Brother Larry, a member of the Irish Christian Brothers in America, is well known in anthropological circles for his work with enculturated apes and has also written on. ‘The GAA and its relevance to Irish Place Names’ . After much dredging of musty books and articles, An Maor came across Brother Larry’ s only foray to date into the world of cultural anthropology. This is his celebrated study on the little known affliction that is ‘Maor’s Syndrome’.
Being a subject close to An Maor’s heart, AM immediately read the study. It involves the cases of four Maoir with differing degrees of affliction. The first case was that of ‘Paddy’ (not, of course, his real name to protect his identity). Paddy has the worst case of ‘Maor’s Syndrome’ that Brother Larry had come across. ‘In Paddy’s case Maor’s Syndrome manifests itself in an addiction to showing people to their seats and insisting they have tickets. These symptoms occur mainly in the winter when Croke Park is closed… For example, Paddy has been known to wear his Maor bib to Mass and to insist on ushering people to their seats even when – as is often the case these days – the church is more than half empty.’
The study continues: ‘On a number of occasions Paddy has broken into the church at night and numbered the seats in a similar fashion to those at Croke Park. He has cordoned off the best seats in the front section as an Ard Chomhairle area to be reserved for all the important people in the parish. He then prints off high quality, colour tickets on his daughter’s PC at home and posts them to each home in the Parish, making sure the number of tickets distributed is equivalent to the capacity of the church. There have been a number of occasions where people were seated in the wrong seats and Paddy has been known to threaten to call the Gardai to the church’. As with any system, the distribution of tickets is never fair, and Brother Larry goes on to say ‘ For Christmas masses a large number of daily communicants failed to get tickets, causing a rumpus on the letters page of the Parish News.’ ‘Paddy has also been known to don his Maor bib in the Cinema, on the DART, on buses and trains and to insist again on showing people to their seats. He also enjoys the added thrill of telling people to refrain from smoking.’, Brother Larry concludes.
The second case studied by Brother Larry was that of ‘Dominic’ (again, not his real name to protect his identity). Of Dominic, Brother Larry says, ‘On meeting Dominic the first time it was hard to see that he had any problems at all. He was able to have conversations on non-GAA topics and was not wearing his bib constantly, as other cases sometimes do when they ‘present’ – as the medical people say.’
However, it was at mealtime that Dominic’s chronic case of ‘Maor’s Syndrome’ manifested itself. Dominic refuses to eat anything other than his daily diet of ‘chicken and stuffing’ sandwich, bottle of ‘Club Orange’, a Mars bar, packet of ‘Tayto’ Cheese and Onion crisps and an apple, all served in a brown paper bag with a polystyrene cup of tea. When he gets his brown paper bag he goes out to the garden shed, puts on his ‘Maor’ bib and eats his food and drinks his tea’. Dominic’s wife Mary said she had ‘tried adding other things to the bag, like sausage rolls, chips, Emerald sweets and a few cans of Harp, but he wouldn’t have them. These used to be his favourite things, now he won’t have them at all!’
The third case studied by Brother Larry was that of ‘Martin’ (not his real name to protect his identity). Martin is a mild enough case but still has a problem. Brother Larry states that ‘Martin has made a number of Maor action figures and is constantly promoting them to the toy manufacturers, but has yet to get a positive response. (He now has a barring order from five of the world’s top toy manufacturers). His prototype ‘Maoir Barbie and Ken’ complete with bibs, programmes and brown paper bags, enjoys pride of place in his living room. The ‘Maor Action Man’ complete with bib, brown paper bag and a ‘Section Full’ sign is also a source of great pride to him. It has a ring pull and can say the following three sentences: ‘Welcome to Croke Park, may I see your ticket please?’, ‘I’m sorry you’re in the wrong seats, you’ll have to move’ and ‘You are notgetting on the f***in’ pitch’. It is Martin’s infatuation with his ideal of the noble, poetic Maor, combined with his lack of understanding of the toy market, that is causing him so much distress.
The fourth and final case of ‘Maor’s Syndrome’ studied by Brother Larry was that of ‘Vinny’ (not his real name to protect his identity). Brother Larry writes: ‘Vinny has such a bad case that he even refers to himself as ‘An Maor’, writing occasional commentaries on the Internet. He wanders around his house wearing a bib, insisting on seating his family at mealtimes. His worst nightmare is a children’s party with a game of musical chairs. He hates to see the seats moved from their original position or the number of seats changed, as he likes the seating arrangements to remain constant. He also has been known to wear his bib, in what he refers to as ‘getting practice in’, and to stop all the neighborhood children from getting onto the local green, apologising that it wasn’t his fault but was a ‘Health and Safety issue’.
Brother Larry’s recommendations for treatment of this debilitating affliction is that more games should be played in Croke Park so as to alleviate the problems somewhat for the sufferers of ‘Maor’s Syndrome’. His recommendations were submitted to the GAA and there is evidence they played a major part in the successful argument for increasing the number of games, under the guise of reforming the football championship…