TV View: Multilingual commentators have us scrambling desperately for the cúpla focal

D’you know, there’s a reasonable chance that you could end up multilingual by following the exploits of contenders for the Republic of Ireland squad between now and the World Cup, which begins in a mere 260-ish days.

Over the last week alone we had commentaries on said exploits in Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Italian, German, Danish, Spanish, American and even a helping of “industrial” language, as the BBC’s Robyn Cowen apologetically described the fruity utterings from the touchline during Sunday’s Super League clash between Everton and Manchester United.

Granted, not all these games were brought to us by, well, entirely official channels, but a heap were, including TG4′s offering on Saturday of the conclusion of the National League’s title race, which had just the three teams in contention on the final day of the campaign.

TG4 have been spoilt; they’ve covered two of these title races thus far, and both have gone the distance, but you know what they say: “If you’re not in it, you can’t win it.”

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And their coverage of this particular battle royal was very excellent, complete with our Wexford v Shelbourne screen going whoooooosh to show us the latest big happenings in the Bohs v Athlone game. And nothing is more exciting on a title D-Day than a whoooooosh.

As it proved, though, Shelbourne had the temerity to banjax any hope of D-Day drama by beating Wexford 4-0, collecting their second title in a row without much of a fluster.

Still, SSE Airtricity League director Mark Scanlon was chuffed with the fare the league has produced, the 2022 edition deliciously competitive, and not even being chided by Máire Treasa Ní Cheallaigh for having to conduct his post-match chat as béarla could deflate him.

“I won’t test your Gaeilge at the moment, I know you’re getting there, it’s not as good as it could be, but we’ll have you absolutely fluent this time next year,” she said. That was Mark told, those of us who still blame Peig for our being unforgivably unfamiliar with our national language feeling his shame.

Mind you, when we tuned in to BBC Alba for Sunday’s game between Glasgow City and Celtic (not to be parochial about this, but Glasgow City are managed by our Eileen Gleeson, and had Claire Walsh and Emily Whelan in their starting line-up, while Claire O’Riordan was in the Celtic XI), Calum Macaulay may as well have been speaking Swahili.

He wasn’t, of course. He was speaking Scots Gaelic, although he showed marginally more sympathy than Máire Treasa to us monolingual losers by intermingling his commentary with a bit of Béarla.

It was many moons ago, while visiting the Isle of Skye, that a conversation struck up between a local gentleman speaking Scots Gaelic and another visitor who was speaking Irish Gaelic, and somehow they were able to communicate with each other despite it sounding, to uneducated ears, like one was speaking Vietnamese and the other Mandarin. All the while both trying to fight off the midges.

Anyway, Glasgow City prevailed, by a 2-1 scoreline, our Emily Whelan earning a penalty that sent them on their way — “peanas,” as Calum called it, which left some of us asking, “excuse me?”

It was a thing of wonder, and left those of who struggle with one language, never mind two or three, feeling hopelessly and enviously inadequate.

So, we’re guessing Máire Treasa could have understood Calum, no bother? Envy levels? Green.

Anyway, Glasgow City prevailed, by a 2-1 scoreline, our Emily Whelan earning a penalty that sent them on their way — “peanas,” as Calum called it, which left some of us asking, “excuse me?”

(Incidentally, Glasgow derbies aren’t uncommon in Scottish women’s football — in their Premier League, there’s Glasgow City, Glasgow Girls, as well as Celtic, Rangers and Partick Thistle from Glasgow. Eileen, you’d assume, isn’t earning much from mileage.)

Whelan, as it happens, is one of a bunch of players who left Shelbourne for English/Scottish shores the last couple of seasons, along with Jess Ziu, Izzy Atkinson (both West Ham), Jamie Finn (Birmingham City), Chloe Mustaki (Bristol City), Saoirse Noonan (Durham) and Ciara Grant (Hearts).

That’s a heck of a footballing brain drain, although Shels’ rivals would politely point out that the club isn’t shy about hoovering up the best of home-grown talent themselves.

True that, but still, the ability to regenerate after losing a conveyor belt of gifted folk means Shels deserve a mighty comhghairdeas.

Or, as BBC Alba put it at full-time, when they were doffing their cap to our Eileen and her charges, “Meal do naidheachd!”

Lost.

Damn you Peig.