Ireland: Isle of Sports

[Music] suddenly out of the sky without any idea at tall of where you might be and if the first thing you saw was a small gray Church you would know that you were somewhere in Christendom but if the empty Village human Sol stir and only the patients are waiting each in its own manner Faithfully or just waiting then you would know that you were in the green land of Ireland on a Sunday [Music] morning it's not all together for nothing that Ireland has been called the aisle of Saints and Scholars the Saints are scarcer now that we have our share of Scholars still but most of us are content to jog along as something a little less than [Music] either in Ireland The Village priest is a figure of considerable power and influence and certainly not to be taken lightly by anything as insignificant as a small boy with a hurling stick but in Ireland his reverence is as likely as not a player too [Music] the boy with the hurling stick was only one of thousands up and down the land to whom all the cricket the baseball the hockey and even International Football itself are mere pastimes against the mighty sport of hurling and the Mighty Man who play it hurling is the Irish national game it's Origins lost in Antiquity but its skills formidable and modern here at krog Park in Dublin where all good hurlers hope to go before they die the all isand trophy is at stake today of course all this talk you hear about the Irish being excitable is just nonsense when you look at these boys now now all tangled up like weasels in a bag and hardly a hair astray among them we're not people to get excited about a [Applause] game get after it man don't just stand there tackle him oh goal as I was saying curling is a fine game for a man with a cool head and a sharp eye and even in its quietest moments a new explosion is always only seconds away [Applause] disgust or Delight The Spectator can take his choice in his choice of game too here it's galic football and once again it's never too soon to start for is not the child father to the finalist and the school playing field the first step up to that same field where all the great men go and which is headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association the largest amateur Association of the world cro Park [Music] [Applause] gaic football has been called the Irish temperament in motion fiery fluent and fearless the man who guards that goal could look a cannon in the [Applause] mouth although the volcanic style of gaic football is dear to the heart of an Irish crowd let it never be said said that all our sports are homebred for we play rugby too even if we didn't invent it [Music] ourselves actually we imported it from our neighbors but this is one foreign item in the curriculum that Irish school boys are prepared to study with all the concentration and Earnest attention appropriate to a subject in which they all hope one day to defend the honor of Ireland itself for in Rugby 2 Ireland has an international team as Gallant as Annie and even when they don't win they do better they deserve to [Music] the Irish pack is tough and Gallant whether it's forwards or hounds and surely only a fox could find fault with these Beauties to adapt a famous epigram uh by an Irishman of course the pursuit of the uneatable by the unbeatable for unbeatable is the only word for the Irish Hunter of today evolved through the centuries over the formidable Irish Country [Music] there's still nothing that stirs the blood of Irishman young or old like the sound of the huntsman's horn crying gone away [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the Royal Dublin society's annual Horse Show at ballsbridge which the world called the Dublin Horse Show really brings home even to the most casual spectator what the horse St stands for in Ireland for every August Dublin is invaded by Horsemen from all over the world to say nothing of hundreds of horses of every conceivable confirmation shape size age temperament and [Music] classification as usual the young entry is well to before and nobody takes the preparations for the events more seriously or pays greater attention to their turnout than these young people for a week now the city has given over to the world of horses and every day Dublin's own airport and the international field of Channon in the west see the pride of the Stables of Europe and America picking their way democratically among the mere humans on the tarmac [Music] The Travelers have arrived two-legged and four-legged each in their own way and nothing now remains to launch the great occasion but the arrival on the showr of the president of Ireland himself teams from all the countes represent at ballsbridge ride past the president there go the South Africans next in line the Spanish team pay their respects close behind them come the British and last the hosts to all of them the Irish team now as the bands fall silent and the crowds Edge forward in their seats the battle for the aaan trophy begins [Applause] [Applause] it [Applause] [Music] behind the successes of the hunter the show jumper or the racehorse there is always that magic word breeding and here on the plane of kildair is the home the nursery and the finishing school of the Irish thbr horse and the Irish racehorse in particular here's true aristocracy for you the top of the cream of the very best among horses and elegance and beauty that would soften the heart of a bookie the nursery did we say well if it is it's a royal Nursery with anxious eyes following every move of the princelings at Play as they jump for joy on this Brave New World which will one day demand of them the duty it expects of [Music] royalty faint and far lies the C of kildair wrapped in The Mists of the morning an endless space floating in a time outside time as the horses pass like elegant rates before the trainer's eye a strange place in the early morning haunted Maybe by The Ghosts of great horses long [Music] gone small man and great horses dedicated both rehearsing for the Moment of Truth they will face together when and they leave the quiet empty plane of the Kura for the white rails of the race [Music] course [Applause] 11 number 12 [Music] [Applause] [Music] we the the one way please [Music] [Music] some on the start [Music] to [Music] [Applause] [Music] and yet there are some people in the country sporting people too who wouldn't give you so much as a Blind Man's blink for a horse race for them it's the dogs some watch them some breed them for this is every man's sport and if you know what you're about and have the look you might raise a champion in your own backyard [Music] whether you're a big man or a small man it's all the same you feed them as well as you know how and leave most of the rest to Nature and the P training comes later and is a serious and professional business for every trainer will tell you familiarity breeds contempt by the dog pet a greyhound they say and rear a loser it's business right down the line and no favors asked or given [Music] sooner or later the day comes when the feeding and the training the discipline and the exercise all add up to one thing it's time to load up your four-legged hopes and drive them away to the track now you can only hope and pray it's up to them [Music] for every Irishman who loves one sport you'll find another who loves another and any way you can think of to put man or beast to the test and to have a bet on the result you may be sure we've thought of it too and made a game out of it [Applause] [Music] whether it's one of the international games that everyone knows from Singapore to the Isle of Aon or something more specialized like hambor the game that gives you the grace and speed of a ballet dancer and Pals like The Souls of a Cannibal's feet you'll find Irishman playing it a foot a float however oddly are precariously or in the special case of the famous Dublin waiters race flat out on a wheelbarrow down oconnell street it's quieter here will you look at that like an egg on a blanket you know it's been said that Ireland is just one big gulf course with Railways running between greens now that's a bit of an exaggeration because a lot of the space is taken up by the RAC trcks and the football fields still it's never difficult to find somewhere to play golf often in beautiful country if you don't take your eyes off the ball to look at it well she kept her eye off the scenery now look at those fellas killer is the pair of them set down among jewels of Irish scenery rich and rare at eyes for nothing but the hazards of the game e [Music] but if it's fishing you care for there's a very special State of Affairs in Ireland you should know about from time to time we hear Tales of Anglers and foreign parts lashing the water for as much as 10 minutes at a time and never a bite to show for it extraordinary but an island is not a toall like that for as everyone knows St Patrick the decent man banished the snakes out of Island but it seems he overlooked the fish and ever since we've had more fish infested waters in proportion to dry land than any other country in Europe [Music] indeed if it weren't for the constant vigilance day and night if it weren for the supernatural ability with Rod and line exercised by all ages and Sexes the country would be overrun with fish you know not long back there was a tourist over in conamara who met one of the local Lads on his way home from tinning out the fish tell me Su Heaven Help his ignorance are there many fish hereabouts now the poor lad was well brought up and quite unable to tell a lie though he did his best fish is it Su the rivers are polluted with them but praise be some of the lakes are still clear of the creatures in general Irishmen are fond enough of water in its right place which is of course outside the human frame and every year as spring comes round again hundreds of them take to it like ducks and you can see every sort of boat too and every size for No One Minds if it's only big enough for one as long as two can get into it and it's not because of the expense for nothing in Ireland is really expensive it's just that alone one hasn't the fun of seeing who can get the wetest [Music] [Applause] it's a wonder really how some of these small crafts stay afloat of course some of them don't not all our ships are little ones either for up in the North Belfast builds some of the largest ships in the world and has launched Europe's biggest passenger liner to be built since the war here in the north you'll see the same skill and enthusiasm at work or at play as anywhere in Ireland for it is not only in the world of sport that the coordination of hand and ie together make the master Craftsman [Music] industry can take many forms but fundamentally all industry is concerned with supplying some human want some deep need of modern man and what need could be greater than this I ask you [Music] gallons of the stuff barrels of it tasks of it and all made in Ireland in what was once the biggest Brewery in the world but has grown now till it's bigger than [Applause] that but this is fuel of Another Kind entirely for down south in the County Cork the White gate oil refinery is already taking in crude oil from tankers at these massive installations and refining it into irish-made petroleum [Music] products the refinery at White gate still gleaming in its new paint is one of the most upto-date in the whole of Europe you can't get much more modern Than [Music] This Modern oh yes for this is Ireland modern and Outlook in customs sometimes ancient our age-old Paradox cupboard carts as old as travel Creek along roads smooth as any in Europe but which can still present a quite unmodern and unscheduled stop to admire the quiet [Music] Countryside and it's a Countryside that still belongs to the farmer and his way of life but a farmer who moves with the times and isn't afraid to let the 20th century onto his land here in keani there are places as wild and as beautiful as when man first saw them in a continent which is shrinking almost daily before the advance of the Cities the motorways and the airfields it's still possible to feel that 300 years have been silently called back from the Lost land of time only to discover around the next Hill that this is indeed the 20th century and a very tolerably organized Century too [Music] the beauty of Kanani is a natural beauty its lakes and mountains have stood since long long before the first Shepherds LED their sheep over the Heather but there is man-made Beauty in Ireland too not least on the wide cool streets of Dublin the city that still has a sky e [Music] Dublin at night is another thing altogether and nearer perhaps to the strange vision of the world that children have which is both truer and less true than the world there Elders see Irish Paradox again and perhaps rightly for the eyes of a child May well be the best eyes through which to look at this Green Island and if the child offers is only another Paradox who is to say that it's not right and that these pictures of their Homeland by the children of Ireland may not be a truth we're getting too old to recognize [Music] this then was a glance over our shoulder as it were at the green and friendly aisle of Ireland an Ireland off duty when a patch of grass or a bit of water brings Irishmen out to play but perhaps there's been time to give you a passing glimpse of the other Ireland we spoke of at the start the land of poets and Painters extroverts and Mystics Sportsmen we are indeed workers too in our own way Scholars we try to be and Saints please God we hope someday some of us may become if we hurry all [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]