To myself, Saturday 3 March. The night before. When the self doubt starts.

It eats me up I can feel the gnawing in my stomach making me want to puke. Fight or flight I suppose, having started down this road, riding this roller coaster you can’t get off. I feel strapped in. I wouldn’t rather be at home but I would.

If you never try you’ll never know and in truth, you need to know. It really comes back to those nights and days in places like Lavey when we realized, yes, we can. We can. Hand it over to the players. It’s in their hands now.

No doubt about it Ardrahan are the best team we’ve played – they asked more questions of our players than anyone else has and full credit to them for that.

To come from behind and win against quality opposition makes this all the sweeter. I’d say the neutrals and maybe a few of our own supporters thought we were dead and buried at half time.

But we didn’t – the players themselves knew they could do better and it was a matter of reminding them at half time that the qualities that won one All Ireland were still available to them to win another.They hadn’t turned into bad players over 30 minutes and they needed to be reminded of that.

It was a matter of belief and a bit of self confidence and a few wee adjustments. The impetus came from the girls themselves, they are serious competitors. They weren’t giving this up without a fight.

The way they set about reeling in the deficit was a real joy to watch. Then when we were ahead, to defend two penalties. You couldn’t script that! Gráinne saved a couple in Kilmacud Sevens 7s a few years ago so I knew it wasn’t cut and dried that they would score.

All the team were magnificent, Gráinne deserved player of the match, Méabh, Jane Carey and Kelly Maybin too were brilliant. I would single out also Megan’s two points which were awesome scores just when they were needed.

It’s a good day for Ulster anytime you win in Croke Park. These girls deserve all the credit. Ulster Camogie is alive and well – and we’re happy to fly the flag for that no matter what anyone says. Back to back titles in Croke Park. You can’t argue with that no matter who you are.

Last year in Croke Park I watched Méabh lift the Agnes O’Farrelly Cup from the entrance to the Hogan Stand tunnel. It was an image I had formed in my mind’s eye time and again ahead of the match. That and the imagining of her speaking the immortal lines spoken by so many All Ireland winning captains before her. ‘Ta athas an domhain an corn seo a glacadh. . .’.

Seared into my mind since then as part of the vista of celebrations was the image also of my mother in law Patsy Casey to the left. As Méabh’s granny and godmother the winning had a particular resonance for her – she was an immensely proud grandmother and loved the fact her grandsons represented Derry with distinction in football and her granddaughters Gráinne and Méabh played for the county camogie team.

The night before last year’s final she had attended the McKenna Cup Final in Armagh en route to Dublin. Indeed, one of her proudest photographs was a picture taken after Eoghan Rua won their first Derry senior Football Championship in 2010. In the picture with Patsy and the John McLaughlin Cup are Barry, Sean Leo, Ciaran, Colm, Niall and Hugh, six grandsons who were part of the winning panel.

Angela and myself and the children stayed with Patsy over Halloween weekend last year. It was like all the visits to Patsy’s house, convivial, plenty of chat and some wine to ease the conversation along. During the weekend we watched on DVD part of the Ulster Camogie Final we had just won. Patsy enjoyed watching the girls, delighting in their skill, speed and sheer beauty.

Just over a week later, she had passed away, after having endured a battle that weakened her body but never her indomitable spirit.

And so it was that we returned to Croke Park yesterday, again triumphing against what seemed after 30 minutes to be unsurmountable odds. At the finale as Méabh and Gráinne lifted the Cup, my eye glanced across to where the familiar loved figure had stood to one side last year.

Benevolent, beaming with satisfaction and pride. There was no-one where Patsy had stood, but in her absence I felt a tangible huge presence, soaring overhead and sweeping and swirling through my emotions. It made the occasion utterly poignant, but I know that even more than last time, she was with us, smiling on as she watched not one granddaughter, but two lift the Agnes O’Farrelly Cup.

Ádh Mór Patsy, agus go raibh mile mile maith agat.

Stan Collymore
Doesn’t see Ulrika
Anymore.
Instead
He speaks as gaeilge
And we love it,
Love it, love it
Just like when Queen
Liza midst our ladies
Uttered a cupla focal
Of stilted words. We nearly
Choked on our Carrigeen souffle.
Be advised famous Seamus said cross-
Table. Well what’ye think
Now Bellaghy boy, did you
Toast her?
Whose boys toasted
Your friends, women and countymen.
No flagon of yours raised?
And, so, Stan Collymore speaks Irish.
So do I. And it means fuck all
My cupla focal. Just like his.
Eureka.
Couldn’t bate her
With a big stick.

I bought Angela a pair of boots
For Christmas you understand
They surprised her, the boots
Very fashionable she said to me
I didn’t think they’d suit me she said.
Well I did. So,
One of the first things I noticed when
We met.
In the Hogshed bar were her
Long legs, all the way they go
Up, to her
Curly hair’d smile and that
Grin. Pint handed both less
Spotted now and more’s the pity. Then,
Fag smoked just like her
Mother.
Patsy, but no more.
So the boots. Predictable
I suppose I should have picked
Knee length boots, but I spied
My niece, in reality Angela’s niece Wearing…
Ankle boots. She looked great. She
Gets it from somewhere and
I know where.
Sometimes it takes a pair of boots to
Say you have great legs which in
Turn means. Well you know what it
Means as opposed to any other
Oul shite. Different ways of saying
The same thing. She looks great
Starting from the bottom up.
And as for the legs. Bootilicious.
And now she lies, sleeping
Across my lap. Boots
Kicked off, but they lie there Appreciated.
And it sometimes takes something
Like that to say what needs to
Be said as opposed to what’s
Lazily said. Easily said, but
Wrong.

I didn’t set out to write poetry in fact I don’t think I’m any good at it but to be honest it takes less time than the marathon harrowing efforts I enjoy subjecting myself to writing and others to reading.

Reading The Unnamable and ten pages in I am glorying in its black humour and depressive recuperative effects. I know why I didn’t get this ten years ago. I do now well.
I can see myself nursing-homed-alone surrounded foggily by people I neither know nor care about.
They will refer to me as an Unnamable oul fucker disclaimed by sons and daughters alike. Maybe they will visit betimes and I’ll pretend not to know them lest they accuse me of barbarianisms, caustic comments and worse.
Or perhaps I genuinely won’t know them, shadows flitting about asking questions. Has he eaten? What about his piles are they bothering him? And the other problems galore. How long have you got. Well longer than you think. I could live well into my hundreds if the scientists keep at it. Imagine. Old and alone till an octogenarian son or daughter comes to visit. Father and child fighting over the same reality. Except they will win.
And I will say remember the time you were in the Christmas play but it will pass unheard and unanswered. Maybe I could put on a P2 nativity play in there for aged oul decrepits like yours truly. A children’s drama enacted by elderly children. Be ok til someone fluffs their lines or wanders off. But, why change the habit of a lifetime. Hopefully by then it will be foggy and grey and of course they will put it down to age. That will suit me just fine.

I’m relaxed about Christmas.
Really I am.
Inundated with visitors,
and tired children.
The aged parent who
Can’t resist barbed and
Juvenile comments. It was always
Thus, I got it from somewhere
I remarked caustically.The dull
Headache of too much wine
And the noise started before you
Properly wake up in the morning.
Step on a present this year’s
Gift, tomorrow’s bin men will
Collect what Santa left with
About as much understanding.
They care not what they do. Nor
Do I. And the children
Do whatever they care.
I’m relaxed. Insouciant. In celebratory
Mode. In deed anyway.

Today parents packed the hall
To see their children perform
In the Christmas Play.
It was innocent and heart
Warming, and wonderful
And what Christmas should be about.
Meanwhile three hundred yards
Away in a mangy
Derelict hotel bought
By developers who couldn’t afford
To develop, a young life
Expires prematurely and alone.
Was it the cold made him
Seek refuge in a disused hotel.
Or was he turned away,
No room at the inn? This time
The play had no happy ending.
Just the opposite
Of Nativity and with it
The Christmas lights went out.

It’s early December so that means that the newspapers are full of the usual shite coming up to Christmas. Inevitably, like the shops pumping out I Wish it Would Be Christmas Every Day, there is nothing really new in any of this.

I always love to read the broadsheet supplement guide to Christmas presents. For Her. For Him. For a Teenage Daughter. For a Son. For a Spoilt Brat. For a Toddler. For the Dog. For Your Spinster Friend Who’s Desperate at this Stage. For fucks sake.

The Daily Telegraph are usually the best, reflecting their blue nose readership. It’s great to know that some pinstriped gel-haired City trader can dress his chick in a bra and knickers the value of which would bankroll an entire child’s Santa wish list. I hope he gets the present he thinks he deserves.

Ah yes, Tory grandees eating cured ham with truffle shavings and some sort of oil strained off the cleavage of a Polynesian Islander. Washed down with a lively red recommended by the former Sommelier at the Garrick. Their wives get some sort of exquisitely contrived ornament that will last until the boisterous family labrador jumps after one of the treats it has been bought and smashes it into smithereens. Do Dogs Know Its Christmas Time?

Why the Daily Telegraph you ask. Well, I like to know how the other half lives you see. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that. The Observer. The Sunday Times. The Guardian. They all have them. The Telegraph takes the biscuit for the ridiculous prices it casually suggests for a stocking filler.

Whether it’s the Irish Times telling us the country’s fucked and we should all hit some Country market in Ferbane or Bansha to pick up authentic produce at a steal or the Gear section of the Sunday Times recommending boy gadgets that make life no easier. Overly precocious frocks for youngsters costing hundreds of Euro. Wooden hand made trains and coloured numbers costing €60 or €70 that I know our ones would trash in a matter of minutes. If you miss the supplements you can watch it on the Late Late show. Sadly I was too late for that.

Still, I love reading about presents that I neither want nor that I will ever get. Nor will I ever buy them for anyone else. That’s Christmas just the way I like it. Remote control airplanes to fly round your office. Desk snooker. Robotic desk organisers. iPhone holders so you can watch movies on your tiny screen and ignore the forty inch behemoth in your living room. An inflatable shark you can steer. Just what we need in this place. I can just imagine what my life would be like with all that shite in situ.

The other feature piece that gets a run out is the Christmas Party. It’s usually either warnings about behaviour when under the influence, regrets, disciplinary consequences; how to run a good party or how much the feature writer hates this time of the year.

Today in the Irish Times Maeve Higgins has a curmudgeonly piece about how she hates parties at Christmas time. From the sounds of things she’s been to plenty. She complains about the food. The drink. About Cocktail sausages. WTF like? About the sorts of bores she meets. God help them meeting this miserable bitch is all I can say. I hear Saudi’s good this time of year Maeve.

Papers will often troop out that old chestnut about misbehaving at the Christmas party. Indeed. Having worked in a large institution for years with plenty of Festive Drinking and its fair share of debauched people, I don’t recall any of the goings on that apparently break out at parties across the country. Middle aged couples sherried up playing footsie under the table while the young account exec pleasures her boss in beside the photocopier like something out of Mad Men.

Meanwhile the office malcontent is boozed up on cheap party wine and chooses to tell his smarmy boss she looks like she’s in need of a good seeing to. Cue disciplinary hearings galore.

For those that enjoy a bit of harmless fun, the girls are boogying away to the usual  toons, the lads join them and everyone retires to the pub for injury time craic, and to talk about the boring miserable bitch that was there watching the whole thing to write about it for the weekend supplement.

Get a life. Or get a supplement to read about the life everyone else is having without you.

Last year at a coaching conference the then national hurling Co-ordinator Paudie Butler spoke about communication with young children. Try to put yourself inside the mind of an eight, ten or twelve year old child he said, and consider what’s going through their head.

“I beat Mum at Mario Kart, my lace is undone, the ball is coming towards me, I’m gonna kick it, there’s Micky squirting water over James I wanna do that, I don’t like the coach he’s always shouting at me, I’m hungry, Joe I have to go to the toilet, can you tie my laces, my mum says I can’t come next week, we had sausages for dinner….”

He gave a brilliant elucidation of the simplicity of a child’s thinking. Something those of us involved with children or indeed those of us who are making a shockingly inadequate job of raising them fail to understand. It was a salutary tale.

I thought of it a lot recently for a number of reasons. Put yourself in the mind of the other person. God knows what they’re thinking at times. Take Peter. Going to bed tonight he started to cry. He had come last in all his time trials at swimming he told me.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

Paradise Lost, John Milton

I tried to explain that he probably hadn’t come last, and if had, big deal. That there were a large number in his swimming age group. He was having none of it. I reached then for the hoary old chestniut. That is defeating his argument by proving that he is better at swimming than me. And he is, there’s no doubt about that. Eventually the mood lightened.

I also pointed out to him that our main concern in this part of the world is that he can swim so that he can enjoy the sea, and also more importantly that if he ever has to swim for it, that he is equipped to do so. That raised further questions that I batted for touch.

Having a child’s unflappable conviction that his dad is better at everything than him, he argued that I was in fact a good swimmer.  I replied firmly and with conviction that I was not. He wouldn’t accept that. The conversation ended with Peter in laughter when I told him I was good at the doggy paddle.

What is the point of this? Well, I wasn’t aware of what was bothering him when the exchange started. To me it wasn’t a big deal but to him it was. When I looked at it from his point of view I was able to understand where he was coming from.

“Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll be myself, in the end.”

The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett

Paudie Butler was right about putting yourself inside the mind of other people. It is something that applies in everyday life dealing with adults, husbands, wives, work colleagues. If you stop and think of how what you said, didn’t say or did can effect others. Not a bad way to go. And I was telling the truth. I am a shite swimmer.