Response to Irish Cup glory portrays xenophobia and paranoid insecurity
“If anybody knocks on your door who has an Irish accent,” Australia’s minister for consumer affairs Marlene Kairouz warned her country’s citizens last Tuesday week, “automatically ask them to leave.”
A week later, The Age’s Greg Baum wrote of the Melbourne Cup after Rekindling led home that spectacular 1-2-3 for Irish-trained horses: “Some days, it feels that the Melbourne Cup has become the race that bypasses a nation.
“Perhaps this became inexorable when another Irish horse, Vintage Crop, won the race 25 years ago, blazing a trail. This day, for the first time, none of the placegetters was Australian.
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