ROY Foster, the eminent historian, has just unleashed a book about the changes in this country in the last 30 years or so. I am tempted to put in a few words.

For me and many people the most significant change was the opening of the gates in Croke Park.

They say 1066 was a watershed in English history, with the Battle of Hastings marking the beginning of Norman rule. But 1966 was a watershed in the history of this island -- the World Cup in soccer was televised into every nook and cranny. The influence was profound.

The rule about "foreign" games survived for several years more, but it was a dead Ban talking. Eventually it came down like an old house built on bad foundations.

The concept of "foreign" games was absurd in a country where most people professed a religion that originated in the Middle East, spoke a foreign language and had a patron saint who was probably a Scot or worse still a Welshman.

The Ban is gone -- but some of the Ban Gardai remain -- refusing to see that the very concept was racist, in pure and complex terms.

The throwing open of Croke Park is all the more important now because we are living in a society that is becoming more and more multi-cultural.

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ONE of the saddest aspects of changing Ireland is the decline of the small farmer. The EU made this almost inevitable.

The cattle mart is an example of this. At the street fair the small farmer could fight his corner; in the mart he is only a minor player.

There is a famous song called She Moved Through The Fair. Will we ever hear a song called She Moved Through The Mart?

Eventually the small farmers who remain will be consigned to reservations like the Apaches and the Sioux and the Blackfeet Indians and the Comanches.

Not all the news is bad though: the black pudding has been restored to its former glory. These days it is on the menu at the more fashionable sort of wedding; it was often on the menu at unfashionable weddings -- the working class have more sense.

As the famous man said: "Mark my words: drisheen, yeast bread and colcannon will return too." Our ancestors weren't so backward after all.

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PERHAPS the most alarming aspect of this generation is the decline in the written word. It is most palpable in novels and short stories.

Most novels today are written to a formula: it includes a total lack of sensitivity and tends towards coarse language. Add in a confused and confusing plot and you are well on the way to winning the Booker Prize.

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AN animal called a lapdog enables many journalists to work from home. It's a backwards step. There are no real journalists' pubs because there are so few journalists at large. The crisis calls for intervention by the Government: all journalists should be compelled to spend at least three days a week in the office except in special circumstances. Most newsrooms now have the atmosphere of suburban pharmacies.

All would-be journalists should be given a literacy test. Those who pass should be given six months probation but should be minded by a fully qualified journalist. Then they should be given a more rigorous test -- and if they pass they would be entitled to their full licence.

The number of cliches in sports writing is increasing by the day. The heads of sports departments should be very vigilant and anyone who includes ten cliches in a thousand words should be fined. You can hardly blame visitors with a poor grasp of English if they suspect that many of our footballers are criminals because they are always getting out of jail.

Headline writers, incidentally, are a vanishing breed: whenever I see a decent headline nowadays, I cut it out and I paste it into a scrapbook.

There should be a national spelling day, if only to make people aware of the crisis. My neighbours in Kerry are very proud of their football and their scholarship; nevertheless, not too long ago the roads of the county were decorated with signs saying "Tempry Dwellings Prohibited."

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ONE day some years ago I was in Donnybrook at a Colours game in Rugby between UCD and Trinity. I positioned myself in the middle of the terrace across from the stand. All around me were young boys and girls from UCD. I had a horrible experience. I can hardly think of a word to describe the language of those young people. I can say it was vile and foul but those words would be too weak -- it was obscene. For bad measure they were throwing all kinds of rubbish at my friend Ray McManus who was doing his best to take photographs. They were breaking a golden rule: you should never interfere with a man doing his work--whether he be a bricklayer or a printer or even a journalist. I have no doubt but that the language of Trinity followers' was as bad. The degeneration is general.

Roy Keane's outburst against Mick McCarthy in Saipan was a symptom: I didn't mind its childishness but I was shocked by his language and I was even more shocked because some of my colleagues weren't.

When I think of that afternoon in Donnybrook, it dawns on me that many of those young people are now pillars of state -- they are doctors and barristers and architects. It is not a pleasing thought.

If you have any doubt about the degeneracy in our language, you can hear it for yourself in public houses. It is the kind of language that wouldn't be tolerated in pubs in pagan Britain. It wouldn't have been tolerated in pubs in this country 20 years ago. If language is a test of the national character, we have a lot to learn.

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NOT all the news is bad: in the last 40 years or so there has been a great rebirth of folk music. I wouldn't care to be asked to define "folk music" but I know it when I hear it.

The revival probably began with the Civil Rights movement in America. It was popularised by Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and in Britain by Ewan MacColl.

In this country we had great pioneers such as Seamus Ennis, Aindreas O Gallchoir, Ciaran MacMathuna and Sean MacReamoinn. Folk music had almost died out in Ireland as it was associated with the bad old times, with hunger and hardship. For much the same reason the Gaelic language declined.

I do not like the label "Irish traditional music" because music is as universal as air and water. If I had to define "folk music" I would make a comparison between bread and confectionery. Confectionery has its place, but bread is nearer to real life. Folk music needn't be old or ancient: some folk music is very modern indeed but it deserves the title because it is so close to life. Christy Moore is an exemplar and so is his sister, Eibhlis.

There was a time in this country when if you even hummed a few lines of a song you might be asked to take your custom elsewhere. Now in some pubs on certain nights you can hardly have a quiet drink.

I don't mind. It is a good change. Nevertheless I think of Mexico: there in the pubs and in the cafes you can nearly always hear music but it doesn't intrude. It is part of the background and yet vibrant.

Now I will tell a funny story. Sometime in the late 1960s the great Seamus Ennis was commissioned to do a programme on folk music by the BBC. It was called As I Roved Out and it went on the air on radio at half-past ten on Sunday mornings.

It was a wonderful series but after about a year it was brought to an end. Someone in the BBC Brains Trust decided that there was no audience for folk music. Little did he know: the flood was just about to start.

If somebody thinks that the concertina and the tin whistle and the bodhran are unique to Ireland, I can tell them otherwise. Long ago, when I worked in the south-east of England, two of those instruments were very common -- but instead of the bodhran there was a tambourine.

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THERE was a Wednesday in November this time 20 years ago when we experienced another watershed in Irish life, at least in the Republic.

Bulgaria were playing Scotland in Sofia and they needed only one point to qualify for the finals of the Euro Cup. That game was of great importance to us. The Evening Press asked me to watch it in a pub: It wasn't a great hardship and I settled on Bambrick's in the heart of Portobello. It was a quiet afternoon: most of the people there were taking a break from work.

There was also a little brown dog in front of the fire. It was a very one-sided game. Bulgaria were almost completely dominant. They weren't playing very adventurously because a draw would suit them. Then, seven minutes from the end, their conservatism rebounded on them. Gary McKay, who had come on as a substitute, picked on a loose clearance in midfield and ran about 30 yards and took a hopeful shot at goal. It caught the keeper off his line and suddenly Scotland were a goal up.

Bulgaria attacked furiously for the rest of the game but Jim Leighton made two marvellous saves and gave the Republic their passage into the finals.

By the time Scotland scored, most of the audience in the pub had drifted away. When the final whistle blew, there were only five of us there and the little brown dog.

As we danced a kind of a jig, the little dog barked. He knew something good had happened.

And so it had. For the first time in our long history we were in the finals of a major competition.

The most remarkable happening in Irish sporting history in this generation was the achievement of our national cricket team in the World Cup. They went to the West Indies as unknowns and they came back as heroes.

Some people in this island didn't even know we had a cricket team. Those who followed them thought they were going for a little holiday in the sun but, after we had beaten Pakistan, many more people travelled and they formed a green army. The records will show that we reached the last eight. It was a marvellous achievement. We beat Pakistan and Bangladesh and we played a memorable draw with Zimbabwe. All three are Test countries.

In soccer, our greatest achievement was to reach the World Cup Finals in Japan and South Korea. The excitement at home was enormous and a great wave travelled from the land of the rising prices to the land of the Rising Sun. Mick McCarthy and his men did us proud. Our voyage terminated when we lost a penalty shoot-out to Spain.

Another great change in this island is the widening range of sport for women. Now they have ladies football and ladies soccer to add to their traditional sports like hockey and camogie. And they are taking more and more part in Athletics. Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan are real heroines. This is the real women's liberation unlike that promulgated by the shrieking banshees who followed Germaine Greer.

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SINCE I was a very small boy I was fascinated by water and but for a very vigilant guardian angel I might have been drowned almost before I could walk. Water like language is so precious that we shouldn't abuse it and yet I know that every lake and pond and canal and river and stream in this island is to some extent polluted.

I believe all life originated in water, not in the big bang favoured by scientists. Our world was once like a great football full of water instead of air. I can't explain what was outside it because the human brain hasn't yet learned to grasp infinity.

The Green Party didn't go into power a day too soon: we are facing a great crisis in the context of our water and our politicians must show maturity and put it beyond petty party interests.

"Grow old with me; the best is yet to be."