Limerick anthem has real heart

It has become almost impossible to keep Limerick lads down. Last Saturday at Lansdowne Road we saw the likes of Peter Clohessy and Keith Wood take on the mighty South Africans.

What a pity therefore that we were not treated to that most stirring of all rugby anthems There Is an Isle. Instead we had the fine new South African anthem and Amhrain na Bhfiann and then, astonishingly, a recorded rendition of a song called Ireland's Call. This was both an insult to the anthem of the State and to the intelligence of the spectators.

I am pleased that my friend and colleague, Donal Spring, who was sitting right behind me, put his firm hand on my shoulder and told me to sit down during the playing of this travesty. "That is nobody's national anthem," he said.

I have the greatest respect and affection for the writer and musician, Phil Coulter, and am a great admirer of his work. I will lustily sing The Town I Love So Well with the best of them, but the anthem of my country should not be relegated or set aside for any old reason.

It is totally unnecessary and serves no purpose and it is about time that some of the players, the new power brokers within the game, made this known to the rugby authorities.

The fact is that nobody has any gra or respect for this limp attempt to nod in the direction of Irish unity. It should be dropped straight away and be replaced by There Is an Isle. This is a very harmonious, non-sectarian ballad with profound rugby resonances which could get us through any problems which might arise until we are adult enough to have an agreed All-Ireland anthem; this should be the song which unites all of us in rugby and its ethos.

All of which brings me back to Limerick. How can you get away from it? Denis O'Shaughnessy brings it into focus again with his book A Spot So Far, a name plundered from the aforementioned anthem. O'Shaughnessy knows about Garryowen and Young Munsters and the boys from the Yellow Road.

Local "characters" abound in the pages of this opus. One such is `Ducky" Hayes from a place called Flag Lane who "brooked no nonsense, and many a bobby-dazzler, out for his scalp, lived to rue the day".

One such "bobby-dazzler" was Dickie Harris, later Richard of Camelot and other fame. As O'Shaughnessy tells it, Harris was playing for Old Crescent against St Mary's one day and decided that he might make a name for himself by having a shot at `Ducky' Hayes.

Harris came off worst and was carted off for running repairs only to return with his face so heavily bandaged that he was unrecognisable. It was later rumoured that it wasn't Harris at all, but another Old Crescent player who came on at a time when substitutes were not allowed.

Years later, when Harris was being acclaimed for his role in the award-winning This Sporting Life, the local Limerick cinema was packed for the first showing. In the movie, Harris stepped into a scrum to `sort out' an opponent and did so with some vigour, but the attendance in the Savoy applauded vigorously when a client in the back row shouted: "You wouldn't do it if Ducky Hayes was there."