INTERNATIONAL SPORT:THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs recommended that Ciarán Fitzgerald should not be granted special leave from the Defence Forces to go on the controversial Lions tour of South Africa, in view of the government's views on apartheid.
The Department of Defence had written to the Department of Foreign Affairs after the Irish Rugby Football Union had asked Fitzgerald to declare whether or not he would be available for the tour in 1980.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said its minister recommended that no special leave facilities be granted “in light of the Government’s condemnation of the apartheid policies of South Africa, its support for the Olympic principle of non-discrimination in sport and its stated opposition to Irish participation in the proposed ‘Lions’ rugby tour of South Africa”.
The 1980 tour, without Fitzgerald, was not a successful one for the visitors, with Bill Beaumont’s injury-hit squad losing 3-1 to the Springboks.
While the State papers contain many letters in support of the government’s stance on apartheid, one writer urged the government to put a stop to the “antics” of Kader Asmal, then chairman of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. The writer, a woman from Terenure, Dublin, wrote that Asmal had an “outsize chip on his shoulder” and had been “peddling hatred” since he came to Ireland.
“This man should be happy and grateful to be allowed live here,” she wrote to taoiseach Charles Haughey.“I sincerely hope that someone will put a stop to Mr Asmal’s antics before this country descends to being a laughing stock in the civilised world, or we may have reached the stage when we are being ruled by a coloured foreigner instead of by our elected Government.”
Asmal later served in Nelson Mandela’s first government in South Africa and was minister of water affairs and forestry, and minister of education.
GATE-CRASHING rugby fans and “excessive breakage” during post-match receptions at the Irish embassy in Paris caused the ambassador to restrict invitations ahead of a match party in 1980.
This is revealed in a letter from the Department of Foreign Affairs State papers by ambassador Hugh McCann to the IRFU about its request for a reception for the France v Ireland match in Paris in March 1980.
The reception held for a rugby match in 1978 was “marred by the extent of gate-crashing” and the “impersonation of others to whom invitations had been issued”, McCann wrote.
He also raised concern about the “excessive breakage, especially toward the end of the evening, long after the reception was scheduled to have ended”.
The pressure for invitations from the “ever-growing” number of fans was a “source of embarrassment”, Mr McCann wrote. However, these criticisms did not apply to the teams or officials “for whom the reception was intended”, he said.
The invitation list would be devoted to Irish and French teams and officials as well as “French personalities” important for the export trade.
In February 1980, the embassy wrote to the department of foreign affairs to tell it that there would be 450 people invited to the reception.
“We are going to have a problem with gate-crashers but we will do the best we can to prevent this without causing inconvenience,” Mr McCann said.
The embassy was sending letters of explanation to people who were seeking an invitation but would not be invited.
The sample letter refusing invitations does not mention gate- crashers – but says the impossibility of acceding to all requests was a “source of embarrassment”.
Ireland were defeated by one point, 19-18, while scoring the highest ever total by an Irish side in Paris.
The Irish Times match report described the game as “the material of frustration”.
GENEVIEVE CARBERY
