Sunday, February 03, 2008
“Nothing is as it seems in rugby any more.”
If the opening games of the 6 Nations Tournament are anything to go by it’s going to be an eventful and close series. The BBC report correctly sums up Ireland’s win over Italy at Croke Park, “Ireland labour to opening win” - the ghosts of the World Cup have clearly not been fully exorcised. Ireland twelfth straight win over Italy, “perhaps the least satisfying”. The Guardian’s Kevin Mitchell gives an overview of the scene. Meanwhile The Ospreys Wales triumphed over England at Twickenham for the first time in 20 years in a remarkable second half comeback. Eddie Butler is worth reading as always. Scotland face France today at Murrayfield, kick-off 3.00pm. [All games will be available on the BBC i Player here] Update France “[send] out a warning to the rest of the Six Nations.” Scotland 6 France 27
Pete Baker @ 11:29 AM
You can google your sister for all the good its going to do. The British isles geographically or otherwise pertains to the island of Britain and its isles. And Ireland is not part of that, and continuing your little slave-minded glorying of all things English will not change the fact.
Arise poor serf from thy knees
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 12:50 PMCongal Claen
“The RoI was founded through Terrorism and your state agencies financed and armed the Provos”
And obviously the British state has had nothing to do with paramilitary organisations in NI
Anyway, you’re right, the cat is out of the bag, and very convenient too as it must be delightful for some non-rugby followers to jump on board to have a good old rant about it. as for the IRFU squirming! i don’t think they are. this will turn into IFA/FAI nonesense again. People will eventually realise that no change is going to occur and then go quite on the issue.
PeaceandJustice
you or i have very little control about partition or how long it will last. Scotland don’t play GSTQ before our matches and a good thing too. Pedantry aside, it is seen as the English anthem, like it or not. Secondly, if the IRFU not playing GSTQ helps maintain partition then you should be happy. Actually, you should be applauding the IRFU for playing Anab before games. When i say that other people don’t care, i’m not having a go at Unionists. i think most Rugby supporters don’t care about the anthems. When i go along to Glasgow warriors’ games we’re entertained by cheerleaders before and during the games. personally i’d prefer that rather than anthems before international games anyway. also, the fact is that the Ireland team has been effectively Munster forwards (excluding MOK) and half backs, and Leinster 3/4s and full back for a while now. Ulster makes a very small contribution to the Ireland team. So in a sense you are right. It is a RoI team in as much as it is almost exclusively RoI players.Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 12:50 PM‘But we should not be rude - and playing an IRA song during rugby matches - just after they had to endure what they percieve as a terrorist campaign against them is bad manners.’
Complete and utter drivel. The Soldier’s Song is the national anthem of almost 85% of the people on this island . With your upside down logic you would presumably agree that any playing of GSTQ in Dublin when England play the Republic in a soccer or any other sport is also bad manners/rude ? Would it be bad manners for Irish people both in the Republic and Northern Ireland to regard GSTQ as a UVF/UDA/UNIONIST/PROTESTANT song simply because it’s sung also by a few (former- hopefully ) terrorists ?
Here are the rugby ‘song’facts
Ireland -population 6.2 million Soldiers song /Amhrain na BhFiannn is the ‘rugby anthem’ for at least 5.3 million of the above .
Wales -pop 3 million . Anthem /Song is Land of My Fathers
Scotland population 5 million -Flower of Scotland
(Note the 400,000 English people who live in Scotland do not insist on playing GTSQ along with Flower of Scotland .England -pop 50 million - Anthem is GTSQ
Northern Ireland population 1.7 million (divided 53/47 by sectarian division-no national rugby team thus no ‘anthem’ .
Maybe it’s time for Norn Iron to have it’s own team if GTSQ means more to them than to the Scots or Welsh ?
And again just to repeat lads -its a game .
‘just after they had to endure what they percieve as a terrorist campaign against them is bad manners.’
Bad manners works both ways . There are many who would say that there was more than one group of terrorists in Northern Ireland and that ‘Unionists’ were not the only people to have a terrorist campaign waged against them .
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 01:12 PMPeace & Justice:
“ ...would you also call for more recognition of the Protestant minority in the RoI?
Protestant minority are recognised on our flag at least.
“They were told to conform or else.”
eh, that is democracy I believe, though I wouldn’t actually put it that way.“Many were burned out, murdered or had to leave because they didn’t conform.”
Have you got any stats for this? What do you mean by conform?
By the way, I come from an area that would have a very high proportion of protestants and I can confirm that they are mostly still there, living in their large houses and running their prosperous businesses/practices, involved in rugby/cricket/tennis and even GAA etc. This ‘conforming’ lark seems to have worked out well for them.
Clongal Claen
“"That was the solution from the 50s. A lot of unionists suspected this. However, it was never put to the test. Then, with Lansdowne being redeveloped, Ravenhill was needed. The cat is now out of the bag now. That’s why former supporters, like WindsorRocker, feel completely let down. The squirming by the IRFU on this is ridiculous. It’s obviously wrong and should be changed.”Ravenhill was not really needed by the IRFU - I think maybe the Ulster branch needed the game more so as to attract nationalist to Rugby. Lets face it, they could do with some of the obvious GAA talent who might be attracted to a professional game (Tommy Bowe, one of the better Ulster rugby players played GAA. Off the top of my head, Keith Wood, Mick Galwey, John Hayes, Denis Leamy, Shane Horgan, Moss Keane all played GAA to a highish level).
Fair play to NI rugby people, they are looking out to grow rugby in Ulster.
“"The squirming by the IRFU on this is ridiculous. It’s obviously wrong and should be changed.”
How/where are the IRFU squirming? Refusing to get involved would be a more accurate appraisal I would think.
Iain
“Ulster makes a very small contribution to the Ireland team. So in a sense you are right. It is a RoI team in as much as it is almost exclusively RoI players.”Not to mention being totally financed by ROI taxpayers. If you are looking for anthem/flag equality, maybe Lord Laird might ask the British Gov. to make some contribution to running the Irish rugby team.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 01:27 PMNot to mention being totally financed by ROI taxpayers. If you are looking for anthem/flag equality, maybe Lord Laird might ask the British Gov. to make some contribution to running the Irish rugby team.
The UK government does make a contribution, albeit a small one, towards rugby in N Ireland.
From a question asked by Lord Laird in the House of Lords, in 06/07, the Sports Council of NI’s support was:
Association Football £2,158,272.68
Rugby Union £882,900.62
Gaelic Athletic Association £2,692,846.27However I’m not sure where Lord Laird’s rumblings about rugby anthems and government support come from… or is he advocating that the GAA shouldn’t receive support as well?
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 01:58 PMIt must have been very hard for the unionists on Saturday watching all thoese Taigs playing rugger, the majority of them Italian.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:11 PMMichael Robinson,
I don’t know if that 800,00 funding goes towards the Ireland team. I reckon that goes to club infrastructure etc.Then again even if it did, just to contrast, the Irish government is stumping up 191 million euros so the Ireland team has a decent stadium to play in. A bit of a difference.
Personally, I have had it up to my oxters with all of this. Let those in Northern Ireland who can’t live with the current situation form a rugby team if they so wish.
People from Northern Ireland who are offended by Ireland’s national anthem and Ireland’s national flag or want it removed from an Ireland team can build their own stadium somewhere in Northern Ireland, train their own players, sing their own anthems and fly their own flags.
Nobody is forcing them to come to Dublin. They can leave any time they want.
Thre’s the door. Good luck and goodbye.
Parity of esteem sometimes involves parting ways.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:11 PMMichael
The IRFU does not receive any money from the Sports Council of NI (check out IRFU annual report on their website). The IRFU gets about 6m per annum from Irish Sports Council, not to mention various stadia grants for Lansdowne /Croke Park from Irish Gov. that enables the IRFU to be able to grant Ulster Rugby the €5m a year (the same as Leinster/Munster who provide most of the team). We wouldn’t want to be depending on ticket sales to Ravenhill to keep rugby afloat, now would we!
The figures you quote above would include grants to individual clubs etc. for infrastructure, coaching etc. - nothing at all to do with the representative team.
Check out this page to see who sponsors Irish Rugby. Note Irish Sports Council - no Sports Council for NI!
http://www.irishrugby.ie/24_299.php
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:32 PMI don’t know if that 800,00 funding goes towards the Ireland team. I reckon that goes to club infrastructure etc.
Then again even if it did, just to contrast, the Irish government is stumping up 191 million euros so the Ireland team has a decent stadium to play in. A bit of a difference.
I don’t know where the Sports Council for NI’s money goes either. There will be capital grants for developing Ravenhill and a proportion may very well go directly to amateur clubs for ground improvements and the like. It certainly shouldn’t go towards paying the wages of professional rugby players and I’d imagine the situation is the same in the south as well.
Of course, just as Dublin is putting money towards Lansdowne Road, the UK government says they’ll fund the Maze…
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:42 PMNice attitude from George: a Southern and nationalist chauvinist.
At least he’s honest, though.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:46 PMHi Smoking,
“You can google your sister for all the good its going to do. The British isles geographically or otherwise pertains to the island of Britain and its isles. And Ireland is not part of that, and continuing your little slave-minded glorying of all things English will not change the fact.”
Only nationalist Ireland considers it so. The rest of the world considers Ireland to be in the British Isles. English and British are 2 different words in case you didn’t know – despite what a lot of the English and ironically nationalist Irish think. The British Isles existed for centuries before any notion of England or the English. It also predates the name Ireland – ironically again a name given by a tribe (the Errain) from modern day SW England ie a British name. That you and lots of other Irish nationalists have sacrificed your British heritage says more about your hatred of modern day Englishness than any love of Irishness. I’m Irish and British – they’re not mutually exclusive despite what nationalist Ireland would tell you.
Hi Iain,
“And obviously the British state has had nothing to do with paramilitary organisations in NI”
The British state was not founded through terrorism. Neither has a recent PM funded or armed any loyalist terrorist grouping – to the best of my knowledge.
Hi Greenflag,
In relation to your discussion on manners it should be pointed out that up until relatively recently GSTQ wasn’t played for England whenever they played at Lansdowne Road. Such was/is the nationalist hatred of anything British. Hopefully, the “is” in the last sentence will be removed in future times. Just as the “banning” of GSTQ for England was.
Hi Janeymac,
“Ravenhill was not really needed by the IRFU”
Lansdowne and potentially Thomond Park were up for redevelopment. So, Ravenhill was needed in case they were both being redeveloped. Remember the games are planned months if not years in advance.
“How/where are the IRFU squirming? Refusing to get involved would be a more accurate appraisal I would think.”
They now play GSTQ for England at Lansdowne. Only a recent change. They also didn’t play the SS before the peace international. They fly the republican 9 county Ulster flag as a “concession”. They also sing “Ireland’s Call” as another so called concession. I’d call that all squirming. What would you call it? However, the issue will continue until there’s an agreed anthem or none.
Hi Love and Hate,
“It must have been very hard for the unionists on Saturday watching all thoese Taigs playing rugger, the majority of them Italian.”
Most of the Italians are Argentinian. Fek, there’s a whole new can of worms over their anthem!
Hi George,
“Nobody is forcing them to come to Dublin. They can leave any time they want.
Thre’s the door. Good luck and goodbye.
Parity of esteem sometimes involves parting ways.”As long as we receive our fair share of the value of the IRFU that would be acceptable. Interesting tho’ that you’d rather partition the team than afford parity of esteem over the flag/anthem issue. A case of Gaelic Ireland or nothing?
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:57 PMcongal try runnin anglo-celtic islands on your beloved google.....just don’t drip any of that lemon juice onto your keyboard !
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 02:57 PMInteresting tho’ that you’d rather partition the team - congal
wow, so partitioning the country was what exactly?
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:00 PMThe IRFU does not receive any money from the Sports Council of NI (check out IRFU annual report on their website).
I’d agree that so far the SCNI’s money probably goes towards individual clubs however there will be a contribution towards Ravenhill redevelopment. This won’t be in annual reports to date as the planning approvals were only granted within the last couple of months and I understand the money is only drawn down when required as determined by the construction schedule. It should appear in the IRFU’s reports for 08/09.
As you say, none of the 4 provinces could survive as standalone entities and rely on the IRFU’s subsidy, the majority of which comes from the international game.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:00 PMcongal claen,
Sorry for the delay in answering you but after reading your post I had to lie down for a bit - the shock of your suggestion that ‘majority Prod towns in the ROI’ would be unionist led to uncontrollable laughter . Difficult as it may be for you to believe the majority of Prods in the south are republicans and play a role in the political parties in the South, all of them republican and most of them with a heritage of violent revolution against the Crown.
There are no unionist parties in the South because there are virtually no unionists. Unionist sympathisers at Trinity University, mostly from the North, did try to organise but were laughed out of existence.
However if someone wants to fly a Union Jack, why not? The English flag with the Cross of St. George is flown outside pubs on appropriate match days and Orangemen in Donegal fly it on their marches. No-one cares anymore and the Irish-British relationship has never been better.
PeaceandJustice,
The ‘Ulster-British’ have as much right to support and be part of any Irish team as the Polish-Irish, the Chinese-Irish or any other minority. What has that to do with my questions?
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:10 PMHi Stones,
“congal try runnin anglo-celtic islands on your beloved google.....just don’t drip any of that lemon juice onto your keyboard !”
220 hits. Slightly less than the 30.8 million for British Isles. You’ve underlined my point - Cheers!
“wow, so partitioning the country was what exactly?”
The partitioning of the UK. Something I’d rather was reversed. I’d welcome the prodigal RoI back with open arms. Only if you want to tho’…
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:12 PMCongal,
As long as we receive our fair share of the value of the IRFU that would be acceptable. Interesting tho’ that you’d rather partition the team than afford parity of esteem over the flag/anthem issue. A case of Gaelic Ireland or nothing?It’s not parity of esteem, that’s the whole point. You haven’t got an anthem that represents the people of Northern Ireland. When you do we’ll play it.
At the moment we have a unionist interest group masquerading as the parity of esteem representatives for Northern Ireland. It’s so ironic it’s hilarious.
As long as this remains the case, I see no reason for the rest of us on this island to continue with this charade.
As for a fair share of IRFU:
My final offer is this: nothing.
See you in court.
Willowfield,
I wish unionists would be honest and admit that they don’t want an agreed anthem and flag for Northern Ireland they want the British one.If you want a British Northern Ireland then off you jolly well go and form your British Northern Ireland rugby team.
I wish you British boys and girls all the success in the world.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:14 PMsorry congal, either your a liar or you’ve already spilt the lemon juice
Results 1 - 10 of about 13,200 for anglo-celtic islands. (0.10 seconds)
now whilst your empire minded ‘british isles’ might return more hits, it don’t make it so.
The partitioning of the UK. Something I’d rather was reversed. I’d welcome the prodigal RoI back with open arms. Only if you want to tho’… - congal
you seem to miss the point that the irish never wanted to be part of your beloved union....are you completely ignorant of that?
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:20 PMHi Lib,
“There are no unionist parties in the South because there are virtually no unionists.”
Is that because 70% left after partition?
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:24 PMNo amount of unionist revisionism will change the facts. Ireland being “geographically” part of the British isles is INCORRECT. Much as you getting an erection on hearing the other quoted by your conmpatriots will never change that. Britian is Britain and Ireland is Ireland, we have the Irish isles, from the Blaskets to Rathlin island, and Britain have theirs.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:26 PMheres a link from another poster, i apologise you name escapes me, which is quite nice for those British isles minded people !
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/12/14/story482261422.asp
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:27 PMCongal Claen
“to the best of my knowledge”
indeed, knowledge is lacking, isn’t it
“Such was/is the nationalist hatred of anything British”
lol, the irony!
George,
although unionists go about it in a totally ham fisted way that is more likely to antagonise than anything else, they do have a point. Either its a ‘joint’ team or it isn’t, and if its a joint team then it either respects both anthems or none. i mean, do you really care if Anab is played before a game. As i said earlier, cheerleaders would be much more entertaining.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:27 PMCongal,
unionist parties only got 36,000 votes in 1918 in the 26 counties.Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:28 PMIain,
it’s a joint team of Ireland and Northern Ireland, not nationalism and unionism.When they have an agreed anthem for Northern Ireland we’ll play it.
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:31 PMHi Stones,
“sorry congal, either your a liar or you’ve already spilt the lemon juice”
The difference is because when I googled I put anglo-celtic islands in quotes. This means that the whole phrase has to occur. What you’ve done is left the quotes out so you get returns with “anglo-celtic” as long as “islands” occurs somewhere else in the hit. Not the same thing at all. I stand by the 220 as not only am I not a liar I know how to use Google ;0)
Posted by on Feb 04, 2008 @ 03:31 PM
