It is great to see the Merrion wordsmiths do battle on social media as they combine entertainment with news of the fortunes of the Merrion teams across Leinster. We would invite others to join in.
Of course the bar has been set high. James Joyce wrote about cricket many times and in a Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man he mused on the nature of the sport:
“. . .and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.”
Samuel Beckett was a noted cricketer himself. He played for Trinity between 1924 and 1926 which included a couple of First Class matches against Northampton for the university.
The discovery of the following extract from an early version of Shakespear’s hamlet is attributed to the Merrion cricketer Paddy Waldron.
Hamlet: ‘I’m out, Polonius.’
Polonius (batting at the other end): ‘I fear so, sire.
Or so the umpire doth declaim.’
Hamlet: ‘Then I must go; yet ‘tis a monstrous thing
That all this great and most momentous issue
Should hang upon a churlish umpire’s nod.
(Enters pavilion)
How now, my lords. The ball hath bias on it,
And if my leg hath been in front, as ‘twas not,
Would not have hit the sticks, no, not by yards.
It did not pitch straight; it was rising high.
Besides, the man was bowling round the wicket.
Yea, I could summon up a thousand reasons,
Which being pondered on, conspire to show
The verdict of yon purblind idiot false.
Well, well, the thing’s an allegory.
How accident doth await on carefulness
And all precaution used. I took ‘one leg’,
I wisely questioned if my toes were clear,
And all for this! …. Oh, Sirs, the pity of it!
I was fairly set as an oak tree
In the sylvan glade. The ball to me appeared
As large as the full harvest moon,
Sailing above the straw-stack. I had meant
To score an hundred, when that echoing yell,
Both from bowler and the wicket-keeper
(A prearranged duet of knavery)
Checked me in mid-success and cut me down.
What weak-kneed umpire could resist that roar?
There’s not a doubt on it; I was bustled out.
Give me a pipe; I’ll drown my grief in smoke.
This cricket is a passing beastly game.’