Loads of fun playing the nickname game
WHEN SHAKESPEARE penned the immortal words, ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’, he certainly didn’t have monikers of sports stars in mind.
Definitely not Cheddar Plunkett or Tiger Woods anyway, who are so widely known by their nicknames that many might not be sure what’s scribed on their birth certificates (Séamus and Eldrick, to save anyone that’s in the dark the trouble of googling).
I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about just that very subject over the past few days – those from the world of sport who are as easily recognised by their pet name as the one they were christened with.
Not the likes of darts, snooker or boxing, where the names are forced upon them by the marketeers, just so the announcer can give it loads when he’s calling The Power, The Rocket or The Hitman to the stage, theatre or ring.
Being brought up in a rural parish, nicknames were commonplace.
You could give Tortoise, The Horse and Sniggers a helping hand on the building site during the day, and watch Lettuce, Toe or Lurch lording it on the G.A.A. pitch in the evening, before heading for a few bevvies surrounded by the likes of Beavis, Rattler and the Mixer.
I was saddled with a few odd names myself as a youngster, like Daithí Lacha, then the shortened version Dots, or occasionally ‘Bisto’, all tags which I’ve thankfully managed to shake off, apart from occasionally when I run into a long-lost childhood acquaintance.
Others are labelled for life, however, and in the world of Gaelic games there’s plenty to be found.
Names like The Gooch, Star, Brick, Bubbles, The Bomber, Gizzy, The Rock and Babs roll off the tongue and are instantly recognisable to all with even a passing interest.
When Clare were in their pomp in the mid-nineties, they had The Sparrow flying in attack and Fingers strutting his stuff in the forward line with his familiar swagger.
Then there’s ones that sound like the perfect ingredients for a fun-filled child’s birthday party: Antrim’s Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton, Cavan’s Seánie ‘Jelly’ Johnston and, to finish off, a slice of Shane ‘Cake’ Curran from Roscommon.
You could even call on another sport and bring in former Chicago Bears star William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry to keep everything fresh and nicely chilled.
If the G.A.A. can allow American football into Croke Park, surely I’m also given licence to bring an outsider into my column?
Then you have Eugene ‘Nudie’ Hughes, who some could mistakenly put on the guest list for an entirely different sort of get-together.
The world of soccer is no different when it comes to this particular subject, with plenty of weird and amusing examples to be found around the world.
Brazilians are well known for having their nicknames on the backs of their jersey, with ‘Hulk’ being a case in point.
It’s probably unsurprising when you consider his full title is Givanildo Vieira de Souza.
I certainly wouldn’t like to fork out the shillings to get that plastered on the back of the young lad’s replica kit.
For similar reasons, and in true Only Fools and Horses style,
Ceser Azpilicueta and Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu are often called the less tongue-twistery name ‘Dave’. At least my parents made it easy for me, something to be grateful for I guess.
Sergio Aguero can go back a further generation, as he has his grandparents to thank for his name ‘Kun’.
They spotted his resemblance to a cute little cartoon character that was actually called ‘KumKum’, and it stuck.
Then there’s others who had names bestowed upon them for more obvious reasons, their no-nonsense playing style, like The Butcher of Bilbao Andoni Goikoetxea, Stuart ‘ Psycho’
Pearce, or Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris.
At the other end of the scale, Darren Anderton was out injured so often he was dubbed ‘Sicknote’, while Roberto Baggio was known as ‘Il Divin Codino’, which translates as The Divine Ponytail, a nod to his Buddhist beliefs, silky skills and dodgy hairstyle.
However, my own personal favourite is journeyman defender Fitz Hall, who played for a number of English clubs including Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers and Oldham Athletic.
He was handed the rather clever label ‘One Size’.
Never mind your Romeo and Juliet, even Shakespeare would have been proud of that one.
‘I was putting my neck on the block, where were they?’
They took a case about chaplains in community schools being paid by the state and lost that in the High Court, with an award being made against them. But because they had formed a limited company that was never pursued.
During the latter phases of the campaign to separate church and state, Dick had a page on the back of the Church and State magazine dedicated to humanism. ‘People began to contact us asking how could they have a non-religious funeral,’ he said. ‘And so we actually carried out one or two funerals. I think the first one was in Mayo. And then we began to get enquiries about weddings, how could people have a non-religious ceremony.
‘I began to realise that we really needed a Humanist Association in Ireland.’ The campaign gave him the magazine space and he and a number of others decided to set up a Humanist Association to cater for the non-religious. ‘We began to see that there was a need to cater for the non-religious community, who we could see were growing. So we launched the Irish Humanist Association.’
RTÉ did a half-hour ‘Would you Believe’ programme about the group, and Dick, along with
Ellen Sides, wrote a book on Humanism.
The establishment of the association was not without its detractors.
‘Just before we launched it officially, a couple of months before the programme when we got our group together, the Bishop of Limerick Jeremiah Newman issued a statement saying secular humanism is on the prowl in Ireland and they’re worse than the Nazis. This was because we were challenging the ethical dominance or monopoly saying you could actually be good without religion. As soon as he said that we said, we have to go for it now.’
Dick got a bullet in the post once, but didn’t take it seriously. ‘I don’t pay any attention to the negative,’ he said.
The association kept growing, with membership now in the thousands. With branches in almost every county, each local group meets regularly and they have speakers and discussions.
Most Bray members would have attended the Dun Laoghaire branch. A group was just about to start meeting in the Harbour Bar as lock-down came, so that’s on hold for now. ‘Once we can meet again, we will,’ said Dick. He said that they have around 20 names of new members in Bray, aside from those who are already members.
You don’t need to be a member to have a Humanist ceremony. ‘Up until this I think we were doing between 3,000 and 4,000 weddings a year, and it’s going up each year,’ said Dick. ‘We’ve got about 36 celebrants in Ireland.’
Dick is winding down a bit, having been doing it for nearly 30 years. ‘I’ll only take on a certain amount now. I took on about eight for this year.’
All the celebrants are legal registrars of marriage. He enjoys the day very much. ‘It’s powerful to see people so happy and to feel you are helping them.
‘We put a lot into these weddings. Apart from responding to enquiries and telephone and email stuff, and putting together the script, I meet couples twice before the wedding in order to get to know what they want, to put together the whole thing. That’s two evenings plus the wedding day. And the wedding day is the day, you can’t do another wedding… it would be too much.’
He said that there is an emotional investment on the day which would take a lot out of the celebrant. ‘If there wasn’t you’d be a phoney, wouldn’t you? The day you stop feeling is the day to stop doing it.’
Funerals are always difficult. ‘But if somebody has lived a good life and they’ve left behind happy people and they feel they’ve had a good life, they’re not tragedies. I think that’s an important thing… the leaving of life happens to us all. And it’s not necessarily a tragedy. It can be a little bit sad, and the person might be sad leaving and other people might be sad they’ve got to go or they’ve gone. But you balance that against the life they’ve had and the memories.’
He described doing a funeral for a young child, for whom he had done the naming ceremony and whose parents he had married. ‘Boys oh boys, that was hard,’ said Dick.
‘But even if somebody only lived for a very short period of time you would try and relate to the joy they brought.’
His work continues when necessary.
A couple of years ago Dick and his son Norman lodged a case against the state when it looked like the new national maternity hospital would be under religious control. They withdrew it when the sisters agreed to step back from direct control.
Meanwhile, Dick said he couldn’t have done anything without the support of his wife Annie, who is an artist.
‘She has had to put up with my part time wage for decades!’
The Humanist Association of Ireland can be found online at humanism.ie.
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE MESS THAT OTHER SOCIETIES ARE MAKING OF IT. THE WAY OUR SOCIETY HAS PULLED TOGETHER, IT DOES YOUR HEART GOOD