The Armalite, the ballot box, and the rugby ball

One of Dublin's stranger sociological conjunctions in some time will take place this weekend when Sinn Fein party activists gather at the Royal Dublin Society for their annual convention (Ard Fheis) in which the big question will be whether the party can decisively drop the first part of its famous two-track military/political strategy referred to in our title, while a short distance away, Irish and English rugby fans gather at Lansdowne Road stadium for the Six Nations Championship decider, with Ireland playing for its first perfect record in the tournament in nearly 60 years. There is a stereotype in Ireland for these groups that would lead you to believe that the typical Irish rugby fan has more in common with the typical English fan than he has with the typical Sinn Feiner. And there's a grain of truth to that. Rugby is perceived by hardline Irish nationalists as a "foreign game" and the Irish rugby fan base is heavily white collar in contrast to the blue collar areas that provide the bedrock of Sinn Fein's electoral support in the Republic. But as usual, there are ironies. First and foremost: Ireland has, and always had, a unified national rugby team for North and South. Not so for soccer. One might have read this as a positive example of how sport could transcend political boundaries, but for the Sinn Feiners, it was simple evidence that there was a big closet Unionist contingent amongst the rugby fraternity. So perhaps we shouldn't expect too much jollity between the crowds as they belly up to the local bars. But will the Irish nationalists really be able to resist of the prospect of an All-Ireland team taking on perfidious Albion on the field of play with a serious chance of winning? We think not.