Bernadette McAliskey: Reflections on sports and community

At its most energetic this will involve a little walking, but strolling might better describe the pace.

A leisurely swim of short duration in waters that are always cold until you are in them to the neck may materialise depending on the weather and willingness of the body invariably lagging behind that of the spirit.

Most repetitive expending of my physical energy will involve turning the page of a book.

If reading books had been an Olympic Sport, I could have been a contender.

As it is, I freely confess to being the absolute worst person in the world at any sporting activity, including even tiddledywinks and marbles which might someday be on the Olympics agenda.

Nonetheless -with due acknowledgement and apologies to both John Milton and Psalm 27:14 - they also serve who only sit and watch.

The Paris Olympics will be on the home straight as you read.

The shenanigans of BBC and RTÉ over the coverage of the event in the North resulted in a great many people in here missing out on seeing all our local sporting heroes in action but fingers are crossed and hopes high for all our local competitors still in the field whatever their discipline and national team, with a special shout for prospects of Fermanagh Gold.

The self-interest, poor sportsmanship (or is that sportsperson-ship) and sheer pettiness of both State-supported media outlets was mirrored in some of the ‘twat-tweets’ and other social media commentary from those who never miss an opportunity to put their personal prejudices and/or ignorance on public display as if competing for a gold medal in the art of disgracing yourself.

The rest of us revelled in a sporting week that started with a fairy tale ending for Armagh GAA who waited twenty-four years to lift the Sam Maguire taking the trophy North to Ulster and ended with two young swimmers, 23-year-old Daniel Wiffen and 24-year-old Jack McMillan, and rower Hannah Scott ending a 36-year drought of Northern Irish Olympic gold medal winners. Three in a row!

By the time the games close, more medals will hopefully be secured either as part of the Irish team or Team GB.

The right of self-determination is an individual human right. Northern Ireland athletes have the opportunity and are entitled to choose and best position themselves in progressing their sporting ambition.

They are not required, nor should they be, to fit in the stereotypical box somebody else shaped for them. Nobody should have to do that about anything.

What is wrong with people who resent the joy of others that have no impact on those who don’t want to engage, and are at no disadvantage because of the activity? 

But at the same time take personal joy in diminishing, insulting and abusing people, just because they don’t fit into their narrow, distorted and supremacist little boxes created for them without their consent.

In this community of place, whatever you choose to call it, we have fewer than two million people. 41 of them qualified for the Paris Olympics.

What’s not to celebrate?

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At the end of July, I had the pleasure of finally making it to the Fiddler’s Green Festival in Rostrevor.

I had been invited to participate on several occasions before but both Tommy Sands, whose brainchild it is, and I had come to the conclusion we were jinxed as each time fate intervened in the plan. Not this time.

The whole festival lasts a week with outdoor and indoor sessions. The venue for many of the indoor events, including the evening gathering of song and conversation, of which I was part, was An Cuan which translates to the English as ‘The Harbour'. 

Originally a retreat centre, owned I think by the Presbyterian Church, the centre is run by YWAM, pronounced as WHAM which stands for Youth with a Mission. It is a part of a global youth movement and self-identifies as a multicultural, Christ-centred community in Northern Ireland with a passion for peace and reconciliation.

What you might ask would decent Christians be at having an agnostic–cum-atheist–cum-potential pagan about the place, and a left wing socialist to boot?

I confess that I wondered about that myself before I got there. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know I was coming.

I was unable to join the party before 6pm and missed the afternoon session about Music as Healing but I had the opportunity to meet and listen to the doctors, musicians and those who were both doctors and musicians over the course of the evening as only informal gatherings permit.

The ease with which strangers found connections and opposites found each other’s perspectives interesting and thought provoking and found a common identity both in music and also identifying with and caring passionately about something else was in large part due the setting, the aura of calm acceptance and the shared enjoyment of good company.

It was a diverse gathering of political views, religions, nationalities, identities, folksongs and musical instruments which included Michael Hanrahan leading a shared performance of a young Iranian/Persian woman singer and guitar player who found home in Belfast, a genius of a Grecian bazooka player; a Hawaiian professor of medicine equally accomplished on the viola, a hilarious self-deprecating song-writer psychiatrist from the USA, Michael himself on guitar leading the vocals, and a young local woman singer songwriter. Where else would you get it?

My main role in the proceedings, other than conversing, was to present the annual Creative Arts Award to Linda Irvine for her contribution to widening the circle of the Irish Language.

Linda Irvine is a remarkable woman whose story is one of childhood isolation and exclusion but also resilience, endurance and inner strength that she didn’t know she had until each time she had to draw on it to survive.

May she continue to thrive, be happy and inspire.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.