When Donal Óg Cusack, the Irish hurling goalkeeper, came out in his autobiography in October, it meant the end of his own mother attending his games, because she couldn’t stand all the slurs aimed at her son. Now some 10 months after the Cork player in print went after the Kilkenny team’s fans, for being the most homophobic in the league, the team is finally responding.
In his book, Cusack wrote of Kilkenny: “The abuse coming down on me from the terraces is among the worst I can remember. It’s poison, but there is such glee in it. We are the unforgiven. They just don’t want us beaten, they want us torn limb from limb. The more disorder there is in Cork, the more Kilkenny likes to be thought fondly as the land of milk, honey and contentment. The GAA’s version of the Stepford Wives.”
I guess that translates as rilly harsh in Ireland? So here’s Kilkenny’s response:
Kilkenny have now responded through their former GAA president Nickey Brennan and former forward star Eddie Keher. Brennan stated Cusack’s comments about Kilkenny were “ungracious” and “totally unnecessary” while Keher said that he would not touch the goalkeeper’s book “with a forty foot pole.”
[…] Brennan said, “Donal Og Cusack’s book and his ungracious (and to be honest totally unnecessary) comments about Kilkenny hit a nerve, not just with the players, but with Kilkenny supporters at large. “Those ‘Stepford Wives’ comments from the Cork custodian will continue to haunt him for as long as he is involved in Cork and Kilkenny clashes.
Sounds like a … threat? Exactly the sort of thing Cusack was writing about?
How about we take this to the next level?
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robert
Yay for Catholic countries – bastions of equality and tolerance (not).
Edwoody
So they didn’t actually say he was wrong, then. They just said they didn’t like telling the truth.
Kieran
The best response to any homophobic abuse and bigotry is for the Cork team to whip the asses of the Kilkenny team. Winning is always the best revenge. Donal should remember that if the people “in the stands” had more athletic ability than him, they’d be the ones playing and he’d be watching.
murchu
@robert:
You mean Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal and Argentina which have full marriage equality?
Or Ireland, Uruguay, France, Colombia and Ecuador that have national civil union laws?
Or heavily Catholic Massachusetts, the first US state with marriage equality?
Best not to conflate the Vatican, which unfortunately is packed with many self-hating closet cases eager to vilify gays in order to deflect attention from their own sins, with ordinary Catholics.
robert
@murchu:
“Or heavily Catholic Massachusetts, the first US state with marriage equality?”
Was that because of the Catholicism (i.e. consistent with the dogma) or in spite of it? I suspect the latter.
After all, a Catholic who doesn’t follow the diktats of the Vatican isn’t a real Catholic.
Zach
Spain and Portugal also have experienced a profound shift in religious identity in the past twenty years, similar to what happened to Quebec in the Quiet Revolution. They’re not the rigidly Catholic countries they used to be.
FiveInARow
His comments are referring to Kilkenny’s fans attitude towards Cork in general not him. This artical completely missed the point of the book. He wasn’t even out when the match was played.
John Rogers you are an idiot and a fool. Learn to fact check before becoming hysterical.
Donal Og is a jumped up little shop steward who has a a go at anybody or anything he doesn’t like, be it opposition fans or his own county board. In his own mind everybody is out to get him. He has been on the receiving end of several beatings from Kilkenny so naturally we are all homophobic monsters. I was at that match he is referring to in Nolan park and enjoyed the beating Cork got because they made some uncalled for comments about us when we were winning all Irelands while they were on strike.
Donal is as hysterical and persecuted as the author
jason
Nickey Brennan sounds like a turd. Is there any way we can get the Irish gay community to protest outside his home?
As for the Irish, they’ve always struck me as being slightly off-kilter. Inbreeding????
jason
Those Irish fans who hurl abuse at Donal are probably the same guys who wank over pictures of lesbians. LOLOL!!!!
adman
Irish men in particular nauseate me. They are the most “chauvanist with a wink and a nod” I have ever come across. They make Italians look well evolved. Skeevy, two fisted drinking guys that smell, and this is in the gay bar? No thanks.
j
@adman: I’m irish, all my out, proud gay friends are irish and the fact that belfast pride was so well attended, considering how small the population is shows me that you don’t have a clue about irish men or the gay community in ireland. Someone who claims their “great grandmothers best friend was irish” doesn’t count btw. Back to america where you belong please.
L.
I went on vacation in Ireland, and quite frankly, people there were among the nicest, friendliest people I’ve met (apart for a couple of chavettes in, ironically, Cork.)
Setting aside the stupidity of proclaiming that (insert ethnic group) are (insert slur), I do agree with J here and wonder how many foul mouthers ever actually went.
adman
@j: I do belong in America, and you say that as if it’s a bad thing hmmm….remember that chauvanism charge? Seems to stand up here. Have fun with dank smell of your “scene” over there, I won’t be back, given the lack of guts you display legislatively. Praise Jesus, or whatever you self-haters do over there, k? Bye 🙂
Jeffree
I smell Jason’s odd stench in several of these posts. Anti-women, anti-Black, anti-Hispanic and now anti-Irish.
Jason: take your meds.
Lucas
In related news, Kilkenny beat Cork today by a score of 31-19 to advance to the championship game of hurling. Perhaps this was bad timing on Cusack’s part, to give Kilkenny bulletin-board material.
And furthermore, all the Irishmen that I have met, including the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, are kind, caring, and genuine human beings.
FiveInARow
@adman:
“I won’t be back”
You won’t be missed
FiveInARow
@Edwoody: He wasn’t wrong about the abuse he got, it just wasn’t directed at his sexuality. He never said it was directed at his sexuality, the author of this tripe just inferred that to further his own persecution complex.
The abuse was directed at him being a disingenuous gobshite. If he talked less and hurled more nobody would be abusing him from the stands.
Thankfully he got his arse handed to him yesterday by the “Stepford Wives”
adman
@FiveInARow: And when you come here to the Bay Area? I’ll be here. Be sure to fumigate yourself, the memory is one of an overwhelming smell everywhere, all the people, in shops, on buses, in pubs, what’s up with that funk seriously? And France was odorless for me, so go figure. 🙂 Fuck Ireland, if I didn’t get some decent waves I’d have shot myself…why is England so different? So many fewer Irishmen.
A611
if that adman hadn’t have shot himself….with an attitude like that he wouldn’t have been long finding someone who would! c**t.
adman
@A611: , see there we go with the chauvanism, it’s ever present with you waterheaded Irish. Cunt? really?
Donal
@adman: @Adman Ireland is far more tolarent than the U.S on average, of course there are some more liberal areas of the U.S like SF but mostly Ireland is way ahead. An openly gay man is actually joint favourite for president and if elected would be the first openly gay head of state in the world. He was the first gay person ever elected to a parliament in the world(openly).