Matlock Kathy Bates

Munster and the 'the Great Game'

Quote of the Week

“Now that I'm really old and have worked up to the time that I'm 35, I realize just how little I know. How things like I.T.T.s I have never wanted to do and how smart people in the street I can't stand.” -- Jerry Maguire

This week during the Munster show

The Great Game was more or less played out by an aging Aga Khan when John O'Callaghan and Tomás Ávila played along in the closing scene. It was not, strictly speaking, an escape though the screen was crowded as the four principals, O'Callaghan, Maguire, Ávila and O'Conner, fought the "CATASTROPHE" on the stage of the National Stadium. It was still a great set, of course, but one with too much quality and some stiffness. If nothing else, we would want to suggest the use of a little harder music next time.

Click here to watch one of those incredible films on MUNSTER and the "great game". The others are here, here and here but you might better look elsewhere.

For me, the story itself plays out as something of a slow moving love letter to the 1960s and that generation of youth in a way that was not just important in Ireland but in many others. For us all it's a reminder, and a cautionary tale.

It began 40 years ago, when, as Mr. Maguire says, I "found out" that I would not be able to play for Ireland on the World Cup. Not at all, I am here to tell you that Ireland will go through.

Nor am I just here for a souvenir. As I.T.T. president, the Gaelic Games are a place where you can see all of us wearing black to cover our emotions. Well, the moment that our homeland was deprived of our voice by Sir Matt Busby, the great Chairman of the FA, Ireland made a spectacular figure in the pantheon of the game. I have been here for more than half a century, seen countless cups and thousands and thousands of people talking about our sport.