An Irishman's Diary

FOLLOWING this column’s uncanny prediction of the outcome of the Ireland-Australia rugby match, I have been inundated with e-mails from a reader seeking guidance about tonight’s Lotto. I’ll come back to that in a moment. But first, now that I’ve been outed as a prophet, I should perhaps explain the part of my forecast that did not come true.

When I said Ireland’s victory would be “crowned” (note the implication that the game would already be won by then) with a “last-minute try by Tommy Bowe”, that was indeed my interpretation of the blinding flash in which Saturday’s events had been revealed to me. It’s just that, as the term “blinding flash” implies, visibility is not always optimum on these occasions.

Replaying my vision with the benefit of hindsight, I now see that what looked like the golden rays of sunshine enveloping Tommy as he dived over in the corner was in fact a chunky Australian number 14, pulling him down a yard short of the line. My apologies to anyone who rushed out after reading the column and backed Bowe to be the game’s first try-scorer.

These supernatural gifts can be uncertain, as the protagonist of Brian Friel’s play Faith Healer (whose name, by coincidence or not, was Frank) knew. Just like his power to cure the lame and halt, my ability to tell the future comes and goes, fleetingly. And even while it’s here, as in the rugby preview, there is often an element of equivocation in the insights afforded.

A number of alleged friends have unkindly reminded me, for example, about another forecast made in this column some time ago, just before the launch of the Dublin rental bike scheme. On the subject of which, yes, I did predict that “300 bicycles” would quickly end up “at the bottom of the canal”. Whereas, in fact, the success of the scheme has been such that, as reported yesterday, Ireland’s capital is now a model for the rest of the world.

And no, I will not pretend to have foreseen Dublin turning into Copenhagen overnight, as appears to have happened. But if you examine that phrase “at the bottom of the canal” again, you may find I was not so far out. Contrary to a forecast of large-scale vandalism, the truth I was grasping at, unbeknownst even to myself, was the rapid expansion of the scheme beyond the canals that initially contained it.

As you look at the map, there are as yet no bikes available at the bottom of the Canal (Grand). But hundreds are promised there soon, in such places as Rathmines, Donnybrook, and Clonskeagh. Ditto at the top of the Canal (Royal), in Cabra and Ballymun. Imperfect though my prediction may have sounded to careless ears, the record will show that I did not at any stage suggest bikes would end up “in” a canal.

That said, I am reluctant to risk my hard-won reputation on such questions as the result of the presidential election, despite being challenged to do so by Paul Delaney (Letters, yesterday), who is hoping thereby to take money off Paddy Power.

As it happens, only last week, I did have a vision of the imminent arrival in the Park of a short, dark, stranger who would bring great happiness to Ireland. But as the following day’s newspaper revealed, this turned out to be a baby hippo at the Dublin Zoo. So I would be the first to admit that the visions of Paddy Power tend to be more reliable than mine.

Witness the same Ireland-Australia match, before which that firm was offering to refund all try-scoring bets if the number 11 winger from either side got the first. It seemed generous at the time, whereas we now know that nobody of any number scored a try. So that as usual, the bookies laughed all the way to the mattress (which, canny as they are, is probably where they now keep their money).

No. I’ll leave the presidency alone for now and stick to predictions about which I feel absolute certainty: such as that, by the time you read this, (1) stock markets will have opened somewhere in the world; and (2) traders will be nervous.

As for the mid-week Lotto, I probably shouldn’t get involved, given the chances. But it just so happens that, as with the rugby, I do have a strong hunch. So although it’s likely to be a close-run thing, in which the hop of a ball could decide the result either way, I’m going to stick my neck out and predict a draw, with a replay on Saturday. You can put your house on that.