A proper homecoming for Padraig Harrington – now what would that be?

Tadhg Harrington says the Irish public have a very strange love affair with his brother, Padraig. In an interview with Newstalk he said:

“The Irish public have a very strange love affair with Padraig. I hope that he has gone someway towards making them realise there’s a lot of work that goes on in the background to get that, as people say, stare — that look in his eyes,” Tadhg said.

When asked if he thought Padraig was underappreciated at home he said “I do. And the gas thing is, Padraig would have no idea of that.”

Apparantly there are plans afoot for some sort of official recognition of his achievement. Stackstown Golf Club are backing these plans. A spokesman for Harrington’s home clubs said :

“”He is not due back in Ireland until September but the country should have a proper homecoming planned for him by then.”

I don’t get it. Sure, have a civic reception in his native city or whatever. But suggestions that the whole country should have a ‘proper’ homecoming for him is a bit over the top. I was delighted that he won but my delight was in the fact it was an Irishman won. That’s a totally different thing to the delight I would feel if someone playing under the national flag won a major competition. It’s a different thing to the goosebumps I get when the national anthem is played.  Euro 88 delight. That’s the stuff of countrywide celebration and official homecomings.

Padraig Harrington is Irish, but he’s not playing for Ireland. He’s playing a professional game – an individual game. Amhrán na bhFiann wasn’t played when he won was it?

That just might explain the “strange love affair” that Tadhg Harrington talks about. We love him Tadhg, but there are different degrees and types of love.

As a juxtaposition to this story (and also covered in the Herald), I read that Dublin City Council are refusing to rehouse a sick child living in a flat in damp conditions.

Let’s hope that the Council doesn’t have a child’s blood on their hands by the time Padraig comes back to the civic reception they are planning.