'All changed, changed utterly'. Few knew WB Yeats wrote this anticipating the Irish sporting scene ending up looking like a Carroll's Gift Store.
On this marking of the centenary of the 1916 Rising - the event which began a bloody war of Independence and hideous Civil war that ended with a new Republic being denied Amazon Super Saver Delivery - sportswear companies have been keen to rush out some merchandise to mark the occasion.
First of all, we had not one, but two O'Neills jerseys dedicated to the memory of the Rising. Some folks loved them, some absolutely hated them with the polyester Proclamation coming in for particular scorn.
And now we have Ian Madigan's boots. Leinster (fittingly?) beat Ospreys 19-16 at the RDS last weekend, and such was the scoreline, Madigan simply had to have it marked on his boots:
Then again, perhaps companies are absolutely right to mark 1916 in this way since other Irish rebellions do not lend themselves well to being reflected on scoreboards. 1798, for example, is unlikely to ever appear on a rugby scoreboard.
And we hope 1641 isn't mentioned when the All Blacks come to Dublin in November. No matter, whatever stance you take on the proliferation of 1916 memorabilia, we can hopefully all agree that this is going too far.
Another reason to love @ArnottsDublin pic.twitter.com/tcJHHVztdL
— Dr BRIAN KENNEDY (@KennedySinger) March 2, 2016
