A chara, - I had serious misgiving when I first hear that it was the intention of the IRFU to play the British National Anthem for the English rugby team at Lansdowne Road on February 15th. The reasons for them have been eloquently set forth by your correspondent Bill Walsh of Carrigaline, Co Cork (letters, February 21st) and PE O hAnluain of Athlone (letters, February 22nd).
You were kind enough to print my own letter on the subject alongside that of Mr Walsh. I wrote it as an Englishman, conscious of the generosity that had been shown towards the English at Lansdowne Road, and I sought to draw out all that was positive for England and Ireland on that occasion.
The fixture between England and Ireland goes back, as Mr Edmund Van Esbeck pointed out in The Irish Times on February 11th, to the first match played between the two countries, at Kennington Oval on February 15th, 1875. It goes back beyond the political division that have beset us in Ireland in the present century. The fact that there is still one All Ireland rugby team shows that the tradition remains a living tradition, and commands the good will of people in all parts of the island of Ireland. In a way, it is an expression of the peace and reconciliation for which we have all been striving over the past 25 years.
Yet the continuation and support of this wonderful Irish tradition require (as always in Ireland) careful attention to sensitivities on all sides. We have been able to proceed in the past with a policy of studied silence and ambiguity.
Members of the RUC and, no doubt, also of the Orange Order have played for Ireland at Lansdowne Road. They have lined up in the famous green shirt (15 Green Knights, as a friend of mine aptly described them recently), been presented to the President, stood to attention for the singing of Amhran na bhFiann, and honoured the flag of the Republic, which after all symbolises the peace between green and orange. Now that it is no longer possible to proceed in this indirect fashion, a new policy needs to be thought out, but one that must again be sensitive to the needs of the two traditions in Ireland embraced by the rugby team.
Certainly, in addition to the anthem, we need an Irish song that all the players can be seen to sing with gusto. I enclose a copy of - A Song for Ireland in a format suggested to me by Fergus Slattery (Blackrock and Ireland). It was included as a result of the friendly co operation of the travel companies with the air tickets for the match against Scotland in Murrayfield in 1995. I believe that it was sung with gusto in the car park before the match and in the pubs after the match. Sadly, it was not sung where it was intended to be sung, that is, in the ground itself and especially on the occasion of an Irish try.
As it happened, Ireland scored two magnificent tries, one by a rising star, Jonathan Bell (Ballymena), and the other by an established star, Brendan Mullin (Dublin University and Blackrock). If Quidnunc can publish two verses of God Save the Queen on the day of the English match, perhaps she can also quote one verse of Danny Boy on the day of the Scottish match. And let us hope that the Irish supporters will sing it with gusto at Murrayfield, as we repay the Scots for the many embarrassing defeats that they have inflicted upon us in recent years. - Yours, etc.,
Arts Building,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.
PS: I am proud to say that there were no fewer than nine representatives from Dublin University on that first Irish team to play England in 1875, including the captain, George Stack.