Irish bobsleigh team wait on Winter Olympics decision

“Nuff people say, you know they can’t believe, Ireland, we have a bobsled team.”

So, Irelands branching out into winter sports. One bad winter and we suddenly consider ourselves experts on the subject sliding around on the ice. The obvious joke here is to compare Irelands trip to the Winter Olympics to the film Cool Runnings….so that’s what I’ll do. It might be lazy writing but the similarities are quite remarkable. Ireland and Jamaica are both islands in the Atlantic Ocean, Ireland and Jamaica have been ruled by Britain, Ireland and Jamaica both have a stereotype involving drug abuse, alcohol is technically a drug guys, sorry to be a buzzkill. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, no ones saying that, it’s just a drug.

“Comes with the house”

The cultural links between Ireland and Jamaica are not the strongest in the world, if the story for Cool Runnings had of taken place in New York instead of Jamaica I’d be sorted, of course if it had of taken place in New York it would have been a pretty crap film “We want you to go to the winter Olympics as a bobsleigh team”, “Yeah ok, we get lots of snow here and have lots of money to invest in things like bobsleighing so it won’t really be a problem at all, we might even win a medal”. Yes, the cultural links between Ireland and Jamaica are not that strong but there is one thing that everyone who bought a house in the 1980’s or has ever been to a student party can thank Jamaica for and that is Bob Marley’s legend album. I don’t have a statistic but I can be reasonably certain that there is at least 1 copy of “Legend” in every house in Ireland, I would go so far as to speculate that every time someone bought a house in the 80’s they were handed a copy of legend along with the keys. I know in my house there’s three copies. My sister bought a cassette tape, then when tapes gave way to CD’s she bought a CD, then I bought a CD because I wanted a copy, then she broke her copy so I copied my copy and gave her a copy…..then she moved out. So now there’s the cassette no one listens to, the CD which no one listens to and the CD copy which no one listens too because it’s on my ipod….so that four copies? Five if you count iTunes. The album is also a pre-requisite for college parties, if all through your college career you avoided hearing “Legend” in its entirety at a party then you must have gone to the Pontifical College in Maynooth.

“Oliver Cromwell: Have slaves, will sell”

Depending who you ask Oliver Cromwell is either a horrible bastard or a horrible bastard, he is however responsible for forging one concrete link between Ireland and Jamaica, Cromwell sent Irish slaves to Jamaica (and Barbados…..on a tangent Barbados also celebrates St. Patrick’s day officially, see you’re learning something). So it’s not just Bob Marley albums and bobsleighing that Ireland and Jamaica have in common, there’s also slavery, being islands and perceived substance abuse.

“We’re owed a win”

The thing about this bobsleigh gambit is its crazy enough to work and in the grand scheme of things we’re owed a spectacular win for Trojan effort. You know, having included that picture of Henry I upset myself, I thought it would be ok….but it’s still too soon. Let’s hope Aoife Hoey and Claire Bergin give ‘em hell and get a slow clap that builds into rapturous applause, that will show East Germany…..and the French.

-Dec

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