I've always been  close to Ireland. My wife's a Gaelic-speaker from Belfast and two of my children have Irish names  ; the other an Irish middle name.
   Every Easter we used to go over by ferry for a grand family get-together in different locations.
  Most were well-chosen.
    Dungarvan on the south coast had a great music pub not far away, The Marine, and in Spiddal we were in the heart of the Connemara Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area) and at a place where The Waterboys recorded their marvellous album ' Fisherman's Blues'. In Co. Wexford we got to see the wild and wonderful Diarmuid O'Leary And The Bards perform late at night and  I learnt the true meaning of 'craic' as folk danced on tables and spew flew as often as laughter.
  Only once was there a disaster: a mini holiday park near Cork where the  facilities were virtually impossible to use and you had to pay an extortionate deposit, even on the crazy golf!
   Seeking out music sessions in pubs was usually a must and it's one thing we missed during our recent return, the first time in over a decade and so much pleasanter taking the ferry in summer.
   Of course, it's hard to assess a country from a brief visit. I visited Germany briefly before living there for a  year and my impressions were totally contrasting.
  There were noticeable improvements in Ireland despite the initial impact of a very rundown port at Rosslare.
   Motorways stretch from east to west and north to south, though we only travelled for a while  on one, after Limerick; and you do have to pay tolls.
   For the tourist, the most pleasing aspect has to be food and drink, though I suspect  staying in Galway wasn't representative of the whole country.
  In summer, Galway almost rivals Dublin as a tourist magnet for people from Europe and beyond.
   Food and drink used to be as predictable as mash and Guinness, but not any more.
   A small brewery not far away produced some of the best craft beer I've tasted since.....well, Punk IPA. And for a veggie like myself there one was restaurant called Powers in Aughterard which rivaled even the Felin Fach Griffin.
   The portions are amazing! Think fine dining, where you need a magnifying glass to see what's on your plate and imagine the opposite. 
   I was delighted to meet, for the first time. my fellow Red Poet Kevin Higgins from Galway .
   Kevin had kindly organised a joint reading at Charlie Byrne's Bookshop there and it was most enjoyable.
   The poems he read were topical and satirical, with a Swiftian punch to them. He's got two poems in the new issue of 'Red Poets' and is coming over to read in Merthyr next January.
  I felt very much at home reading there with a mic which didn't work (and wasn't needed anyway).
  I wonder how people reacted to my poems about The Troubles , set in the 1970s.
  I remember how my wife and her family (who had relatives 'down south') always said that the people there didn't really understand the situation 'up north'.
  When I think of popular culture there were contrasting responses. Bono and the Cranberries took the predictable line which suited the 'mainland', while Christy Moore sang songs written by Bobby Sands and praised him in 'The People's Own M.P.'.
   As someone totally committed  to the Welsh language it was sad to see that Gaelic had not advanced.
   It would probably take a Sinn Fein adminstration to act on this.
   We stayed right next to the Connemara Gaeltacht, yet I only heard two assistants in a supermarket talking it.
   There are schools and centres, but there are also many holiday homes ( an even worse problem in the  Irish-speaking areas of Donegal) and even  these 'linguistic reservations', marked out in green on my map, seem  fragile and threatened.  
   I wonder if it's possible, now that Catholicism is far less an expression of national identity ( especially among the younger generation) that there'll be an Irish language revival? I didn't see any evidence though.
   One thing that struck me was the large rainbow flag flying over the Spanish Arch in Galway City.
   After the impressive 'Yes' vote in the recent referendum on gay marriage (of 62%)  , it was certainly a sign of a country moving rapidly ahead.
   The many scandals which have embroiled the Catholic Church have questioned its right to take the moral high ground.
  Becoming increasingly secular, it has also become a far more tolerant society and the influence of important figures in popular culture such as Hozier, Villagers and 'Mrs Brown's Boys' have only accentuated this.
   As to the economy, it's hard to judge.
   As ever, the upturn seems to benefit the few and not the majority and places like New Ross and Tipperary reminded me of the Valleys , struggling desperately.
   Yet New Ross has the Dunbrody, a fascinating historical experience.
   It's a reconstructed migrant ship from the days of The Great Hunger and a tour of it gives you so much empathy with those faced by famine who were forced to leave their homes and head for the States and Canada.
   Many died on the voyages and the parallel with today's plight of the migrants and refugees is obvious. 
   As with Cymru, music and literature seem  part of an Irish way of life, never a divorced 'culture'.
   I recall once on the ferry climbing to the top, near the funnel, and witnessing an Uilleann piper playing there : full of the spirits of seagulls and the blustery wind.  
   I must return soon, not wait another decade. 


                           MULE  FIELD


All day they graze the long field
next to the Ross Demesne,
pulling at rye grass, ripping leaves
from bushes at the fringes.
They do not look as though
they've seen the  4 x 4
which has taken the rough track
up to the bog for loading.
All day and night their braying
horn-throats laugh with pain,
so you wonder if they feel
oddly-mottled  and yearn for grey.
All change of light and weather
they wallow in the pasture
with no memories of panniers
full of dark slabs of turf
heavy as winter on their backs.  
          

   On the eve  of Cardiff City's first match of the season v. Fulham, Stadium announcer of many years Ali Yassine  was sacked from his job, for both Bluebirds  and Wales games.
   Ali has been a Bluebirds' institution  :  a Grangetown man of Somalian and Egyptian heritage who speaks Welsh and wrote  a book in Welsh about his time at  the club he adores. He's as much part  of CCFC as blue shirts and the  Bluebird crest ( well, until Tan imposed that crazy red  on us).
   What had he done?
    Made an effigy of Tan and stuck pins in it in front of the directors?
   Dared mock the tiny Chinese worm-dragon on our new badge?
   Questioned manager Slade's adherence to 4-4-2 whatever the circumstances?
   The club has never explained why he was fired, nor has Ali offered an explanation yet.
   The one thing I do know is that since Ali's appalling treatment our announcers have been a complete embarrassment.
   First there was Richard Shepherd, once a programme editor and still a fine commentator, who was barely  audible and sadly sounded as if he was having an afternoon nap during the game.
   Last Saturday's match v. Huddersfield was even worse, as  there seemed   to be three announcers during the course  of it, each one a different definition of atrocious.
   The first was garbled, the second ( a woman with shrill voice) sounded like a Year 11 pupil   on Work Experience who'd been handed the mic and told to get on with it.
   The third  ( who might have been the first  as well, I couldn't make out) was shambolic! He got the name of our first goalscorer wrong and then seemed  to have given up when Hudds did a double substitution and resorted to using numbers  not names!
 Many signed a petition in the last few weeks  demanding Ali's reinstatement; but on Saturday the entire Canton stand led the loudest chant of the afternoon with 'We want Ali back!'
  Because Ali Yassine is part of our memories, part of our important rituals.
  At a time when there has been so much success in building a new sense of  unified purpose, based around the return to blue , a Bluebirds badge and even a mascot ; unity also based on a successful team playing much better football than last season......Ali's inexplicable dismissal is the one note of disharmony.
   He is part of our memories because the songs he would play when he was in charge of their selection were full of power and humour.
   He dared play the Super Furry Animals tribute to errant star Robin Friday 'The Man Don't Give A Fuck' and often Dafydd Iwan's stirring 'Yma o Hyd' would add passion to the build up.
   Above all, he pointedly mocked other teams , such as Brizzle City with The Wurzels and West Ham with the theme tune from 'Steptoe & Son'.
   Amazingly he got away with mocking former manager Dave Jones after defeats, by playing Bob Dylan's 'Ballad of a Thin Man' , with the lines - ' Cause something's happening and you don't know what it is / Do you, Mr Jones?'
   Even when he no longer chose the play-list  and it generally became techno-drab, Ali's catchphrase of 'Support the boyz and make some NOIIIIIIIIIZE!' was as integral to our pre-match ritual as a pint or two of real ale and a route to the ground which mustn't be altered.
  His use of Cymraeg was vital to our games and those of Cymru.
  Message-board bigots may've celebrated its demise, but a substantial number of our fans are Welsh-speaking.
   We have become less of a Welsh club now that Ali has gone.
   He had been sacked one time before for criticizing the 'prawn sandwich' brigade, yet later re-appointed.
   This time there seems no way back and our directors obviously weren't listening to the fans who made their opinions clear.
   Ali didn't want to leave and bought his own ticket for that first game. The man from Cardiff was understandably 'Gobsmacked!'.
  Apparently the club has consulted some fans ( who, I don't know) and now appointed two announcers, who will alternate.
   One is ice-hockey announcer Mark Johncock and the other Huw Day, who has worked for some while at the club.
   Our fans' views, once again, have been treated with disdain. Ali Yassine should be honoured , not humiliated.


                       'WE WANT  ALI  BACK!'


'We want Ali back!
Said we want Ali back!'

Loudest chant of the afternoon
as announcers fumble,mumble and cock-up
like goalies letting the ball slip
through their gloves into the net.

We miss the Man on the Mic,
catchphrase 'Support the Boyz!'
A jester, town-crier , DJ
and totally  one of us.

' Boneddigesau a boneddigion!'
language fascists might mock
but this was Ali Yassine
Cymro Cymraeg Kaaairdiff  man.


Cut him, he'll bleed blue blood;
from Ninian to the new stadium
through the dark days of Tan's red
when  he'd  welcome 'Adar Gleision!'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

   What can I possibly say to persuade my fellow football fans?

   A state which drove so many of its population away (the Palestinians) and which bombed their refugee camps in the Lebanon.
   A state with more nuclear weapons than Britain, which sold arms to apartheid S.Africa and became its closest military ally.
   A state which has, on its border, the world's largest prison camp, namely Gaza, and which only last year it bombed and devastated with impunity killing over 2000 citizens.
   A state supported by the West in its global strategy to police the Middle East : a vital ally.
   A state that created the very conditions in which its arch-enemy Hamas could thrive, because it consistently refused to negotiate a settlement with secular left-wing Palestinian representatives.
   A state which plays football in Europe  because it wishes to maintain a veneer of normality and respectability.
   Democracy, like Britain in n. Ireland, is totally irrelevant. 
   A so-called democratic state can also operate as a police state. And football, as with any other area of society, is subject to that.
   The case of Mahmoud Sarsak goes back to 2009, but has been repeated many times since.
   Only last May the entire Palestine Olympic football team were detained for a period.
   But if you examine the experiences of Sarsak, it shows perfectly how Israel operates.
   For propaganda purposes it boasts about its own team comprising players of different religions.
   That is not the point.
   The point is that Palestinian footballers are and have been treated with utter degradation, in a similar way that Britain used to treat Irish people (think of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six).
   To detain someone without trial merely on suspicion ; to keep that person incarcerated for three years as he claimed political status and went on hunger strike....... all these features are much closer to Britain's own recent history than we'd care to admit.
   Israel does operate a form of apartheid, just as racist as the regime in South Africa once did.
   Palestinians are treated as second class citizens in their own land on every level and football is no exception.
   I was proud to march with the pro-Palestine demo in Cardiff yesterday before the game v. Israel.
   I was extremely disappointed to miss such a game, but some things really are more important and the need to expose the terrorist Israeli state is paramount.
   Of course, as so many speeches at the rally argued, it's fundamental that a boycott of Israel becomes as far-reaching as the Anti-Apartheid Movement once was.  
   As Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Chair and Merthyr singer-songwriter Jamie Bevan said in his speech - ' It's not about religion, it's about people and their suffering....it's about imperialism.'

   At the demo I kept seeing the name 'Sarsak', without knowing its significance.
   Celtic fans, as we entered the park near CCFC Stadium, sported it and it was on several other banners.
   I decided to find out and wrote this as a result :-


                          BALLAD  OF  MAHMOUD  SARSAK


The great Bill Shankly once said
'Football's not a matter of life and death,
it's much more important than that!'
He was so right, but also wrong,
just look at Mahmoud Sarsak.


All he wanted was to play football
for clubs of his country Palestine,
but he was arrested by the Israelis
while on his way to a game ;
they claimed he was a jihadi.


Detained for 3 years under autocratic laws,
shamocracy like the Wee Six once was,
Sarsak was imprisoned and abused
without even a hint of evidence;
while Netanyahu said politics and sport don't mix.


On hunger strike as a protest
when fellow footballer Issa died on release,
Sarsak lost half his body weight
and still they force-fed him in the cell ;
like Sands he proclaimed ' I'm no criminal!'


Three years of total deprivation
with only rolled-up paper at his feet,
Mahmoud Sarsak returned to Gaza
and though he'd lost so much of himself,
his name was a roar at oppressor's defeat.