Brexit highlights Ireland’s divisions. But sport shows how united we can be

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/23/brexit-ireland-divisions-sport-united-shane-lowry-eoin-morgan

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Depressed about Brexit? There’s always golf. As Brexit threatens the economic – and actual – security of Ireland, north and south, maybe what we can lean into a little more on this island is the unifying power of sport. Sport in Ireland overlaps with identities in curious ways, but there are many moments when perceived divisions can fade into the green distance, like a man from Offaly being cheered on at a course in Northern Ireland, about to win the Open. Tricolours being waved at Royal Portrush, a chorus of “olés”, videos of Shane Lowry grinning as the Fields of Athenry is sung.

Meanwhile, Lowry’s grandmother Emily Scanlon offered the most Irish of all anecdotes regarding sports nutrition on the Irish station RTÉ. “I remember I minded him while the mother was working,” she said. “I had a turf box in the corner beside the range, and when I’d go up to the clothesline I’d put him into it, and he’d have all the turf mould ate ... whether it worked his immune system or what, I don’t know. He got there anyway. Great gossoon [young boy] he was.” Turf mould may not be the next carrageen moss, but the moments sport can offer up, on their day, are some tonic.

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Sporting rivalries between England and Ireland tend to be clear – Irish people want England to lose, and when that feeling dissipates on occasion, say, during the common occurrence of a football tournament that England has qualified for and Ireland has not, the rivalry can crumble in a fit of empathy, and column inches and talk radio schedules fill up with whether or not it’s OK to cheer for the colonial oppressor. Irish people talk about English people as though there are none in the room, even though they are our largest non-Irish demographic. That said, the first time I found myself genuinely, authentically, briefly, cheering for an English team, was during the recent World Cup. My heart broke for Steph Houghton when she missed that penalty. It was a weird feeling.

Less discussed are sporting rivalries north and south, and the possibilities and complexities of sporting unity across Ireland, backstop or no backstop. It is possible that Brexit will cause the breakup of the United Kingdom in the future, so what would the sporting landscape look like then? Ireland is already united across a number of sports. Symbols are amended. Flags are neutralised. Anthems are composed.

Rugby in Ireland grew initially as a game primarily played by the Protestant middle classes in Ulster and Dublin. Its scope is much broader now, but we are the team with two anthems – Amhrán na bhFiann and the newer Ireland’s Call at home, with only the latter played abroad. Ireland’s Call was composed by the Derryman Phil Coulter for the 1995 World Cup. It is one of the best and most successful examples of an attempt to find a neutral emotional space in Irish sport: one of those bridges built between north and south that our former president Mary McAleese used to speak about – the white between the green and orange, viewed as a little cringey at the outset, but now embraced.

Football has proved a bridge too far, though, after the national team was severed in the 1920s. The Football Association of Ireland was formed in 1921, when the Leinster Football Association split from the Ulster-based Irish Football Association, creating two teams. An all-Ireland soccer team still seems unlikely, despite popping up as a hypothetical every few years (George Best was a fan of the idea).

The former Formula One driver Eddie Irvine, from County Down, asked for a white flag with a shamrock to be used when he won a race. The motor sport governing body, the FIA, said that a union jack should have been raised upon his victory in Buenos Aires in 1997, as opposed to the tricolour that was hoisted instead. Many will remember Irvine’s Ferrari helmet with its white shamrock on a green background (probably less controversial, in retrospect, than the giant Marlboro cigarette logo). He also sported a green shamrock on the waistband of his race suit.

A cross-border flag, or four provinces flag, is used by the Irish field hockey team, also an all-Ireland team. The Irish cricket team also goes for shamrocks to join north and south. Speaking of cricket, “we clearly don’t need Europe to win,” Jacob Rees-Mogg tweeted after England’s World Cup victory, failing to realise that the captain of the English team, Eoin Morgan, is a Dubliner. When asked at a press conference after the final match whether the luck of an Irishman got England over the line, Morgan deferred to his teammate Adil Rashid’s faith. “We had Allah with us as well,” he said. “I spoke to Adil who said we had Allah with us. We had the rub of the green. It actually epitomises our team. There’s quite diverse backgrounds and cultures and guys growing up in different countries.” And with that, Morgan, like Lowry, demonstrated that talented, gracious sportspeople will always find fans, no matter where they’re from, or who they play for.