Kerrys Towers Collapse as Cork Take Tallest Title

25th Sep 2008

Twin Towers Collapse as Elysian Unveiled
Alan Ger

It would be wrong of us Munster football champions not to mention Kerry's remarkable three-in-a-row at the weekend. A disastrous season for the single coded county ended on Sunday with a triplicate of heavy football defeats: the All-Ireland final, the National League final and of course Cork's epic victory against the Kingdom in the Munster Football final.

Pearse O'Neill: now officially better at midfield than Kerry's Dara Ó Sé

Cork are the only Munster county with silverware to show after this year's football championship and if the Cork ladies crush Monaghan in Croke Park on Sunday then Kerry will find it impossible to argue that they are the superior force in contemporary Munster football.

The Kerry lads might have a few Celtic Crosses but where are the footballing females from said county? Perhaps they are needed to tend to the broken hearts of Kerrymen who were humiliated by Tyrone on Sunday. How can a county masquerading as the cradle of gaelic football be so narrow minded in their self-assessment?

Another massive victory for Cork football, which may be defined as a turning point as the decade draws to a close, was Pearse O'Neill's selection in midfield on the Sunday Game Team of the Year. The significance of this is that the Corkman skinned former Kerry All-Star Dara Ó Sé on several occasions this year, again forcing one of Kerry's top trumps into second place and without a mention on Team of the Year.

Donaghy's skills: brings a lot of roaring to the Kerry team.

The embarrassment of Ó Sé's continual use of violence against his opponents (he punched O'Neill square in the face off-the-ball in the All Ireland semi-final) was amazingly over-shadowed by "Wazziegate": Paul Galvin's alleged attempt to swat a wasp that happened to be lying on the referee's notebook as the Kerry captain was being booked for dirty play.

This cringing debacle contained one of the least sincere apologies ever witnessed on live television as Galvin attempted to minimise his impending sentence from one of those GAA disciplinary committees with impossibly long names.

The Elysian towers: scored the same as Kerry's Donaghy Tower in Sunday's final. Rud ar bith.

RTE's Pascal Sheehy, himself an unrepentant Kerryman, asked soft questions of the Kingdom's skipper that conjured up images of Bertie Ahern's famous tear jerker with Bryan Dobson two year's previous as the then Taoiseach pleaded innocent to all the Mahon Tribunal's allegations.

Bertie Ahern, like the Kerry football team, have been sidestepped to allow the reign of a superior team and don't expect them to lie down next year. They'll come out and do what Kerry do best: sneaky tackles, off-the-ball violence, referee intimidation, relentless fouling and of course, the odd bit of football thrown in as camouflage.

THE TOWERS
The defeat of Kerry's "twin towers" at full forward was highly significant in a week when Cork re-captured the much coveted "tallest building in Ireland" with the official opening of the Elysian Tower.

View from the top of the Elysian. Photo: Neil Hill.

On his new show on Dublin based station Newstalk, Tom Dunne said that Cork's dominance "must not be allowed to continue" summing up national jealousy as the Rebel County re-acquired another boasting title.

While public opinion on the tower's design is somewhat divided, the suggestion that Cork's skyline is now solely defined by it is, unfortunately for the developer, a non-runner. The Elysian is big but it isn't unique looking - certainly not globally anyway.

Shandon Steeple and its bells have looked down upon the city centre for centuries. As well as being part of the Cork GAA crest, thousands of pieces of merchandise have used the unique building to symbolise Cork.

View from the Elysian of the northside. Photo: Neil Hill.

Those who aren't too enamoured with the Elysian say that to truly redefine the look of a city a huge building is going to have to have something more culturally interesting than just pricey penthouse apartments. To really stand out architects need to give the past a little more credit than spending all their time gazing into the future.

Shandon: still Cork's top tower.

You know us Corkonians are a bit funny though. We'll like the Elysian too eventually - when it stops being "the new thing" and when any scent of pretentiousness and those signs proclaiming it to be "a very stylish affair" have been swept away.

Corkonians don't need to be told about what is stylish and what is not because, being from Cork, we already know!

You can guess Corkonians' reaction when "St. Anne's Church" first emerged on the city's skyline in 1722. Some locals probably shunned it as architectural showboating or, more likely, a pure waste of money.

Some waste: no bells, no clocks and it takes ages to walk into town after a visit.

The opposing limestone and sandstone sides probably had Corkonians throwing their eyes up - "c'mere you'd think they'd use the wan type of stone like!"

Slowly but surely it came to define the city and, as with many things in Cork, the official name was ditched for the name of the area itself: Shandon, as if to claim it from the developers of the 18th century.

Nowadays we wouldn't swap it for the Eiffel Tower, Empire State or anything else the world might offer us.

Shandon's musical bells and Blarney's 'magic' stone, despite their apparent uselessness to estate agents', will keep pulling in the plaudits, pride and punters. They have earned their place in Cork over the centuries. The Elysian, like those who have come before it, will have to earn its place too.