I don’t care who wins the Six Nations or lifts Sam Maguire, I just want to be able to visit my parents
SO THIS is what happens when the Lads are left in charge. You can’t visit your parents this side of Christmas, but you can watch Kerry take on Donegal at the weekend. You can’t go for a walk with your best friends, but the Ireland-Italy rugby match will go ahead as planned. Three cheers for the Lads!
Yes, it’s exhausting to have to reduce something as serious as pandemic politics to a row about gender. But sadly it’s unavoidable; because our lives are now being run by NPHET and the government. And the women in both are so scarce as to be invisible.
Everywhere you look, the Lads are running the show. And if we know one thing about the Lads, it’s that they love their sport. How else do you explain a lockdown where only 25 people can go to a funeral, but 30 players can slug it out at a Championship match? Or one where you can’t sit six metres away in the garden with your elderly relatives, but you can bring your teenagers to football practice?
I don’t begrudge anyone for whom sport is a lifeline, but team sports in particular have been linked to spreading Covid. And the fact of them being outdoors doesn’t always help; the HSE’s own guidelines on close contacts include people you’ve spent time outside with.
Take the superspreader who was identified by the health board in the mid-west as infecting over 50 people after returning from overseas. He spread it to a family member, who then innocently went out to play a match. A number of teammates contracted the virus, and passed it on to others in their circle.
What, then, is the explanation for the special status of team sports in Lockdown Mark 2? Is it because they are good for your physical health? Sure, but so is the gym, and that’s closing its doors this week. So is hillwalking, but unless there’s a mountain within 5km of your front door, you won’t be doing that either.
Is it because they’re a vital lifeline for kids, as the government claims? Well, for some kids, yes. Not mine. But in our town, every other activity, from taekwondo to scouts to athletics to art class, is cancelled. It’s join a team or nothing, apparently.
Maybe it’s because team sports are good for mental health? But so is going to the theatre. So is going to the cinema. So is going to Mass. Honestly, the sight of my mother doing nightly prayers on Zoom is enough to break even my stony atheist heart.
And sure, sport fosters community spirit and connectivity at a time when it’s desperately needed. But so do knitting circles and book clubs and all the other gentler pursuits that give people a reason to get up in the morning. But I’m not sure the Lads do book club.
These things might seem small. But the absence of gender balance at the heart of government is a real problem. We saw it again this week with the confusion around childcare arrangements under lockdown. A more diverse cabinet would have clarified this in advance.
Unconscious bias has crept into our lockdown plan; a fuzzy notion that kicking a ball around will see us through this particular horror show, because, you know, Sport. Well, not in this house. Lads, I couldn’t care less who wins the Six Nations or lifts the Sam Maguire. But I would really, really like to see my parents.