Soccer serenade shows pluck of the Irish

There once was an Irishman named Oliver Goldsmith, who wrote novels and poems and essays and often is credited with the expression "goody two-shoes," owing to a children's story about a poor orphan girl of which he may have written around 1765.

Goldsmith also said this about the Irish people: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

This is why I think Oliver Goldsmith would have enjoyed the European Championship soccer tournament being played in Poland and Ukraine.

After today, only four teams will remain, and if England beats Italy, one will be England. And that means two of my favorite places to watch soccer - the Crown & Anchor British Pub near UNLV and the Queen Victoria Pub inside the Riviera - will be rocking for Thursday's semifinal.

But that's not why Oliver Goldsmith would have enjoyed the European Championship.

His side, the Republic of Ireland, earned its way into the tournament for the first time since 1988. But it was foregone and concluded that Ireland would not win, because Ireland is a small football-playing nation, and it would be matched against much larger football-playing nations.

Such as Spain, the reigning Euro and World Cup champion.

Spain has an attack that ebbs and flows like a symphony. Mostly flows. By the third movement, it's usually 3- or 4-nil when Spain is hitting the high notes.

Watching Ireland play soccer, on the other hand, is like watching a garage band practice. Not much artistry or harmony. Just a couple of choruses of "Gloria" - G-L-O-R-I-A! - and try not to spill Guinness on the speakers, would ye lad?

And so it was on June 14. By the third movement - about the 83rd minute - Spain, which was credited with completing 859 passes, which is a lot, led 4-0. The Spaniards began to pass the ball around midfield, as if it were on a string. Mercifully, they showed no interest in scoring additional goals.

It was like watching kids play Hacky Sack at recess, if kids still played Hacky Sack.

And then the singing began.

And then the sound coming from the speakers in my living room got very loud.

Funny thing, this (as the British football announcers are wont to say): I noticed everybody who was singing was wearing Irish green and white and orange, not Spanish red and gold and blue.

And the sound coming from my speakers grew louder still.

The Irish supporters were singing "The Fields of Athenry," an Irish folk song often sung at national sporting competitions where Ireland plays soccer or rugby or hurls, that last one having nothing to do with the outcomes of the first two.

The song is about a man named Michael from Athenry in County Galway who has been sent to prison in Australia - i.e., banished from his Irish homeland - for stealing food to feed his family during the Irish Potato Famine of 1845.

When the Irish balladeer Paddy Reilly sings "The Fields of Athenry," it is a lilting and beautiful hymn; when Bruce Springsteen opened his 2009 concert in Dublin with it, it was scaled all the way back, on the accordion, and served as a fuse to "No Surrender" - which, I think, was not a coincidence.

But when the 20,000 Irish soccer supporters sang it with their team getting drubbed 4-0, it was haunting. It gave you goose bumps, and put a tear in your eye. And like every March 17, it made you wish you were Irish for a little while.

Yes, as Oliver Goldsmith said, there is glory in rising after one falls, in standing on the soccer pitch and applauding your countrymen for the way they applauded you and the land from which you come, from which they come.

Later, when I wanted to relive the moment on YouTube, I noticed that whereas the ESPN announcers continued to describe the Spanish game of Hacky Sack, their colleagues on the world feed stopped talking during the singing of "The Fields of Athenry," like Vin Scully does following a dramatic turn during a baseball game.

For this was something special.

And I thought of this charming Irish couple my wife and I had met while sitting on barstools at Nine Fine Irishmen inside New York-New York a few years back, who gave us directions to their place near the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare for when we finally scratch that trip off our bucket list.

I wondered if they were singing, too.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.