{"id":496776,"date":"2026-05-22T02:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/496776\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T02:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:42:10","slug":"bru-review-on-tg4-an-honest-account-of-the-sacrifices-young-people-make-for-elite-sport-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/496776\/","title":{"rendered":"Br\u00fa review on TG4: An honest account of the sacrifices young people make for elite sport \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no shortage of sport on television, especially for those with pockets deep enough to subscribe to GAA+, Sky Sports, LOI TV and so forth. And that\u2019s before factoring in the forthcoming World Cup<\/a>, which will have multiple matches each day, including an \u201cinsomniacs special\u201d kick-off time of 2am. <\/p>\n

But if there\u2019s no lack of sports<\/a> telly, there isn\u2019t much curiosity about the sacrifices required of young athletes trying to make it to the top. That is the subject at hand in Br\u00fa<\/b> (TG4, Thursday, 9.35pm), an enjoyable new profile of a quartet of fresh-faced hopefuls determined to excel in their chosen disciplines (br\u00fa being Irish for pressure). <\/p>\n

Glamour is in short supply throughout, and the message of the series is that nothing comes easy when you want to be the best in your field. That is the experience of Wicklow<\/a> boxer Kaci Rock, who commutes to Belfast several times a week to train and whose long-term goal of progressing to the Olympics suffers a setback when she hurts one of her hands.<\/p>\n

The sting of loss is also part of the deal, as we see when Donegal<\/a> ladies football captain R\u00f3is\u00edn Nic Ruair\u00ed leads her side out against Armagh, only to be on the receiving end of a thorough pasting. Left unanswered is whether the thrill of an occasional win can compensate for the agony of heavy defeat.<\/p>\n

The foursome is filled out by Gweedore, Donegal, golfer P\u00e1draig \u00d3 Dochartaigh and by triple-jumper F\u00f3dhla Nic Ph\u00e1id\u00edn from Derrybeg, Donegal. They have had their struggles too. In the case of \u00d3 Dochartaigh, the big challenge has been overcoming a mysterious and recurring hand injury \u2013 though following an operation in which four cysts were removed from his hand, he is hopeful of putting his woes behind him and getting back to his putting practice.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kylie Minogue\u2019s Netflix documentary: Why Ireland was one of the most controversial moments of her career and 11 other things I learnedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

TG4 deserves credit for telling stories that other broadcasters might regard as trivial \u2013 in this case, the growing pains of four young Irish-speaking athletes with big dreams. It isn\u2019t earth-shattering television, and it doesn\u2019t tell us anything we don\u2019t already know, which is that elite sport is a tough business. But it goes about its task honestly and without cynicism. <\/p>\n

At a time when sport on television feels like a covert way to advertise betting websites and beer (under a fig leaf of non-alcoholic branding), there\u2019s something hugely refreshing about its earnestness and idealism. One-nil to TG4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no shortage of sport on television, especially for those with pockets deep enough to subscribe to GAA+,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[17159,18,5286,19,17,4657,132,8336,35350],"class_list":["post-496776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-donegal-gaa","tag-eire","tag-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sky","tag-sports","tag-tg4","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116615927881336961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}