I CAME home the other day to find an alien object sitting in my hallway. I’m not talking a wee green man, although my reaction probably wouldn’t have been any less dramatic if it had been one. No, it was a hockey stick, the first one I’d ever seen up close, and to me it looked like a cut-down hurley.
Seemingly, this is to be the chosen sport of my son in his new school – he’d a choice between rugby and hockey and, in my view, made the wrong choice.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I did remember that men played hockey; in fact, I think they’ve a reputation as being quite good at it in this part of the world. Yet, hockey for me has always been a game played by females.
There, I said it. Go on, start writing your letters.
There was only one stick game in my childhood – hurling, a game I once jokingly described as 16 frustrated Catholic virgins running around trying to decapitate each other. I never played the game myself; it was far too quick a sport for a child of my podgy proportions. Anyway, quite a few cousins were avid players and witnessing the injuries they regularly suffered put me right off wielding the ash.
But hockey? I think the second I saw that damn stick I knew I’d definitely lost the young one to t’other side. Not that I should be surprised; sending my children to a state school was the trade-off I made off with the wife after I demanded they receive a Catholic baptism. I comfort myself that while I may lose them in this life I’ll have them up in heaven.
This was but one compromise made in what’s described in these parts as a ‘mixed’ marriage. Luckily, with neither of us being ‘churchy’, religion has never been much of an issue, though I’m beginning to suspect God may be a Protestant after all.
For, while I put my foot down over their baptism, I’ve watched as my children have inexorably been drawn the other way. A good example is that while I’m sitting writing this column on a Sunday afternoon, I’ll soon be taking an hour’s break to attend a Church of Ireland Evensong service. What in God’s name – be he Catholic/Prod – am I doing at an Evensong service, I hear you ask?
Well, it’s a tale of decisions and their unintended consequences. How could I know sending my son to a state school would result in him being auditioned for a Church of Ireland choir? Never having heard him so much as hum in the house, I was stunned when he was chosen over hundreds of other boys to join.
Next thing I know, I’m sitting in a Church of Ireland church wondering how the hell this happened. I presumed my son’s initial enthusiasm would fade once the reality of two nights of practice and occasionally two services on a Sunday hit home. No such luck; he’s now into his fourth year and a firm fixture, which means I now attend the Church of Ireland as often as my own place of worship.
On the positive side, I’ve been placed in the perfect situation as a satirical comic, between our two tribes. Having been given the opportunity to observe the peculiarities and customs of my wife’s faith, I’d argue I’ve become something of an amateur religious anthropologist. The negative is I’ll never again be fully acceptable to either community. I’ll always be suspect, the question will always be asked, ‘Aye, but whose side is he really on?’
Again, this suits me fine. As anyone who has attended my end-of-year tours will know, I’m scrupulously even-handed in my contempt for the latent sectarian bigotry and intolerance exhibited on all sides. So, I stand astride Catholics and Protestants – a professional fence sitter, the perennial outsider or, as I’ve entitled this year’s tour, he who ‘walks the line’.
What I know for certain is my particular branch of the O’Kane clan is unique in being able to see both sides, namely because it’s made up of both sides. The price I pay is having to accept that while I’d prefer a hurley in the hall, I’m stuck with that damn hockey stick. But that’s my limit – I’ve warned him, if he arrives home with a flute, I’ll tout him out to our child catcher chief constable as a pint-sized dissident.
