Irish, English change their tune

DUBLIN -- Andy Rayner brought his 8-year-old son, Sam, to Croke Park yesterday to watch a little bit of history and 80 minutes of rugby.

Eighty-seven years after English troops opened fire on the crowd watching a Gaelic football match, killing a player and 13 spectators, England's rugby team returned to the scene of the crime.

But, in a remarkable display that captured just how close Ireland and the United Kingdom have become in recent years, the England team received a rapturous welcome, and the 81,611 crammed into this sporting cathedral grew still as the British national anthem, "God Save the Queen," was played.

"I'm not surprised," said Rayner. "The Irish and the English are great friends now."

Rayner, 42, grew up in England, but married an Irish girl and moved to Dublin in 1989. Sam is literally a product of Anglo-Irish relations, but he was cheering for Ireland.

Security was tight for the match, as police feared that some Irish nationalists would try to mar the event. But, in the end, the Irish policed themselves, hushing the handful of spectators who were yelling as the stadium drew silent in anticipation of the visitors' anthem.

Some Irish people sang, too.

David Reddaway, the British ambassador to Ireland, said he was profoundly touched by what he saw.

"It was extremely moving, because the welcome given the English team was so genuine, the respect shown was just something I will never forget," said Reddaway. "I only wish there was a better result."

Indeed, Ireland trounced England, 43-13, in a match that was expected to be close.

Rugby is the only major sport in Ireland in which the national team is drawn from both sides of the border. In fact, for all the talk about the propriety of playing "God Save the Queen" in Croke Park, several Irish players are Protestants from Northern Ireland who consider it their national anthem.

The Croke Park shootings Nov. 21, 1920, were one of the worst atrocities in Ireland's bitter War of Independence. They were a reprisal for the IRA assassinations earlier that day of 12 British military and intelligence agents.

One of the four stands at Croker, as the stadium is fondly known, is named for Michael Hogan, a Tipperary player who was among those shot and killed. The standing-room portion of the stadium, known as Hill 16, was built from the rubble left behind after the Easter Rising in 1916.

But in an act of reconciliation, the Gaelic Athletic Association temporarily relaxed its rule prohibiting the playing of non-Gaelic sports at Croke Park to accommodate the Irish national rugby and soccer teams, whose Lansdowne Road stadium is closed for renovation.

One British official had suggested commemorating the victims of 87 years ago with a wreath-laying, but that gesture was rejected by Irish officials who said they did not want to mix sports and politics. Instead, the warm reception given the England squad and the respect afforded its national anthem was the gesture preferred by most Irish.

Mick Galwey, who has the distinction of having won an All-Ireland football final and played rugby for Ireland, said he considered yesterday 's game a historic event. He recalled that in 1994 he and the other Ireland players went out of their way to physically punish Kieran Bracken, who was born in Ireland but played for England. Galwey said he threw a punch at Bracken but missed and broke a teammate's nose instead.

"But we respect England, and the players," he said. "And the atmosphere in Dublin for this match has been terrific."

At least 20,000 England fans traveled to Dublin for the match, though it seemed like more, with English fans spilling out of Dublin's myriad pubs.

Dick Spring, Ireland's former foreign minister, who before entering politics played rugby for the national team, said the game lived up to its hype.

"I don't think you can overstate the significance it has, when measuring the relationship between the two countries," said Spring. "Still, at the end of the day, it's just a game."

It was a game that, when it was over, had Irish fans celebrating, even as they lamented a last-minute loss to France two weeks ago, preventing Ireland from winning its first European Grand Slam in rugby since 1948. Still, Galwey, a level headed Kerryman, kept things in perspective.

"Losing to France, we'll get over it," he said. "Losing to England in Croke Park was not an option."