IT’S half 12 on Friday afternoon.
Just over 90 minutes ago, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy won gold in the lightweight double sculls.
The BBC’s main TV feed from the Olympics is yet to show a second of it.
While the Skibbereen pair were racing to an historic second gold medal, we were watching the third heat of the women’s 100m track event.
In the north, we are not able to watch it on RTÉ.
When I turn on my television, RTÉ2 presents me with a black screen, the broadcaster’s logo and a message that says ‘this programme is not available’.
The RTÉ Player says it’s “not available in your location.”
My location. Derry. Ireland.
All of RTE’s footage is blocked, everywhere. On TV, on social media, on their website.
I’m not sure people that aren’t from the north can grasp the impact of that.
Ireland is my country. The Irish athletes are my athletes. They’re the ones whose successes we want to see.
Sometimes it works out ok. BBC’s focus on the pool in the evenings meant Daniel Wiffen’s gold medal success was shown.
We maybe can’t quibble too much since we got to at least see that but it’s a different thing watching an Irish gold medal being won on RTÉ than it is on BBC.
You want to get lost in the partisan commentary and the intense focus on Wiffen’s every stroke, the detail that an Irish commentary team will give you. These are moments of great historical significance and you want to feel part of it.
When Ciara Mageean runs in the 1500m next week or Rhasidat Adeleke is on the track, that is our focus and we want to hear about it.
Instead of Greg Allen we get Steve Cram, who is brilliant but utterly focussed on the British athletes as you’d expect from the BBC.
But followers of the Irish athletes in the north might as well be watching it on NBC as BBC.
Britain is Britain and to them, Ireland is just as relevant as France or Malaysia or outer Mongolia.
That applies to both their commentary and, more particularly, their scheduling.
The boxing has been practically invisible on the BBC save for the furore over Imane Khelif.
It is traditionally the home of so many Irish medal hopes but it’s such a complete afterthought on BBC’s schedule that it’s been incredibly difficult to find footage of the Irish fighters.
Now, the thing here is that this is not the BBC’s fault. They’re the British Broadcasting Corporation and Ireland is not Britain. Why would they prioritise Irish athletes any more than they would the French?
Ireland has its own broadcaster in RTÉ, and that’s their job.
I’d tell you if they’re doing it well or not only I can’t watch it.
In the north, those that wish to follow the fortunes of the Irish team have yet again fallen between the cracks.
A lot of politicians have been great when it comes to grandstanding about the issue of geoblocking, putting out statements having slaps at RTE and the BBC for doing this or not doing that, without actually ever tackling the nub of the problem.
There are identity issues in the north that you didn’t need to come here to be told about.
When it comes to broadcasting the Olympics, RTÉ and BBC are both bound by watertight legal agreements with the International Olympic Committee.
RTÉ can only broadcast in the 26 counties. It’s not as if they’re choosing not to bother with the other six. It’s that in an international agreement, the north is part of the UK and so to show if up here, they’d have had to buy the rights by outbidding the BBC.
Given that, for one, they haven’t two brass pennies to rub together that’s not exactly feasible.
BBC own the rights to the north, except within that they expect the whole of the UK to want to watch the same things, namely the Great Britain team.
And there are interests there even among the nationalist population in the north. It was great to see Jack McMillan and Hannah Scott win their medals as part of Team GB & NI. We would all have wanted to see that as well. Handing the rights for the north to RTÉ isn’t the answer either because that wouldn’t meet the needs other half of the demographic.
But without getting too technical, our default position in the north is considered as part of the UK when it comes to broadcasting because our IP addresses are UK-listed and it’s off those that your TV knows where in the world you are at.
To switch to an IP address that allows you to watch RTÉ would then limit your ability to watch any sports content on BBC.
It is a system that does nothing to accommodate what is essentially a population-wide dual citizenship.
It’s one of the great complications of life in the north.
What it needs is for the British and Irish governments to agree that the north be treated as its own jurisdiction on this stuff.
Unique IP addresses that identity you as being from the north and giving you access to content from both Ireland and Britain is the only solution here.
The situation as it is now honestly feels like an infringement on the right to feel Irish in the middle of the Olympic Games.
Then you have the Central Statistics Office of Ireland tweeting their congratulations to O’Donovan and McCarthy with an ill-thought out map that had the six counties cut off.
Talk about not knowing where you stand.
It’s been two hours and all I could find was the highlights of the last 500m of O’Donovan and McCarthy.
The likelihood is that I’ll never see that whole race and I’ll never hear it with Irish commentary.
These are live events, moments in time that you want be part of while they’re happening, not to find out on Twitter that Ireland have won a gold medal.
You’ve Michaela Walsh in the afternoon, Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey in the boat, three men in the showjumping, the hockey team playing New Zealand. In all, there were 30 individual athletes, the hockey team and the 4x400m mixed relay team down for action on Thursday.
What we’ll have seen of it in the north will depend entirely on what the BBC’s central output from London happens to feel is worth showing.
That is not good enough for something that is absolutely fixable if there’s a bit of political will and drive.
It would fit politicians better if they stopped looking to score handy points by slapping the broadcasters about a bit and tackled the actual cause of the blackout instead.