Little history lesson about Ireland and Rugby.

Tomorrow is Ireland is playing England in the 6 nations. Not that big a deal? Well since coming to Ireland I have got rather fond of going down to the pub and watching the rugby, so I will be looking forward to it.

The match has much more significance than that though. Even more significance than just the fact the Irish are huge rivals of the English and will go nuts if they beat them.

Time for the history lesson, in 1920 during the Irish war of independence the IRA woke up and killed 14 British agents in the morning. This rather pissed off the English who retaliated sending British forces to a stadium called Croke Park in Dublin where the British forces killed 14 civilians including the captain of one of the teams, this day became known as Bloody Sunday. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1920)) This was a major turning point in the war for the IRA and they gained much support after the actions of the British.

So this Saturday when the English come out onto the pitch and sing "God Save the Queen" I will have a chill going down my spine, at what has passed in the last 88 years.

Hope you enjoy the match, I am sure the Irish will give it all that they have. Apparently the in joke at events like this is that the English do not have a chance of beating the Irish if they do not have amoured cars and machine guns. Always good to be able to laugh about these things.