FLEGS near Christmas is a bit like waking up on December 25 to find the Easter Bunny has left an egg under the tree – it all feels a bit unseasonal.
This kind of talk is usually the preserve of sunnier days but, rather than bells and baubles, the ghosts of summers past have haunted the festive period amid consternation over suggestions the Ulster Banner – the flag used to represent Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games - could be replaced with something more inclusive.
Last weekend, The Sunday Life reported that Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland (CWGNI) chief executive Conal Heatley and chairman Stephen Martin, the former hockey player who won a gold medal with Great Britain at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, were the men leading the charge for change.
A position paper raised at Wednesday night’s CWGNI AGM stated that neither the Ulster Banner nor the Union flag were representative of athletes from the north.
Any new flag “would be designed to be representative of the diversity of our society, including our new communities”, and would be the responsibility of elected officials – with CWGNI appealing for the NI Executive to create it, rather than them.
Unless a new civic flag is created in time, CWGNI have said they will submit a white flag bearing their logo for the Glasgow Games in 2026.
Wednesday’s AGM does not appear to have been as explosive as anticipated, with a subsequent statement claiming a “calm, respectful conversation” had taken place.
Yet, predictably, a darker side emerges when pots are stirred behind the scenes, with Heatley revealing he had spoken to police over concerns for his safety after some of his personal details appeared on social media.
The CWGNI office were also subject to threatening messages online.
There’s a lot to unpack here. For a start, the Commonwealth Games has long occupied a curious and slightly uncomfortable spot in the sporting calendar. Known as the Empire Games until 1966, is a legacy of colonialism and exploitation really something to be celebrated in this day and age?
Covering the 2022 Commonwealths, it was hard not to find the sight of athletes walking around Birmingham’s NEC Arena in Falkland Island tracksuits - or several of the Caribbean nations where a slave trade was established centuries ago - jarring.
The whole thing feels confused, anachronistic. Seen as too big a financial gamble for several potential hosts, resulting in Glasgow stepping up to the mark for the second time in a decade when they host a scaled-down Games, perhaps the Commonwealths is in need of a rebrand of its own.
Because as a competition, and a multi-sport event, it generates an excitement and an engagement many others don’t. For many who compete at the Commonwealths, it is the high point of their career.
One of the Games’ most enduring images is of west Belfast boxer Jim Webb fighting back the tears while team doctor, Sean Donnelly, belted out ‘Danny Boy’. The pair had an agreement before travelling out to Canada in 1994 that, should Webb land gold, Dr Donnelly would do the needful.
He did, and it was a moment in time; battles overcome, both inside and outside the ring, the purity and brilliance that sport brings displayed in its rawest form.
For others, it is the perfect midway marker, and a first exposure to any kind of significant media focus or partisan crowds.
Many of the boxers, for example, are used to coming up against a higher calibre of opponent on the international stage; often, however, they are stepping between the ropes before a handful of observers and a host of empty seats.
That applies to World Championships, European Championships, whereas the Commonwealths promises something more closely resembling what might be experienced should they ever reach the Olympic Games.
Jude Gallagher came to Birmingham having fought on some hot and heavy nights at Dublin’s National Stadium, but nothing compared to facing Niall Farrell – a Brummie lad boxing before his home support at a packed NEC.
Gallagher stopped him inside the first round and, as he achieved his dream of reaching Paris 2024 last summer, nights like that undoubtedly stood to him.
The issue of the flag representing Team NI is not new. Privately, some athletes and coaches have spoken about their discomfort competing under the Ulster Banner. Presumably, those thoughts have also been shared with Commonwealth Games officialdom.
Because, although it draws its inspiration from Ulster’s traditional flag, featuring a Red Hand of Ulster on a St George’s cross, with a crown representing the British monarchy, it too feels outdated.
It is a complex, nuanced matter, of course. The Red Hand is rooted in Gaelic culture, after all, adopted by the O’Neill clan when they assumed the ancient kingship. Yet it has also been appropriated by loyalist paramilitaries in more recent times, which makes the decision to explore a possible alternative entirely understandable.
Surely encouraging inclusion is a sign of a society moving forward, rather than one stuck in the past? Identity is something that belongs to every person in their own right; it is not something that should be thrust upon anybody.
How Ireland is represented at the Olympics, as a result, should form part of a wider conversation down the track.
Take the discourse around Rory McIlroy, and his participation at the last two Olympic Games – some has been ignorant at best, downright nasty at worst.
Anybody who has followed his career will be aware how awkward and sensitive a subject this has been, still there remains a cohort who won’t be happy until he throws a tricolour around his shoulders and recites the proclamation.
Yet Rory McIlroy, like those representing Team NI at the Commonwealth Games, deserves to feel comfortable competing in the international arena – without being subject to jingoistic bully boys.
