It was a pleasure to watch, on TV, England being deprived of a Rugby Grand Slam at Lansdowne Road earlier this year.
I was first in Lansdowne Road in 1948 or 1949 when Karl Mullen was the Irish Captain and Ireland won the Triple Crown. I was taken there by my father, who had played rugby at Christian Brothers’ College, Cork and at UCC thirty odd years earlier. In the early 1950s I was first taken to Croke Park by my elder brother and over the years saw Christy Ring of Cork, the Rackard Brothers of Wexford, various Doyles and Tommy Reddin of Tipperary, Eddie Keher and Ollie Walsh of Kilkenny and even watched a Dublin Hurling team, skippered by Des Foley pipped by a Tipperary point from winning the Liam McCarthy Cup in 1961, the last time Dublin featured in a Senior All-Ireland Hurling Final. I’m pretty useless at ball-games myself – (see BLOG – “The Day I Played For Ireland”) but can enjoy watching a game if I can somehow identify with a team.
I said I enjoyed England’s defeat at Lansdowne Road, but had England been beaten by any team I would have probably cheered. It helped though that A Soldier’s Song was sung by some of the crowd and even some of the players. I turned off the sound during that woful ballad “IRELAND’S CALL” made to Mother England’s Eyebrow, as I hate it. I had started to. watch other matches featuring boys in green in other venues, but as neither Ireland’s National Anthem nor National Flag were in evidence, those boys had no purchase on my heart.
I was first in Lansdowne Road in 1948 or 1949 when Karl Mullen was the Irish Captain and Ireland won the Triple Crown. I was taken there by my father, who had played rugby at Christian Brothers’ College, Cork and at UCC thirty odd years earlier. In the early 1950s I was first taken to Croke Park by my elder brother and over the years saw Christy Ring of Cork, the Rackard Brothers of Wexford, various Doyles and Tommy Reddin of Tipperary, Eddie Keher and Ollie Walsh of Kilkenny and even watched a Dublin Hurling team, skippered by Des Foley pipped by a Tipperary point from winning the Liam McCarthy Cup in 1961, the last time Dublin featured in a Senior All-Ireland Hurling Final. I’m pretty useless at ball-games myself – (see BLOG – “The Day I Played For Ireland”) but can enjoy watching a game if I can somehow identify with a team.
I said I enjoyed England’s defeat at Lansdowne Road, but had England been beaten by any team I would have probably cheered. It helped though that A Soldier’s Song was sung by some of the crowd and even some of the players. I turned off the sound during that woful ballad “IRELAND’S CALL” made to Mother England’s Eyebrow, as I hate it. I had started to. watch other matches featuring boys in green in other venues, but as neither Ireland’s National Anthem nor National Flag were in evidence, those boys had no purchase on my heart.
Hockey in Ireland is rarely played except in posh girls’ schools. But apparently some men play that game. But not enough of them to attract a paying crowd to pay a team’s Ryan Air flight from Dublin to anywhere else. A team purporting to represent Ireland abroad went a-begging to Croke Park wanting the GAA to stage a benefit match to fund their trip. Asked whether they would have the Irish Flag flown and the Irish NatIonal Anthem played at the ” International” those would-be representatives said they would not. Quite rightly the GAA refused their request.
Long ago I suggested that the Rugger Buggers adapt the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” and greet their competitors with a chorus if “I.R.F.U.” which would put the wind up the All Blacks and its HAKA. But they didn’t heed me and are stuck with Ireland’s Bawl. Serves the sods right.
The. most moving story I read about “A Soldier’s Song” if I remember correctly,was told by Joe Good, one of the London Irish who fought as an Insurgent in Dublin in 1916. Following their surrender some insurgents were held in Richmond Barracks, when a British Sergeant intimated that they’d all be shot. Some of them went down on their knees to say the Rosary, but one rallied them and got them to stand up where he led them in a rendering of A Soldier’s Song. If I’m not mistaken it was the man who translated Peadar Kearney’s lyric into Irish.
No wonder the toadies, lickspittles and crawling West Britons can’t abide it.
I have had Very little respect for the Rugby crowd and particularly the Irish Rugy crowd ever since they persisted in sending teams to South Africa during the evil that was Apartheid..!!
Aontaím leat Erneside. But this article raised some interesting points. When I receive d my degree in Queens University Belfast in 1969, I did so in absentia. My reason for so doing was that, had I attended, I would have been expected to stand for ”GSTQ”. I did not want that ‘shoved down my throat’. Now I am not a sporting type, but it pains me to see partition enshrined in Irish soccer, and successive managers ( including,and especially, Kerr and Michal O’ Neill) whingeing about young nationalist players preferring to play for the Republic of Ireland team. It gives me heart to see a united Irish team, including Ulster players of the Unionist persuasion, in rugby, hockey, even cricket.So while I regard Amhrán na BhFiann as my national anthem and the tricolour as my flag, I do not see much virtue in ‘shoving them down (anyone’s) throat. Almost everyone agrees that ‘Ireland’s Call’ is an awful song. But there are alternatives. “There is an Isle”, “Ireland Mother Ireland” spring to mind. But I have to agree with Erneside and say that collusion between Irish and Rugby and White South Africa throughout the apartheid era turned me forever against Irish rugby.
Thank you Brian
“But ’74 was the big deal. I was absolutely convinced that the rest of the sporting world was right and that there was this sort of massive arrogance in rugby that the brotherhood of rugby, the fraternity of rugby, meant more than the brotherhood of man – that they couldn’t be bad chaps because they played rugby. It was very much that sort of arrogance that I absolutely deplored in rugby. I had no doubts at all.”
John Taylor of Wales – a man I will never forget, who took a stand at a time when it wasn’t easy and very few if any other Irish or British International Rugby players were standing up to be counted..!!
Full article http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/john-taylor-rebel-with-a-cause-1693205.html
Nothing like a bit of pettiness Donal about a song who’s purpose is to bridge the gap between to communities who support a rugby team.
We all enjoy beating England of course, probably because they have often been the dominant force in six nations rugby and the constant media focus on them always makes it nice to knock them down a peg or two.
In Irish Rugby circles however there has always been a, sometimes begrudging, respect for English rugby. During the dark days of the Troubles Scottish and Welsh teams refused to travel and play there games in Dublin due to the security situation. England always came however and many Irish rugby supporters appreciated that they did as it gave some degree of normality.
I think the respect shown for god save the queen during their match at Croke Park shows not all rugby supporters are as narrow minded as Donal who can’t even bear to listen to Irelands call.
Catch a grip Donal.
“England always came however and many Irish rugby supporters appreciated that they did as it gave some degree of normality.”
I am sure the South Africans were equally appreciative of the visits and invitations from the Irish and British Rugby Associations and the appearance of normalcy and legitimacy they they gave to their foul regime …!!!
“England always came however and many Irish rugby supporters appreciated that they did as it gave some degree of normality.”
I am sure the South Africans were equally appreciative of the visits and invitations from the Irish and British Rugby Associations and the appearance of normalcy and legitimacy they gave to their foul regime …!!!
There’s quite a long list of people and organisations who tried to give an impression of ‘normality’ to this cesspit during our latest spot of bother. Like as British as Finchley. This was to calm the settlers and was backed by the might of the British Army. Still going on. TV programmes, papers, school curriculum etc all biased towards the settled community.
Note: This is NOT me. As Donal (Kennedy) says, his computer is acting funny, so I’m his messenger boy.
IRFU REVISITED
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Donal Kennedy
22:42 (10 hours ago)
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I’ve a glitch in my computer and cannot add comments to my own or other blogs which is why I am using a new blog to comment on feedback .
First I’d like to ask Scott Rutherford whether he thinks it eccentric to expect that a group of athletes purporting to represent their nation in an inter-national contest stand for its national anthem and ensure that its national flag is acknowledged and respected. As an organisation the IRISH RUGBY FOOTBALL UNION does not give its allegiance to Ireland and consequently cannot reasonably expect the support of that nation. I infer from his comments that Mr Rutherford withholds his allegiance from Ireland, and could not, with honour hold a passport proclaiming himself a citizen of Ireland. Citizens are required by Ireland’s Constitution or Basic Law to be faithful to the nation. That Constitution was not imposed on the citizens by any Government, native or foreign, but enacted by the citizens themselves in a plebiscite.
Brian Patterson’s remarks, were, as always, interesting. When he received his degree from QUB he did not attend the conferring ceremony, which ought to be one to enjoy, because he could not stand for God Save The Queen and retain his self-respect. There are good precedents. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, Francis Cruise O’Brien (father of Conor) and Frank Skeffington (who married Hanna Sheehy, Conor’s Aunt) either boycotted the ceremony at UCD or staged a protest at the playing of God Save The King. I note also Brian’s comments on the IRFU’s unheroic record during South Africa’s Apartheid era. As it happened I attended an Ireland-South Africa match in Landsdowne Rd. I was over in Dublin for a funeral and my younger brother, a GAA stalwart, had three tickets for the match, and we both watched it in company with my soccer-playing son. I’m happy to report that the flag of the free, post-Apartheid South African Nation flew over the stadium.
I’m rather disappointed that after centuries of Compulsory English a joke of mine escaped comment. I described “Ireland’s Call” as ” A woful ballad made to Mother England’s Eyebrow, As I Hate It.”. Male readers of an amorous disposition, might, with advantage, Brush Up Their Shakespeare, for it’s claimed the ladies would all Kow -Tow, as the IRFU does to the West Britons.
Kiss me ????
Sorry Jude, I cannot agree that the (26 County) Constitution was ‘enacted by the citizens themselves’., It was a sectarian Free State Constitution ‘built in th’eclipse and rigged with curses dark’, formulated and devised by De Valera with massive input from the Catholic Church. No Irish person, nationalist or unionist,resident east of greater Buncrana or north of greater Hackballscross hat a vote on it.