EPIC POETRY

“I have lived in important places, times When great events were decided”

So begins Patrick Kavanagh’s ode to his parish, celebrating the local and ‘ provincial’ skirmishes that make up the epic comic-tragic poem of our lives.

Local news is much more exciting than national news. It’s gossip and tragedy and entertainment; both sardonic and sympathetic, as long as it is not happening to you. Oh there but for the grace of God go I.

A national political scandal is good - but a local councillor in trouble is better. A World Cup is wonderful - but a local derby is truly magnificent. A sex scandal in Washington is entertaining - but a local link? Truly delicious.

Will Ballygiblin vs Skeheenarinky go down in the annals of national history? Unlikely. It won’t make Reeling in the Years, and it won’t make Oliver Callan’s roundup of the year.

But will all on the Cork/Tipperary border remember the joy, the sorrow, the jesting - and the burning of posters? Yes, they will. The Iliad was made from a ‘local row’ like this one.