Few footballers are as politically aware as West Brom and Ireland winger James McClean. He has written very eloquently on his reasons to refuse to wear a poppy on his football shirt, which you can read in more depth here.
His reasoning behind the refusal was that the poppy commemorates all of the conflicts Britain has been involved in, including the Bloody Sunday massacre in McClean's native Derry in 1972.
We are willing to bet that McClean was the only Premier League footballer watching the General Election's Leaders' Debate on RTE last night, and he conjured up a comment of great pith and moment:
With worries about declining users and falling share prices, it's quite possible that we've seen the pinnacle of Twitter right there.
Magnificent. The Irish newspapers will be packed with analysis of the debate from a number of fine columnists, but few will succeed in summoning up as visceral an image or such a rigorous political takedown as McClean has. For the sheer Hell in a Cell nostalgia factor, we can't help but agree with Cian Carroll on this one.
It is also quite surprising, as we thought Kenny and McClean would be kindred spirits, given Kenny's decision not to wear a poppy at a Remembrance Sunday in Enniskillen in 2012.
All we can surmise is that McClean saw Micheál Martin's blatant attempt to piggyback on Roy Keane's good name and was ensuring that An Taoiseach won't be attempting anything similar with the rest of the Irish setup in the coming weeks.
