Screw Normal, I’ve Always Wanted Magic

So there it is, I’ve gone and said it, what’s been trapped inside for so long. The itch desperate to be scratched I’ve known from way back. It dawned on me when I finally scrambled past the Leaving Certificate because up until then I felt stupid. It was only when I made it into college I started to grow with the realisation that there was in fact plenty going on inside my head, and some of it was actually interesting. I had enjoyed history in school, but subjects like maths, science, and languages submerged me. A love of english would develop later. It was merely a case of tapping into what I was really interested in in the right environment. The first time I began to realise I wasn’t stupid was because of football. I only had to see or hear the results read out by James Alexander Gordon once on a Saturday evening and they were imprinted on my brain. Football also taught me the geography of England, Scotland, Wales, as well as Europe and the World. It was dawning on me that if I was genuinely interested in something I was well able to tune into its frequency. So much of what I was asked to do in school on the academic side baffled me. Finally in college, my aptitudes were aligning to what I was doing. Life was suddenly a lot easier.

I’ve never felt normal. More like a fish out of water. Being an Arsenal fan in a country where it seemed everyone was a Manchester United fan can have that affect. It was as if I’m constantly walking in the opposite direction to the crowd. I still feel that way a lot of the time. The solution was to find my tribe. I needed to connect to where I felt a sense of belonging. The North Bank and Hill 16 filled that gap, as did the Wednesday afternoon trips to Lansdowne Road to cheer on Eoin Hand’s Republic of Ireland team. Wonderful memories. I even went to live in London for a year so that I could follow Arsenal and the stars duly aligned as we won our first league title for eighteen years under George Graham’s inspired leadership. The cloud that had hung over me in school was suddenly lifting. It was as if someone had flicked a switch.

Dublin was a good place to live in my teenage years. In 1983 the ‘Twelve Apostles’ brought Sam home again after a breath taking summer, culminating with a thunderous dark climax in a final dominated by the wind and rain against Galway. The last non all ticket All-Ireland. I was lucky enough to get in early that day. I was also at Dalymount the night of the crush when the Republic of Ireland lost 2-1 to the world champions Italy. Sport filled me with joy, and taught me to cope with disappointment. I cried my eyes out when Arsenal lost to Ipswich in the 1978 FA Cup Final, only for redemption to arrive in a thrilling victory against Manchester United a year later. My heroes were Liam Brady, Dave O’Leary, and Frank Stapleton, three Dubliners who made up the spine of a sparkling Arsenal team. Dublin might have been in a state of eternal economic depression, but a strong undercurrent would soon bring Catholic Ireland to its knees, even if it was a slow burner at first. Indeed, significant change takes time if it is to last. Pope Paul II’s triumphal visit to the land of saints and scholars in 1979 would prove to be the Catholic ‘ last hurrah. I remember watching the crowds walking past our estate in Chapelizod towards the Phoenix Park. I was used to being on the outside looking in. This was just more of the same.

I learned early not to trust the political establishment, with Charles Haughey and his henchmen in Fianna Fail the main reason why. Charlie was painted as a man of the people, one with expensive tastes, at odds with the portrayal he encouraged at every turn. On the opposite side was a decent man called Garret Fitzgerald who did his best to stand up to the bullyboy tactics employed by the Soldiers of Destiny. It would have been fine if it was their own destiny, but unfortunately our nation was forever tainted with their dark deeds. Church and state were convenient bedfellows back then.

I laughed when Bob Geldof called his old school Blackrock College, a rugby citadel on the Southside, a hovel on The Late Late Show. We weren’t used to such nonchalant irreverence. Challenging the status quo was not the done thing, so enemies of the state like the Boomtown Rats were targeted with planning permission refused for a concert in Leixlip. By the time Geldof and the Rats had deserted a sinking ship and decamped to London, the game was almost up. Banana Republic was an energetic parting shot at a country still in the grip of conservatism and skulduggery. I remember well my father’s comment about Haughey that ‘it took a crook to run a country full of them’. Thankfully dad brought me up to question the status quo, which along with my mother’s empathy, kindness, and sensitivity, made for a pretty potent mix in the parenting stakes.

Thankfully there was plenty of inspiration to tap into . I craved people who were different, who thought everything and anything was possible. I remember being in awe of Phil Lynott when I saw him standing outside Croke Park after a run of the mill National League game Dublin were playing on an overcast November Sunday. With his cool black afro and long leather jacket he certainly stood out. Wild and dangerous. I remember hearing U2’s War album for the first time in school, the beat of Sunday Bloody Sunday invading my senses. I was hooked and still am. Bono might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but his ability to come at people, places, things from a different angle has always fascinated me. Again, he was prepared to stick his head above the parapet if he thought it needed doing. Adam Clayton’s cool exterior remains cool to this day. Again they proved it was possible to go beyond Ireland to achieve success. There was a way out. After all hadn’t Joyce, Beckett, and Brendan Behan lit the way already.

To be genuinely different was what I yearned for. I was uncomfortable in my Irishness for a long time, uncertain of what it meant. It felt alien, the republican ideal, the paddywackery, the plastic paddy bandwagon unleashed by Italia ‘90. Suddenly soccer was everyone’s game, leaving those of us who had been amongst the diehards turning up at Lansdowne Road when it wasn’t popular, more than a little confused. But despite this it was a good thing. It allowed the country to breathe and Jack’s Army brought with it a joy and a celebration that ripped the tricolour from the Republican grip it had endured for the previous two decades. Suddenly, being Irish meant many things. It certainly meant possibility as the parameters widened considerably. Ironically, I found my own sense of being Irish in Croke Park going to watch Dublin. Here I sensed a stirring of my spirit when the national anthem played, a togetherness that was absent for me elsewhere. There was a down to earth decency on Hill 16 that spoke volumes to me, the same feeling I had on the terraces of Lansdowne cheering on Tony Grealish and the boys in green in the early 80s. And then there was The Pogues.

It had taken a while but I was finding myself. I was meeting new people in college, and working in an international youth hostel in Dublin’s north inner city opened me up to people from all around the world. My confidence was growing. I was even able to talk to girls at this stage without curling up into a ball. The world was suddenly a very different place. The shy boy from school was no longer weighed down by what he couldn’t do, as what he was capable of came to the fore. School had engendered a survival instinct within me, which I knew was separate to the narrow parameters used in the Leaving Certificate to track my academic progress. It was like asking an elephant to climb a tree. So when I finally attained a sense of freedom, I knew what to do with it. Whereas before I was crawling, now I began to run, as the obstacles melted away. Slowly my spirit and my confidence began to return.

Hope replaced fear. Possibility replaced improbability. My fashion sense still left a lot be desired, but at least now, I felt like an individual rather than just another member of a homogenous group. It was as if my personality, compressed for so long, was suddenly set free. I’ve been living with the consequences ever since. That yearning for something else. Not settling for the status quo. Always pushing on towards the magic. It can be exhausting, but it’s vibrant and real. It’s in your face. Magic is mysterious. It won’t let go, that feeling inside that whatever it is will always be just out of reach, beyond achievement. I’ve learned to trust the journey, even if I sometimes lose myself along the way. I’ve made bad decisions because of it. It can be challenging. It’s never easy. It can never be taken for granted. Now more than ever, being different, thinking differently is a threat to the way things are. You have watch what you say.

The good news is that magic is everywhere. I found it standing on Hill 16 in Croke Park, or back on the North Bank at Highbury, at a U2 concert at Slane, watching Ireland’s soccer team at Lansdowne on cold dark Wednesday afternoons in the 1980’s, in the friendships that last, and the ones that scattered some gold dust even though they were fleeting in nature. Still, the memories sustain. I feel it in Dalymount Park when Bohemians are playing. There’s a community and a decency that you can reach out and touch. It courses through me when I write. It’s in the connection with people who really care about me. It’s in the humour to be found in everyday things. Stepping outside of routine. Time spent with my son Samuel. A kind smile lighting up the day. A film that you carry with you for days afterwards. A good book taking you somewhere else. The peaceful easy feeling when you’re on holiday. A weekend doing nothing. A leisurely walk in the Phoenix Park. Walking across the Burren. The waves crashing against the coastline as I stroll along the seafront. The wildness of Ireland’s landscape is full of mystery and magic. Ancient traditions carrying us forward as well as back in time.

Feel the magic, and let it win.