There is a scene in Andrew Trimble’s gentle exploration of identity in For Ulster and for Ireland where he is talking to his friend and former Munster and Irish international Barry Murphy. Murphy is also a podcaster with Trimble and a musician with the band Hermitage Green. Trimble asks Murphy how many caps he has. Murphy replies four.
All of them starts? Trimble asks mischievously, differentiating a starting cap from a bench cap, while knowing they weren’t starts. Murphy shakes his head as a ‘no’ and both laugh before the former Ulster and Ireland winger lands him with a stark question that goes towards explaining what his documentary is about.
“So, for your caps, would you be happy for two of those to take place in Belfast, and you have to sing God Save The Queen before them?” Of course, Trimble asks the question having stood in Dublin on many occasions with other Ulster players, among them Rory Best, Iain Henderson and Chris Henry as the Republic of Ireland’s anthem Amhrán na bhFiann is played.
Murphy, still laughing, answers without hesitation. “No way, not a hope in hell!” Trimble, avoiding any further exploration makes a joke of it. “I’ll put you down as a maybe,” he says.
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The object of the exercise is not to argue or dispute each other’s position on identity, but to illustrate how it is possible to acknowledge different cultural, political and religious realities without rancour and maybe to show there is a growing middle between the harder edges.
Most rugby players from Munster, Leinster or Connacht would probably have answered the question as Murphy did, while understanding those Ulster players like Trimble, who they perceive as “Ulster Rugby Christian Protestants”, would have a different view.
Part of Trimble’s journey in the programme is to bring out the nuance and complexity of identities, rather than cling to the traditional binary “Rugby Protestant”.
I know that we would be a much better place if we just all realised that hurling is not owned by the nationalist community; rugby is not the monopoly of the unionist community
Complexity is illustrated later when Murphy talks about Croke Park in 2007, when Ireland played England in the Six Nations Championship and how the 80,000 crowd fell into a respectful silence as God Save the Queen was played.
Murphy would not like God Save The Queen played in Belfast before a match in which he was playing but participated, and was struck by the deep respect shown when it played in Dublin at a match he was attending.
But rugby has always been like that, able to straddle the different circumstances and make them work, play the various notions of identity and bend when required. The sport has had years of practice and in its past dealt with many situations that ballooned into the domains of political and paramilitary.
Jim McCoy was a police officer with the RUC in the 1980s, Nigel Carr a forensic scientist who examined the aftermath of bomb scenes and former Irish second row, Brian McCall was an officer in the British army. They would have been what the IRA called legitimate targets and, when travelling to Dublin to play for Ireland, had to be escorted by Gardai Special Branch officers when they crossed the border at Newry.
It is a past not missed, but the deep divisions of those days play into identities still.
One of the more interesting segments is when Trimble, who dropped out of studying physics at Queen’s University and went on to study Theology at Belfast Bible College, drives up to the coastal village of Cushendall to talk to Antrim hurling captain Neil McManus.
Again, perceived identities kick in. “Ulster GAA Catholic Nationalist.” In the seaside town, Trimble meets a voice as articulate as his own.
McManus acknowledges the binary forces in action, him a Catholic therefore destined for GAA and hurling, Trimble a Protestant therefore a pathway towards rugby.
“I know that we would be a much better place if we just all realised that hurling is not owned by the nationalist community; rugby is not the monopoly of the unionist community,” says McManus.
“For hundreds of years, our traditions our cultures were intertwined. Nobody has a monopoly on any of our culture, our heritage, our sports and we need to move forward to a place where our children, as young as they are now, get the chance to play all these sports, get the chance to be a part of the different cultural experiences that come from your community and mine.”
Now, in the Ulster Rugby team different identities are flooding the zone with more varied backgrounds than when Trimble was playing 10 years ago. Alan O’Connor, from Skerries, Ruaidhri Murphy, a prop from Castleknock College and Tommy Bowe from Monaghan were all in the squad when Trimble was there in 2014.
Now John Cooney, Jake Flannery, Greg Jones, Marty Moore, Eric O’Sullivan, Dave Shanahan, O’Connor and Nick Timoney, all from the Republic of Ireland, play with Ulster. Blackrock College’s Ian Madigan has just retired, Jordi Murphy too. Also on Ulster’s books is Shay O’Brien, a talented GAA player from St Colman’s Catholic grammar school in Newry, who plays fullback.
Trimble did not grow up with a sectarian mindset and it would have been interesting had he spoken to a hardliner, as there is still blood and thunder in the air in Belfast. What he did show is that “Ulster Rugby Christian Protestant” ill defines him. He is more and believes others are too in a city where identity is not just important, but everything.
