Hello, I'm Russell Barwick and I've just volunteered to have my ass kicked by this lady.

"Ireland is a joke for not joining team GB. It's a whole Irish joke. It just makes no sense."

If you only know one thing about the Irish, it should be that they are not British. One of ESPN UK's top pundits very much did not know this, and as a result ESPN UK has completely deleted the day of August 7 from its video library. By 'top pundit', of course, we mean gold-medal-winning idiot and host of Pardon the Interruption, Russell Barwick. Barwick's quotes on August 7th led many to hope he would soon find himself meeting Ireland's gold-medal-winning female boxer, Katie Taylor, in a dark alley while the Interney cheered on. (Editor's note: Ms. Taylor is a deeply religious and kind woman and would never indulge our fantasies of violence.)

Why should you never confuse Ireland with Britain? Long story short, there's some history there. Like centuries of political and religious oppression, a little incident where millions were allowed to starve to death, and a bunch of insurrections and revolutions that finally resulted in the freedom of all but the northeastern corner of Ireland. We probably messed that up pretty badly but the main point should still be clear: The Irish are not British. No. No no no no no. No. No. Unlike Australia, they are not even part of the Commonwealth of Nations because they hate the idea of being part of Britain, at all, in any form. Of course, that didn't stop world-class goon and probable dingo-lover (also probably a criminal like ALL AUSTRALIANS) from making these outrageous statements:

"Ireland is a joke for not joining team GB. It's a whole Irish joke. It just makes no sense."
"We, the rest of the world, can't understand. It's like a Hawaiian surfer not claiming that he surfs for the USA"
"It's not like Tasmanians say they don't want to represent Australia. You're all part of the one mix master."
"Half of Ireland is part of Great Britain."
"I understand the history of Irish politics. Well...I don't understand the history of Irish politics."
 

"Barwick, are you fecking kidding me?"

It doesn't excuse Mr. Barwick that he is still using tape-cassette metaphors from the 1980s, since the last time someone used an expression like that there were bombs going off in Belfast. He also claimed that the Irish regularly pretend they are British for rugby season, saying they "kiss and make up for a British Lions [tour]," apparently since there are players from Northern Ireland on that tour. (We're American, so we won't really pretend to know what's up with rugby.) So, Barwick obviously has no concept of history whatsoever, and for him, The Troubles were what he experienced on Twitter afterwards. He didn't make it any easier on himself, at first doubling down with this tweet:

In Ireland they call this "being an idiot." Very expressive people, the Irish.

And then Twitter answered back. So much so that he has cancelled his account. Here are just two random screenshots of people reacting to Barwick:

If we can report any good news, it's that Barwick at least has the sense to realize he's senseless. Although all copies of his massive screw-up have been scrubbed from the Internet by diligent ESPN interns, the first few seconds of the next episode say it all. Of course, he does still manage to make the classic douche move of "I'm sorry if anyone was offended." No, dumbass. You're sorry because you were a dumbass: