SHANE McGRATH ON IRELAND’S FOREIGNER POLICY
Soccer and rugby teams are hardly immoral for exploring all options
MICHAEL O’NEILL has been praised for his work with Northern Ireland. If his talent as a manager has been recognised, his recent behaviour as a very sore loser should be ridiculed.
He accused the FAI of being ‘morally poor’ for convincing players to switch to them after representing the North at underage grades.
It was notable that this old argument only briefly sputtered to life before it was quickly sidelined. It has been a Northern gripe for over a decade, but trying to win it on grounds of morality was misguided.
There is nothing morally suspect about the FAI asking players from a tradition sympathetic to the southern State if they want to play for this country. It is permitted within the rules governing eligibility, and the argument that these young men will have enjoyed the benefit of coaching under the IFA system should not undermine their right to exercise a choice available to them.
Otherwise, one formal training session under the auspices of the North’s association would commit a player in his early teens to a future to which they have not given serious thought.
O’Neill and others suffering disgruntlement at the issue of changed allegiance can only trust that a strong Northern team convinces youngsters to put geography ahead of history and culture in deciding who they want to represent at senior level.
Recent Assembly elections in the North saw the Ulster Unionist Party lose their leader after failing to make gains on the Democratic Unionist Party. Mike Nesbitt had encouraged voters to give their second preference to SDLP candidates rather than DUP ones.
The results of that strategy cost Nesbitt his job and showed that Northern society is not yet ready to vote according to political preferences at the expense of ingrained religious and cultural ones. In such an environment, placing restrictions on a young man’s choices, as O’Neill suggested, would be illadvised.
This story illuminates the complexities of national identity on this island. In an age when travelling in pursuit of work or merely as a lifestyle preference is common, however, the entire subject of national identity is challenged.
The past two days have seen attention devoted to celebrations of Irishness around the world, with approving coverage of expressions of national pride, often by people with tangential connections to this country, or whose links have been strained by passing generations.
Yet in sport, the issue of what is Irish remains for some a doggedly either/or topic. Witness the criticism that Jared Payne and CJ Stander have faced on occasion during the Six Nations.
Much of it is confined to vacuous echo chambers that pass for social media, but there has been more considered criticism of their selection. The argument goes that players such as these two, who qualify under a three-year residency rule, should not be preferred over those who have developed through the Irish system.
Stander has kept Peter O’Mahony out of the team for weeks now, and this has become a grievance for some. Were Stander back in his native South Africa, they suggest, O’Mahony would be in.
Why, though, should Ireland abjure a selection option permitted by World Rugby, and enthusiastically pursued by all of the best teams in the world?
Joe Schmidt is expected by some critics to hold himself and his team to a different standard to England and New Zealand, simply because CJ Stander doesn’t fit the definition of Irish preferred by them.
He is an easier target than, say, Seán O’Brien, whose form for much of the Six Nations was poor and who should have been more vulnerable to the starting claims of O’Mahony than the consistently brilliant Stander.
The latter has been the best player at Munster this season, too, and the effect that playing with him has had on the game of O’Mahony and Tommy O’Donnell, another Irish international, must be great.
Supporting the selections of Stander and Payne should not be misread as approval of the World Rugby rules. The current three-year limit should be extended to minimise the possibility of opportunists, but given the impact they have made on Irish rugby, who could fairly level that charge at Payne or Stander?
They have improved the national side but they have also benefitted the provinces. Their resurgence benefits young Irish players like the Scannells, John Ryan and Jack O’Donoghue.
On this weekend, that contribution should be celebrated alongside other interpretations of what it is to be Irish.