County Derry Post

Ulster Scoffs

The next time you’re feeling a little down in the mouth, do yourself a favour and get out the jobs section of the Irish News or Belfast Telegraph and search for one of the public service jobs that, by law, must be published in Ulster Scot as well as English.

It is surely one of the greatest scams of our time that this body, ably lead by Lord Laird, has been able to finesse the British government into parting with millions of pounds of tax payers money to support what is essentially an accent. Of course, if you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to actually have to spend any time in places like Larne, Whitehead or Carrickfergus then you can easily see how some English civil servants were duped into believing it was another language that these people were speaking.

It doesn’t take a genus to work out that ‘Ulster Scots’ is simply a political football and has been hijacked to try to counteract the perceived success of the Irish Language and their efforts to resurrect our native tongue and promote Irish culture through that medium.

Indeed, isn’t it ironic that recently, when the Ulster Scot elders in East Belfast attempted to plagiarise the Irish language by erecting signs in Ulster Scots as well as English, the locals ripped them down because they thought they were in Irish! My personal favourite was the aforementioned job advertisement which unfortunately for the translators contained several medical terms that didn’t easily convert. I have to admit that I laughed out loud when I read the translation for the English word, ‘psychological’, in Ulster Scotch, its ‘wan way a wee want’.

However, that’s not the end of the matter; ‘wan way a wee want’ was deemed to be too long so they settled for the much punchier, ‘wee daftie’!

I’ve been watching Monaghan with interest over the past 12 months and I have to say that their progress under the wonderful stewardship of Seamus McEneaney could only be described as miraculous. Perennial whipping boys before he took control, he now has a body of players who are absolutely bought into the notion of Monaghan going all the way and delivering their first All-Ireland. McEneaney is part of a generation who grew up with a Monaghan side who enjoyed a modicum of success in the early and mid Eighties and who came within a whisker of dethroning All Ireland champions Kerry in 1985 after winning the Centenary Cup the previous year.
I can see real similarities between Banty and Eamonn Coleman when he arrived on the Derry scene in 1991 and announced to anyone who would listen, that Derry were going to win the All Ireland. Like Coleman, McEneaney talked the talk and espoused the traits of being a winner. He has succeeded in changing the Monaghan mindset and it’s not a coincidence that they were able to etch out a victory earlier in the league against the masters of psychology, Armagh, before scrambling a deserved draw against Dublin in their own backyard. Monaghan folk may have been forgiven for thinking that Banty may have been ‘a wee daftie’ when he first began to preach the winning mantra, but he has definitely succeeded in the first step to achieving anything; you actually have to believe that you can!
I was in Croke Park last year for their All Ireland semi final defeat to eventual winners, Kerry and was struck by the scenes of despair from the Monaghan panel once the final whistle had blown. Their tears were real and those of a group who had been left shell shocked after an epic battle. I believed Banty when he said that the defeat felt’ like someone had reached inside him and ripped out his heart’.
I was in Croke Park last year for their All Ireland semi final defeat to eventual winners, Kerry and was struck by the scenes of despair from the Monaghan panel once the final whistle had blown. Their tears were real and those of a group who had been left shell shocked after an epic battle. I believed Banty when he said that the defeat felt’ like someone had reached inside him and ripped out his heart’.

There’s an old saying that ‘what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger’ and Monaghan certainly will have stored away the emotions of that fateful day to re use when future championship matches are going to the wire. Seamus has welcomed with open arms, any challenges in the league that will test the mettle and mental strength of his players. Yesterday’s game in Parnell Park saw the meeting of two teams who believe that they will not be very far away at the end of the year, two teams searching for that vital missing piece of the jigsaw.
Derry will certainly have earned their Ulster Championship this year if they can overcome both Donegal and Monaghan and then, in all probability, Tyrone in the final. It will be tough, but the Derry players will relish the opportunity of meeting Monaghan again after their ignominious capitulation in Casement last year. Monaghan have the spine of a great team with players like the Freemans, Finlay, Corey, the Moans’ and my personal favourite, Rory Woods. For the first time in a decade, this year’s Ulster Championship will have five teams who genuinely believe that they can win it. Make no mistake, Derry are deservedly one of the five but I still think the team that turns over Monaghan can have serious aspirations about delivering the big one!

Feile fixture foul-up
Finally, a small point but in my opinion, an important one. Why do CCC feel the need to fix matches during Easter? The u-14 Feile competition is currently running in a league format for five successive Sundays that included Easter. Now, I do understand that when these fixtures were drawn up that there may have been an oversight and Easter could have been overlooked.
But there really is no excuse for the lack of co-operation shown by CCC in their refusal to allow competing teams to refix games at a mutually acceptable date sometime within the following week. OK, there is a rule that states that you must reschedule a game for a time prior to the original date, but when the cock up is due to a mistake by CCC in the first place I find their intransigent stance on the matter stinks of breathtaking arrogance!
Shame on you.