24 November 2001
‘Sweet Caroline’ is now the unofficial anthem of England’s national football teams, replacing in their supporters’ affections such terrace favourites as ‘Three Lions’ and ‘No Surrender To The IRA’. Dustin does ‘Sweet Caroline’ here and is a stage Dub, just like Mrs Brown’s Boys who went to the BBC to tug the forelock and take the sovereign shilling as light entertainment court jesters. This confirms something I long suspected: stage Dubs are West Brits. What’s more, since the stage Dub idiom is how Dublin folk like to present themselves to the world, from their comedy performers to their taxi drivers, it follows that all Dubs are West Brits. Q.E.D.
For the rest of us Fíor-Ghaeil who are sound on the national question, it’s unfortunate that the disproportionate amount of Dubs in our country gives them the numerical advantage to colonise the top of our singles charts the same way they helped the British colonise our island. I try explaining to the folks down home that all Dubs seem to love this thing of Dustin singing a song deliberately badly, but we know it surpasses all human understanding. Let’s just pray that Dustin, having here got in early with the Brits, doesn’t somehow find a way of betraying Ireland on a wider stage, like Europe.
