Welcome delights Fighting Irish

THE bastion of the fior Gael was invaded by foreign hordes playing a foreign game, and if the local populace wasn't exactly conquered, it was certainly entertained.

Notre Dame and Navy brought American football to Croke Park for Saturday's Shamrock Classic, and nearly 40,000 turned up to see the Fighting Irish run roughshod over some startled midshipmen.

It was a fine day all round. If you discount the Canal End, which was closed, and the Nally Stand, the place was pretty well full: a week ago you would have got some very nice odds against that.

Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz seemed genuinely delighted, not only with the result, but also with the whole escapade: "The environment in the stadium was excellent. I thought the crowd was enthusiastic, I thought the field was very nice, I think the stadium is very nice.

"We wanted to make this a great experience. The reason we got to come over here on Tuesday night was for the educational experience our players would have. And I've asked the players, on the airplane back, to write a little journal, about what they felt before they came over here, what they experienced - they experienced an awful lot and to keep it and to think about it in years to come.

Would he ever want to bring a team back here? "I definitely would, I really would. The reason I say that, I thought the field was excellent. I thought it was great for the fans. I thought it was a great educational experience for our players. I thought, many of our fans came to Ireland who wouldn't ordinarily get to, used the game as an excuse to.

"The only thing I would like is if they gave us a police escort all the time. I wanna tell you something, I thought New York traffic was bad. I swear to gosh, most people must live in a car.

"But I thought it was a good experience. Let me ask you all didn't you think it was a good experience just to come over? I thought it was a wonderful experience.

Mike Wadsworth, the athletic director of Notre Dame and former Canadian ambassador to Ireland, put the visit into a more general perspective. "The impact for Ireland is fantastic. Not only in terms of tourism, but in terms of the number of people here for the first time experiencing and learning about what modern day Ireland is all about, which most of us back in North America don't really appreciate. So I think for Ireland it's been a great thing."