In recent years in the US, Donald Trump has forced various cleavages in that country’s politics. Amongst the groups to have, on the right of US politics alone, emerged are, of course, the MAGA movement, which comprises Trump’s ultra-loyalists. Then there are the so-called “never Trumpers”, former Republicans who would sooner vote for a Democrat than vote for the Orange menace. Then there is another group, commonly called the anti-anti-Trumpers. These are Republican voters who tend not to vote for Donald Trump or his candidates in Republican primaries for much the same reasons as the never Trumpers, but manage to talk themselves into voting for Trump in the main event, on the grounds that however bad he might be, he’s better than a Democrat.
It is in this spirit that your correspondent declares himself formally, on the subject of the Irish Rugby Team, anti-anti Rugby.
The contours of the cultural divide on Rugby in Irish society are not entirely different to those outlined in the first paragraph above: In one corner, the Irish rugby fanatic, for whom the “team of us” is the greatest public representation of the kind of country in which they believe themselves to live: Pluralist,; inclusive; multicultural; devoted to fair play and sportsmanship; representing the very best of, ahem, Oireland.
On the other hand, you have a not very small section of the population for which Rugby and the culture around it is entirely insufferable: anti-nationalist; elitist; the preserve (in Dublin, at least) of private schoolboys; a kind of representation of Ireland through the eyes of the most banal marketing department of an American multinational. Some of these people secretly, and not so secretly, rejoice in the team losing. It has also been observed by some that the Rugby Team seems to get a particular reverence and level of protection from the press and the broadcast media that is not always granted to other disciplines, presumably since so much of the media is drawn from what we might call the rugby-playing classes of Irish society.
I find myself in the third camp: It is true, to be sure, that Rugby culture is at times entirely insufferable. But it is also true that annoyance or irritation with Rugby culture should not stop us from marvelling at the successes of the team. You can be annoyed at the marketing department that came up with “team of us” without allowing that annoyance to extend to the efforts of Johnny Sexton, whose utter exhaustion and deflation after the game on Saturday was evidence of the efforts he gave for his shirt at an advanced (in sporting terms) age.
The division comes, I think, from two entirely different understandings of nationalism. For some people, Irish nationalism is primarily about who we are. That is to say, they take pride in Irish culture, and the Irish language, and Irish history and – relatedly – Ireland’s struggle to achieve freedom and self-determination, which some of them see as ongoing. For these nationalists, Irishness is a pure and triple-distilled thing: Some of them get annoyed, in the context of Rugby, that some of the players on the team are not “truly” Irish and hail from other parts of the world. Not, it should be said, out of racism, but out of a sense that Irish Rugby isn’t really Irish at all in their sense of the word. They see it as something more akin to brand Ireland – a morkeshing-inspired distortion of the meaning of the word Irish.
Give those people a GAA game any day of the week.
On the other side, there are those who see Irish nationalism less about who we are and more about what we are. That is to say, their nationalism is less about flags and anthems and language, and more about a sense of pride in what Irish society has, as they see it, achieved. The Rugby team is probably the best distillation of this form of nationalism that you’ll find outside of an Irish Times staff meeting.
That form of nationalism places less emphasis, it’s fair to say, on the 1916 rising than it does on the existence of the Dublin Docklands and Mary Robinson’s status as a member of the global elders and Donie O’Sullivan’s job with CNN. It’s the nationalism of Bord Fáilte, and the IDA. It’s “what a great place modern Ireland is” nationalism.
Both sides make fair points, and the truth is, I think, somewhere in the middle. But one’s opinions of Rugby culture should not detract from support for this Irish team, or recognition of the thousands of young lives they’ve inspired – not with marketing initiatives, but with performances on the field. Sporting defeats come and go, but memories of world cups last a lifetime, as those of us who were children during Italia 90 will know.
Rugby will never be my game, nor Rugby culture my culture, but if every Irish person played as hard for the jersey as that team does, the country would be a better place.