Eau the pain - A Corkman in Paris misses the big show

I've lived abroad but I never really got the Irish abroad thing.

But. It’s weird being abroad for an All-Ireland hurling final.

Actually that’s not true. I’ve been abroad for plenty.

September used to be a good time to get away when you didn’t have kids.

August is always a good time to get away.

July is a good time to get away.

But it’s weird being abroad for the All-Ireland hurling final when your own county is playing and you can’t go home, and you haven’t missed a winning one since 1978, and the winning ones have dried up in recent decades, and it’s 2024, and if there’s ever a year that it’s your county’s year it’s this year, and you’re confident that this IS the year and yet you’re still terrified that fate will find one more way to deprive you.

It never crossed your mind when the work assignment came up that the greatest show on earth might be a cruel way of depriving you of witnessing 31; witnessing the end of the famine, witnessing Hoggie and Harnedy reaching the promised land…of the promised land reaching Cork and realising it was home.

Where did it all go wrong, Mr Best?

I don’t know.

The International Broadcasting Centre (the IBC) at the Olympics is massive. Almost beyond comprehension.

An exhibition centre at the edge of Le Bourget Aerodrome on the outskirts of Paris, five massive halls and airport hangars house the media infrastructure of the biggest broadcasters of every country in the world. Miles and miles of cabling and ducting hang above indoor prefabs home to the edit suites and studios and control centres that from next week will be the sporting hub of the world.

Not today. Not for this correspondent at least.

A dark, soundproofed booth (above) with a return feed from RTÉ and Whatsapp connectivity to the family,