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As greatest living Irishmen go, Troy Parrott just jumped the queue on Bono, Brendan Gleeson, David Clifford, Sean Kelly, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Paul O’Connell, Rory McIlroy, Roy Keane and Graham Norton. By Sunday evening, Dublin International Airport had been renamed after the hat-trick hero of the Republic of Ireland’s last-seconds heist in Hungary. Why? To quote RTE commentator Darragh Maloney in Budapest: “One last throw of the dice, it’s all on this from Caoimhin Kelleher, [Liam] Scales is up after it, Scales wins the header, it’s a chance … there’s the goal! That’s Troy Parrott … that’s unbelievable.”
Precis: The Republic of Ireland have reached the Geopolitics World Cup playoffs and nobody Irish will again struggle to recognise Parrott. Within such unspeakable excitement, to follow his two goals in Dublin to down mighty Portugal, Parrott hit the levels of Brian Boru and Maud Gonne, freeing his country from the shackles of decades of football mediocrity. “Ah, what a night,” as he said so demurely in the aftermath. Overnight sensation, instant hero? Anyone paying attention to Ireland’s travails may recall the brief hype surrounding a young striker on the fringes of Tottenham squad a few years back. Similar advance notices greeted Aaron Connolly, now at Leyton Orient, and more recently Evan Ferguson, which says something about Ireland’s hopes for a hero.
