The Republic

They buried ‘Big Jack’ today. Back when he was a player in my schooldays he was never referred to as either Jack or Big Jack. Though I needed no reminding of this insignificant factoid I noticed the name ‘Jackie’ on one of the floral tributes and this indeed is what he was known as back in the day. Another curious factoid which I notice has escaped the attentions of the ‘ole ole’ brigade not to mention political cartographers is that Big Jack single handedly changed the name of this little stateen to an entity now known as ‘the republic’. Once there were two international football teams on the island of Ireland. One was generally called Ireland (sometimes Republic of Ireland) and the other called Northern Ireland. Now however it’s commonplace to hear us referred to only as ‘the republic’ and for this Jack must get the credit or is blame more appropriate. For its my understanding that ‘republic’ describes a political system. Thus the United States and Germany are republics just like Ireland but I’ve never heard anyone call either of their football teams ‘the republic’. Some may say, ‘what’s in a name?’ I would reply, ‘ask the Washington Redskins’