In his autobiography I Think Therefore I Play, the Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo writes of what was going through his mind as he took the first penalty in the 2006 World Cup final shootout in which he faced Fabien Barthez. That penalty, he says, opened his eyes to his identity as an Italian. While walking up to take it he realised how grateful he was to be an Italian…

I took a long, intense breath. That breath was mine, but it could have been the manual worker who struggles to make it to the end of the month, the rich businessman who is a bit of a shit, the teacher, the student, the Italian expats who never left our side during the tournament, the well-to-do Milanese signora, the hooker on the street corner. In that moment, I was all of them. You won’t believe me, but it was right in that very moment I understood what a great thing it is to be Italian. It’s a truly priceless privilege.

It’s hard to imagine an Irish footballer thinking, much less expressing, such thoughts. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m suggesting that firstly we don’t do that line of thought and secondly we don’t do self-aware pride. Seriously. What would your first reaction be of you heard an Irish person saying “In that moment I understood what a great thing it is to Irish. It is a truly priceless privilege”?
If Barack Obama said it, Irish people would all be thrilled at the compliment from a rich outsider. If Enda Kenny said it, he’d be booed and whistled off the pitch. Same goes for any Irish person. There’s something wrong with that, something very deeply wrong, and it isn’t Enda Kenny…
What it means to be Irish seems to revolve around begrudgery, rage, hysteria and a toxic mix of envy and spite. Don’t believe it? Go below the line on any article in almost any online publication and see for yourself.
In this we are not unique, of course. But there’s something manic or neurotic about being Irish. I mean, we couldn’t even get through the recent World Cup without a major brouhaha. And this was an event in which we had no direct interest!
Granted, the row was about Garth Brooks and not football, but there were ways in which it was weirdly similar to the manias of Saipan in 2002 and apres-Paris in 2009. Come the World Cup, come the meltdown.
Others will deal with the rights and wrongs of the decision by Dublin City Council and subsequent cancellation of all five concerts. What interests me here is how the story became The Story in Ireland, almost as big as Saipan or Thierry Henry’s handball.
On one occasion I happened to be watching RTE’s six o’clock news show and the Brooks story occupied over 20 minutes and was the first, second and fourth item. Meanwhile, Isis militants were taking over swathes of Iraq, there was civil war in the Ukraine and war was breaking out in Gaza between Israel and Hamas…
It showed an incredible and, dare I say it, rather Twitter-driven sense of proportion. But I digress.
What does an Irish footballer think as s/he walks to take a penalty in a shoot-out? What does a public servant feel as s/he enters a meeting about Garth Brooks? Or about anything else you care to mention? What does a pensioner feel as s/he contemplates austerity Ireland? What does a junior doctor feel about the hours s/he works? What does a student feel as s/he contemplates what follows on from the degree? And so on.
Can you see any of them realising that it’s a great thing to be Irish? Nah, we just don’t do that sort of thinking beyond the most superficial notion of being happy to be Irish. Yeah, yeah, we do the “great little country” stuff but I’m talking about really digging deep into our souls, as deep as a person digs who is about to take the first penalty in a World Cup final shootout.
(I can’t resist quoting Charles Haughey in Hot Press all those years ago – “deep down I’m a very shallow person”. An amusing wordplay and regrettably representative…)
No, in moments of pressure and existential angst, the overriding emotions for most Irish are fear and self-loathing.
Of course, there are those who love being Irish because it gives an access to appreciation and opportunities, but that’s not because Irishness is a great thing in itself.
As for the craven love of being praised, it’s as though the majority don’t really believe they exist or are worthy unless an outsider of high status tells them so. And woe betide anyone who says something critical.
I’m not sure where to place former Minister Phil Hogan in all this, nor to intuit what he thinks as he walks away from Irish politics to take a big job in Europe. He could well be the smartest kid in the class, but he doesn’t communicate any intellectual depth nor interest in stuff that involves complex thoughts or big words.
He may recognise that he has embarked on a gravy train and entered a time of priceless privilege but, like many Irish, I doubt that being Irish is part of it.
But the thing is, there’s as much if not more bad in Italy as in Ireland. And there’s as much good, if not more, in Ireland than in Italy. Why would Pirlo see the positive and we the negative?
Shouldn’t the positive underpin our plans to celebrate all the things we’re going to celebrate over the next decade? If it did, imagine what our first penalty taker in the 2018 World Cup might be thinking as he walked towards the penalty spot …