Don't know why, but I've been feeling a bit grumpy lately. Bolshie, as they used to say in the Seventies. I get up in the morning and I am emphatically not Tom, a drop of golden sun.

I suspect it started when the EU announced that we were forbidden to give money to Aer Lingus in case it affected the money-grubbing capabilities of some union-busting suits who run their mouths better than they run their airlines. I like Aer Lingus. I like it because it's part of what we are, part of what we need out here on this island. I liked seeing it in Tehran the other night, just the re-assuring symbolism of it. If the Brits can get derogations from Human Rights legislation, well, I won't be voting pro-Europe till our little community can give our money to our airline. So there.

Then there was our own in-house news about the record circulation being such a mistake that one-third of us will have to go. We workers have been such fools. And then there was Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ.

When I heard that Seβn Potts was doing a biography with P O SΘ my heart was filled with empathy. Too often have I made the long journey to Ventry only to be welcomed by a salmon salad, some drink and a fleeting glimpse of Pβid∅'s backside sweeping out the door when the tape recorder was produced. As go brβch leis ar n≤s na gaoithe. Potts suggested that he would be spending large amounts of time down there coursing Pβid∅ until such time as he filled his notebook. If I was worth anything at all as a friend, I would have said that it would be easier to mind mice at the crossroads.

Everyone in the country knows an anecdote about Pβid∅. Everyone in the country knows that Pβid∅ will confirm or deny none of the anecdotes. But, of course, I said to Pottsie that this was a splendid idea and sent the poor man off to war never expecting to see him again.

Which brings me to the narky, bolshie bit. Bad enough that Potts should be back swanning around town with a fine, well-written book, but reading it makes me realise what Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ has been depriving us of these past few years.

Parts of the book and parts of the subsequent interviews I have heard are long on justification for Pβid∅'s tactic of keeping his mouth shut in front of the media. It works for Pβid∅ and it works for the players. We should all get over it.

Well, no. If Seβn Potts' book teaches us anything it is that here in west Kerry there is a part of life almost lost to us. It is a wonderful place and we should be celebrating it. And Pβid∅? Here is a man I once asked did he have thoughts in English or in Irish, and he had to think for five minutes before he could answer.

This is a place filled with cultural treasure, a way of life that has survived the shallowing breath of the Celtic Tiger. This world of the west Kerry car, it's heroic occupants and their forefathers is part of what we are. It's our antidote to homogenisation and the Man United Superstore. And Pβid∅, has closed it off.

The current Kerry teams' culture of tightlippedness has betrayed the game which they play so well. We live in a time when we need our own flesh and blood heroes, when we need to show kids that there is a satisfaction to be derived from sports which is unrelated to money and bound solely in love. Kerrymen and their football best exemplify that.

But Maurice Fitz never tells of his life in Cahirciveen, and SΘamus Moynihan is a mystery to us all. Mike Frank Russell has chosen a life behind the veil as well. Meanwhile, here in Dublin men and women are breaking their hearts trying to produce Gaelic heroes for their kids. Kerry (and Kilkenny), the Brazilians of our games, have set the tone in making sure that whatever they say, they say nothing.

They should get over it. They should be bigger than that. It's daft to expect a fellow to play football in front of 70,000 people but not to allow him have a conversation with a journalist, to make him dodge and duck phone calls all summer. And it's primitive of GAA managers to clip the most innocuous quotes out of newspapers and pin them up on dressing-room walls. If that's all they can come up with to motivate players, then the players won't be there for them at the death.

And it's criminal to shut off a unique part of the sporting world, a culture that we should be celebrating and propagating. Pβid∅ has won and he has lost through his paranoia. He has won two All-Irelands, but his Kingdom, his beloved Kerry, has somehow become smaller and more anonymous. Honey, I shrunk the legend.

Where's the fun and the swagger and the joy? Quit worrying and share the part of Ireland you are king of, free these players to be heroes and young gods, take the worry from their brows. Enjoy this life the way SΘan Boylan does.

Wisely, Seβn Potts opted not to sit Pβid∅ down and ask him to confirm or deny every single yarn that is in circulation about him, nor did he force him to trawl in minute detail through every single controversy of the past few years. He has been criticised for that approach, but there is nothing duller than reheats. Just listen to Ger Loughnane on the radio talking about how his own book will give his version of the Colin Lynch affair. Nobody likes Ger more than this column likes Ger, and no column was more devoutly on Ger's side than this column was on his side in 1997; but it was four years ago, it wasn't quite Watergate. We're all over it now. I want to know what went into making Ger Loughnane the remarkable man he is.

Sean Potts has taken an area of Irish life and shone a light on it, he has given us an idea of what it's like Being Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ. He has opened the head of a man who is much loved and much maligned. Hopefully Pβid∅ has enjoyed the experience, has noted that the world didn't end, that the gods of football didn't smite him for a bit of confidence, a bit of self-expression.

A piece of glasnost is what the GAA needs right now and a slice of Kerry living is what the country wants. We can't live our lives as digits in profit and loss accounts, we can't make every peg in Europe fit into a standard size hole. What we are, our character, the people we want to become, these are the important things. I'm not up for being a euro slave. Give me Pβid∅ any day over some motor-mouthed, union-busting suit.