Michael Moynihan
EVERY year, at the turn of December into January, there are piles of government papers suddenly declassified, and we learn the actuality behind the headlines of 30 years ago.
This year that means 1981, 12 months in which men died on hunger strike in Northern Ireland, a horrifying accompaniment to the months drifting by on the calendar, and a development which — as ever — was regarded behind closed doors in a very different light to officially expressed policy.
It was also the year of an Irish rugby tour of South Africa, which was then a pariah state due to its use of apartheid, and the tour was strongly opposed by the government of the day, led by Charles Haughey.
For those who weren’t around in the 1980s, it’s difficult to recall the emotional force that apartheid carried. It was a favoured cause among many students and activists long before the Special AKA had a smash hit with Free Nelson Mandela and for most of them there was little grey in an issue made up of stark black and white.
The extraordinary lengths to which the government went to try to dissuade the IRFU from going ahead with the tour show how strong feelings were on the matter: there were motions in the Dáil and Seanad, general fears about the perception of Ireland overseas and specific worries about other African nations targeting Ireland — and other touring rugby nations.
“If this [the tour] happens there is the real risk of concerted African action against participants from the UK and Ireland in the run-up to the next Olympic Games,” stated the Department of Foreign Affairs in a briefing note at the time.
The IRFU went ahead with the tour, and the government retaliated, for want of a better word, the following November, when it advised then-President Paddy Hillery not to attend an Ireland-Australia game, and he agreed.
The causes celebres of yesteryear can often look quaint from the vantage point of a decade or two, and for those who weren’t around at the time that may be the case here.
But if the amount of huffing and puffing on the political side about the tour now appears over the top, it seems proportionate to the regard in which South Africa was then held. The regime there was regarded as an uncomplicated target for ire and disgust from all over the world, a perception copperfastened in everyone’s eyes when the movie Lethal Weapon 2, released in 1989, featured nasty South Africans as the villains of the piece.
What strikes you now most forcefully though, looking back, is the appalling PR error on the part of the IRFU.
Given the way rugby has repositioned itself successfully as a go-ahead, attractive sporting pursuit — and spectating activity — the sheer blimpish disregard for public opinion now looks Victorian. Or pre-Victorian, even.
It would be hard to envisage the modern IRFU making that kind of error in the battle for hearts and minds, but the release of these state papers just shows how the past certainly was a different country, even as recently as 1981.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/LE6DocekCMY/post.aspx
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