Irishman and his belly not easily parted

Sideline Cut: Depressing word, obesity. Cuddly did the trick just fine up to now. The Irishman has always made an art form of carrying his winter coat - and often through the height of the summer season - with a distinctive daintiness.

Because the Irishman understands he is a unique physiological specimen genetically suited to shipping around the added pounds so mercilessly shunned by other European nations.

The Irishman understands the day must come when he will wake up to find he has inherited the midriff best designed for coping with the travails of life on this damp and dark poetry-infested island of ours. The Irishman bears his load with dignity and grace and good humour. But now, even as our larder is full, he is set to become a persecuted figure.

In principle, the initiative by the Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, to banish the fatty cell even as St Patrick once cast away the snake is admirable. But is it wise? Do we want our men to become solemn and elongated types? Why not just import a bunch of Swedes and be done with it? A regime of enforced skinniness would negate much of the very point of the Irishman.

The Irishman has patented a particular and - in this column's opinion - quite majestic form of portliness that may be lost to us forever if we are all made to munch rice cakes for the winter. For the Irishman, and the Irishman alone, has the capacity to remain skinny of leg, of posterior, of arm, of neck and of face while at the same time managing - with great skill - to become irredeemably enormous of belly.

Viewed from the rear, the average Irishman resembles a marathon runner; seen from the side, he takes on the aspect of the Michelin man.

The Irishman in full bloom is a thoroughly fascinating creature, a wondrous shape like the optical illusions created in the Hall of Magic Mirrors. But he has no secrets. He may not actually do battle with the bulge but he keeps it in good order, packing it in between his Levis belt and the third-from-top button of his checked shirt. Out and Proud is the Irishman's motto.

It has been argued that the Irishman's load could be lessened if he opted for something of a change in "lifestyle". This is hardly true. Since and before the foundation of the State, the Irishman has adhered to a manner of life that holds little truck with style. Take any First Communion photograph featuring the Irishman and his pals. Generally obedient-looking, optimistic and quite strikingly skinny youngsters surrounding the extravagant exception: a gloriously fat lad who looks wonderfully well-nourished amidst all his gaunt mates.

If this were any period up until the mid-1990s, the group would spend the next ten years kicking football.

Often, the fat lad would be the best footballer, loitering around the goals and, with maddening dexterity, translating into scores whatever ball rolled in his direction. If he lived in the right part of the city, he would probably go on and star for Dublin. Secondary school would follow - music, bad clothes, lack of money, girls. Leaving Cert. Fás. Emigration. Garda.

They would all make various choices in life but would be bound to an inescapable theme of life, which basically involved staying out of the poxy rain apart from the times when they were playing sport. The one thing the Irishman had in common with his former pals was this: for years, he was told there was not a pick on him. He was told he was "too skinny". The clothes were falling off him. Entire bags of spuds were poured into him, peels and all. He was told he was fading away to nothing.

And he knew it himself: he had to cut extra holes in his belt. Until the age of about 26, nothing the Irishman could say, do, eat or drink would persuade his physique to abandon its Spartan look. And then, suddenly, came The Big Bang.

Out of the blue, the Irishman woke up to discover he was starring in The Last Days of Elvis. He was informed he was a disgrace. His doctor winced as he put him on the scales. He noticed, with a degree of pleasure, that he could control the steering wheel by wedging it between his third and fourth layer. The Irishman knew he was doing nothing he had not done before and this was just nature taking its course.

But the Irishman was always an agreeable sort. He would make self-deprecating remarks while rapping a hand against his wobbling midriff. He would make dark vows about "going off it" for Lent. He would turn up for indoor soccer nights, reliving the First Communion glory days in brightly lit halls, wedged into a Manchester United shirt from the Clayton Blackmore period and then driving home in the dark, sweating and happy and convinced he had lost at least a stone. So happy was he that he might head out for a few.

He would, sooner or later, take the drastic decision to join a gym. He would laugh that he could bench 180 just by breathing out. He would find himself alone on some forlorn morning, hallucinating on a treadmill while some hateful little prick flexed his six-pack on an MTV video. The Irishman would realise his soul had been broken when he found himself signing up for the spinning class, captained with objectionable enthusiasm by a lad called Guy. Shortly after, the Irishman would forsake the bastard gym and forget to cancel his subscription.

The Irishman, traditionally secure about his own appeal, did not need to resort to such gimmickry. He had his role. Once, he ran like the wind. He was skinny. He was bony. Then came the opposite: the mature period in life. The Irishman bore it nobly.

The curse of the Irishman is that there is no in-between. Not when it comes to the oul bod. In his easygoing way, the Irishman accepted his lot and found it did not alter his quality of life. He trailed around the pitch last at football training, happy in the knowledge that the young fliers up ahead would someday do their time at the back, stoically bearing their load. He sang and danced and he acted the clown. He laughed at things. He laughed at himself.

Now, though, the joke is over. The Irishman is on the run. It does not matter whether the Irishman wants to hang on to his old handles of love. War has been declared on them. The Irishman may be reduced to a joyless, European stick of a creature but he will look great in a polo neck. That is the future.

The Irishman knows deep down that it is futile but he will go along with this latest plan to change his shape. The Irishman knows that they may as well take out the mediaeval rack for all the difference it would make. Sometimes, he will look at the Communion photograph of all his old friends and realise, sadly, that they are all fugitives now.

All except for the chubby star of old, who, with the typical obtuseness of the Irishman, went and shed all his puppy layers even as his old colleagues were in the process of acquiring theirs.

Posing for wedding photographs, he still stands out, the ghost of a fat lad, a rake among billowing sheets of grown men who stand indicted: red-faced, friendly, cheerful and determined to make the most of borrowed time.