The battle of Croke Park

There was generally bonny acclamation as the French rugby team ran out to play Ireland at Dublin’s Croke Park stadium last Sunday. I forecast a significantly tauter edge to proceedings next Saturday when the English XV takes to the Republic’s hallowed sports field and lines up in front of the Irish Army Band to belt out ‘God Save the Queen’. For the French match on Sunday, you imagined a few daydreamy old-hand historians indulging in a smug two-centuries-old reverie concerning that untimely storm off Bantry Bay which scuppered the chances over Christmas 1796 of Wolfe Tone’s planned and bloody clear-out of the English from Ireland with the help of the French fleet of 43-sail and 2,500 men at arms. On Saturday, England’s rugby visit inspires altogether more nitty-gritty ruminations at old Croke Park — as well as a fair few revolutions in graveyards up and down the island, too, as the Anglo-Irish sporting world turns on its axis.