up the rebels

seeing as annieone has updated, I may as well join in too.

this sign is near college - Corcaigh Abú means 'up Cork!' or 'go on, Cork!'.

people from Cork take it very seriously. people who grew up in Kildare, like I did, mostly feel vaguely ambivalent about our homeland. it's not very exciting. there's one hill, and a lot of sheep. the horses, they're good.

but in Cork, you seem to be born wearing a red shirt and waving a hurley. there's a fierce patriotic pride in the county, its famous sons and daughters, and its general superiority to the rest of the country.

there's a reason it's referred to as the People's Republic. some day the county will just quietly secede from the rest of the island, float out into the Atlantic a bit, and declare independence. I said as much, jokingly, to some of my Corkonian classmates the other day, and they immediately set to discussing which bits of Munster they'd like to take with them.

oh Cork. never change.

ps: going into a sports shop here and looking for a Leinster jersey is tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack full of hedgehogs. you won't find one, and it's a decidedly prickly experience.