Saturday, February 24, 2007

Tense moment during "God save the Queen" this afternoon

Duncan Borrowman engagingly describes the historic nature of the Ireland v England Rugby match at Croke Park, Dublin this afternoon. Singing "God Save the Queen" in Croke Park is controversial, to put it mildly. The place is an inner sanctum of Irish Republicanism, as well as the site of the 1920 "Bloody Sunday" killing of fourteen spectators by the British Black and Tans.

Medals have been withdrawn from the Croke Park museum in protest and Republican Sinn Féin, a dissident faction opposed to the peace process, is planning a protest near the ground.

I was drawn to this wise comment about the controversy from Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times:

We are a sovereign nation with average per capita incomes above those of the UK. There are probably no two countries in the world whose governments work more closely together than the Irish and British governments do. It is time we got over ourselves.

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