog-rough followers were to the English soccer leagues in the eighties and early nineties.

Hill 16: Horrendous.

In an attempt to be Dublin's 16th man (and by the beatings they've taken over the last 5 years it often seems like Dublin play with only 7 or 8 men) the Hill has discarded the common decency long shared between fans of opposing counties. The civility that might exist between fans of other counties at games is given a goldy-sovereign'd two fingers once the royal blue jerseys turn up.

Banter and ball-hopping are all part of the match day interaction and if you can't deal with a bit of 'craic with an edge' you should watch the game at home. But on Sunday the island will once again be subjected to the brazen booing of Dublin's bad boys, the hissing cynicism of the east coast's den of iniquity.

Boozed up bowsies from Ballymun and drunk Decco's from Drumcondra will converge on the Hill with a limited knowledge of the game, adding extra syllables to every word uttered to give their brains more time to articulate their irrational thoughts.

Yiz-a were bru-wah-tal.

It is often cited that Dublin have a distinct advantage over other counties as they never have to play championship games away from home. This of course gives the blues a gigantic leg up over visiting teams with their seething and cynical supporters hissing and booing every move by other teams. Particularly free takers. Furthermore, they ignore respected condemnation of their despicable behaviour from every quarter.

However, the greater context of the national interest must also be acknowledged. Would any town or city in Ireland welcome this sort of GAA fan? A chairde, the GAA must be commended on their isolationist policy as Ireland beyond the pale is far safer with this tradition being upheld: keep the Dubs in Dublin!

Secondly, the media in Dublin take lessons from their cousins across the Irish Sea. Tabloid thinking is endemic. 'Red tops' rule the roost and the irrational unruly disrespectful fan is both their target market and their product.

Your man is a Dublin fan.

So the Dub's biggest advantage is also their biggest enemy. The parallels between the fate of English soccer and the Dubs' single-code stab at Gaelic games are many: the memories of England's 1966 victory and Dublin's meagre achievements as a county are astoundingly similar even aside from the soccer chants adopted from the British game that infest Hill 16.

Their sporting successes can be summarised as a brief rivalry with Kerry in the late seventies before most of their fans were born. It should be noted that Cork were busy at the four-in-row in the other code around the same time so those of you lucky enough to live in that era wouldn't have noticed anyway.

Despite cringing back-slapping documentaries to appease RTE's Dublin audience giving credence to the notion that the rivalry was not one-sided (Kerry didn't give a toss), the embarrassing reality is that they beat The Kingdom just twice (in their own backyard). Something that happens with the regularity of the Shandon bells in Cork.

The capital expects so much yet gets so little - while the local media bring the kindle and the fans stoke the flames. Therein lies the capital's undeniable principle enemy: burning festering self-hatred. The capital seems to revel more in self-criticism than any (albeit minor) victory. Does that ring any Morris dancing bells? As has been pointed out by many columnists at the bottom of this intense self-loathing is a confused Dublin mindset - despite the passport they don't know whether they are British or Irish.

So minutely geographically small is County Dublin that should they lose on Sunday the only solution should be to break up the capital into separate counties and attach them to neighbouring ones.

Wicklow, Louth, Meath and of course the Lily Whites in Kildare who Corkonians have an obvious soft spot for, may tolerate having parts of nearby Dublin lobbed on to their own counties. The west coast of Wales may also facilitate the arrival of an offshore archipelago featuring such distasteful 'attractions' as the Guinness Storehouse and other symbols of Dublinism. It would however be considered a homecoming for many Dubs and who would begrudge them this?

We urge all Cork fans attending the game to not engage in taunting with Dublin fans, not to boo the Dublin players and to leave the captial as soon as possible after the match, win lose or draw.