COLM TOBIN: Switch on the heating yet? I say ‘Down with this sort of thing!’

Have ye turned on the heating yet? I’ve been hanging around the thermostat all week like Dougal Maguire staring at the ‘Do Not Press’ button. 

I’m still holding out.

Turning on the heating for the first time is a small tragedy, a tiny nail in the coffin of summer and a surrender to the dreary months to come.

This time of year does bring back lovely cosy memories of childhood, of the evenings getting dark in Clonakilty as my mother locked up her children’s boutique on Ashe Street, of open fires and smoke billowing from rooftops. 

But there’s still a part of me clinging psychologically to summer days.

The thermostat is staying down for now, the jumpers are going on instead, and we will resist for a small bit longer.

But we all know that resistance is futile. 

Make space for unity

There are weeks when you can marvel at the innovative brilliance of mankind and then in the same breath be confronted by the extremes of our stupidity. 

This has been one of those weeks.

We had the Osiris-Rex capsule landing back on Earth which promises secrets from the start of the universe – an outstanding scientific achievement. Nasa nerds, as they are officially known, launched the mission in 2016. They sent the capsule on a 4bn-mile round journey to the asteroid Bennu where it took samples to bring back to Earth. That’s the equivalent of trying to pick Bundee Aki’s pocket while at full tilt in the Stade de France.

Last week, Osiris-Rex reached speeds of up to 43,450 km/h and its heatshield reached temperatures of 2,900 Celsius as it burst through Earth’s atmosphere and landed in Utah like a long-anticipated Amazon delivery from the cosmos. 

Samples are now being sent out to scientists worldwide to carry out extended research, in a rare showing of international solidarity during a divided age. We’re wonderful, astonishing creatures when we want to be.

Another step toward glory

SPEAKING of wonderful things, the Irish rugby team took us another glorious step closer to the promised land over the weekend, with a nail-biting, heart-stopping win over the World Champions South Africa in Paris. We withstood the terrifying muscle of The Boks and showed a resolve and self-belief that has long eluded Irish teams at this level. It’s exciting and exhilarating to watch but also a little bit terrifying. 

The prospect of this team not getting beyond a quarter final is something I can barely countenance. It would be so unjust but we all know how cruel sport can be.    

Unfortunately, just as I was enjoying the relief after the game on Saturday, I had the misfortune of opening Twitter, now known as X, where every donkey in the country seemed to be gathering to pick a fight about a song.

On the one hand, we’re world beaters finally reaching our potential on a global stage, and on the other, we’re dealing with the same old tribal bigotries and small-mindedness that was always there.

There are a lot of people online, usually with a plethora of tricolours festooning their profiles, who take umbrage at the Irish rugby fans’ adoption of The Cranberries’ song Zombie, which lit up the terraces on Saturday. According to some, Zombie is an affront to the nationalist community in Northern Ireland and should not be sung because of its deeply offensive message.  

The song was written by Dolores O’Riordan as an anti-terrorism lament about the murder of two children by the IRA in Warrington in 1993. Although it’s a pretty clunky song, most people would not disagree with the sentiment.

A lot of these keyboard warriors need to learn a thing or two. The vast majority of the people in the Stade de France aren’t singing Zombie for political reasons – it’s a song Munster fans adopted from Limerick hurling fans simply because that’s where the Cranberries are from.

There’s a bit of reverse snobbery going on here, I think, with non-rugby zealots painting all the Irish rugby fraternity as South Dublin poshos. The truth is that most of Ireland has moved beyond those limiting stereotypes and the game is enjoyed by a broad church of fans most of whom are singing Zombie because it’s a Cranberries song from Limerick and it’s catchy.

Most of the same people giving out about it online were, for the very same reason, defending the kids at Electric Picnic for singing Up The ‘Ra a few weeks ago. Sure it’s only a song, they said!

The prospect of an Irish team supported by nationalists and unionists alike achieving something historic seems to be lost on them. Victory in the competition would have a more positive influence on community bonds and the prospect of a truly shared island than a million online trolls, sniping from the sidelines. 

To be honest, what I find offensive is we can’t have a Cork song in there. It’s either a Limerick song or a song about some field in Galway - I’d vote for a daycent song like After All by the Frank & Walters. 

Vitriol at Dáil was new low

THE scenes outside the Dáil last week were fairly depressing, I have to say. The gallows on display and the ugly threatening vitriol felt like a new low, that a rubicon had been crossed. 

The numbers were small and the guards displayed a lot of restraint by not turning the idiots into martyrs. Whether they can maintain such restraint in the context of what happened in the UK to Jo Cox and David Amess is another question. Let’s hope we never cross that line.

But for every idiot bigot out there, there’s a hero waiting in the wings. I was cheered when I read that 80-year-old Dublin grandad and former truck driver John O’Rourke abseiled down the side of Croke Park in a Spiderman suit to raise money for cancer.  A far better way to spend your free time in my opinion and also a potential route to Cork getting our hands back on Sam next year?