The day that the Ulster rugby team won the European championship in Dublin in 1999 was a great day for Ireland. Nearly every shop and garage along the north-south corridor had good luck signs festooned on their buildings and the welcome in the restaurants and pubs was second to none. People from the north who had never been over the border before had the experience of big hearted Ireland at its hospitable best. Even the most hardened unionist heart must have melted slightly in the face of such overwhelming goodwill.
However, that day, though historic, was easy. It was about rugby, and while Ireland can be rightly proud of its rugby history and the fact that there is one team representing north and south, it is a game that for lots of explainable reasons does not threaten national identity. Rugby does not interfere with one's gut patriotism in the same way as does Gaelic football and hurling. Rugby is an imported game. Gaelic is an integral part of the deep essence that is Irishness.
No organisation has done more to establish and maintain that sense of an all island, all Ireland than the GAA, even to the extent at the height of the Troubles of being accused of predatory nationalism. However, in spite of the organisation's best efforts to establish the island of Ireland as one happy sporting entity, there will have been many in the south on Sunday who for the first time in their lives in the deepest parts of their hearts had a much-lessened interest in the game.
Not because standards had dropped but because two teams from the north were in the final, making it, in their eyes, not a proper national event at all.
By and large when we are no threat to the life in the south there is among the people a bemused 'Ah, sure you're all mad up in the north' sort of attitude. Indeed, as was evidenced by the wonderful support for the Ulster rugby team, the warmth and goodwill can be palpable. But this happens when we northerners are not doing anything to threaten territory. Move in on national pastimes as happened when Tyrone beat Kerry and the story seems to be different. The story is different. Let's face it. A united Ireland as a cosy dream never to impinge on real life suits some nationalists north and south well.
Turn the dream into a possible reality and everything changes.
As was Croke Park on Sunday 28th September 2003 when the best of the national game was exhibited by two teams from the north.
There will be some people in the south, not nearly enough though, who realise the powerful symbolic significance for the future, of that game enacted in the sunshine.
The Good Friday Agreement as needs must, concentrated on relationships within the six counties. That was where the problems seemed to both implode and explode. However, once the crisis is over, and we gather breath to take stock, sooner or later the relationship between the north and the south of this tiny island must start to move centre stage. There are many people in the south, politicians, social entrepreneurs, journalists and the ordinary people who will go the mile and more to help us mad northerners sort ourselves out. Enlarge the picture, however, to include a future where success in a European context requires a close north-south alliance. Take the spotlight off the seemingly recalcitrant Ulster Protestants and look at attitudes in the south. How many have the insight to accept that the future primarily will not be about how we mad northerners live together but how the urbane European-looking southerners cope with us when we are not just travelling south for a European rugby final but when we are here to stay.
This is much bigger than an increased vote for Sinn Féin in the south. This is about important living issues; about health, education, tourism, our shared environment and about agreement to share a relatively small island. This is about rationalisation on an all Ireland basis, where, under the provisions of the north- south bodies, centuries of politics are removed and replaced with the pragmatism of geographical realism. Unionists here have thought through the implications and by and large will cooperate for the greater good of their people. Have people in the south worked on similar issues? For example, are the people of Cavan or Sligo prepared to embrace Enniskillen as their nearest centre of specialist health provision? Are people south of the border ready for the all Ireland approach that so many emotionally claim to desire?
If so, Dublin last Sunday claimed by the north was a foretaste. Irish men and women watch this space, the northerners are coming.
