It was a historic occasion: on the Curragh, the Defence Forces versus The British Reactionary Imperialist Forces of Tyranny, Oppression and Nihilism. The code, the ancient game of the Gael, in its footballing form: expecting an outsider to hurl is rather like asking a worm to play table tennis.
The BRITONs won the toss, and elected to bat. They were gently told no, that was not an option: they would have to choose which direction they wanted to play in the first half. They chose the Surrey end.
A game can be confusing for a referee if he finds one set of players has a right full forward, and the other has a silly mid-on. Still, we got that misunderstanding sorted out, and the game began: the referee threw the ball in and the BRITON immediately claimed a handball by the IDF. No, handball was allowed. Very well, they said, but that was a knock-on, and they'd settle for a scrum. While that discussion was taking place, the Defence Forces were busy scoring a goal.
But soon, the recent intensive training in the Gaelic code began to take effect amongst the BRITONs. It couldn't have been easy, mind. Not merely had they not played the game before this year - nor had their coach. That the visitors should at times revert to more ancient habits was of course understandable, especially as within a few minutes the score began to resemble something one might see at Lords.
However, the advent of a squadron of Harriers to strafe the home side helped adjust the balance somewhat. The Air Corps mobilised its national air defence plan, and scrambled its Westland Lysander, its Gloster Grouse and half-a-dozen eggs. The FCA was put on full alert, and was deployed in its anti-aircraft mode, sitting on rooftops with a Colt 45 revolver, some scissors and a darning needle or two.
By this time, of course, the damage had been done: the heathen Saxon had got onto the scoring board, aided by the simple expedient of getting the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment to sit on the referee's head, while a platoon of Light Infantry managed to scramble the ball over the goal-line.
The Defence Forces fought back, as of old, seeking vengeance for Aoife's lost virtue, for Kinsale, for the Boyne, for Limerick, for Drogheda, for the Famine, for the Black and Tans, for. . .when out of nowhere, a squadron of 22nd SAS came zooming across the pitch, looking for Scuds. They were given careful directions to Mr Murphy's farm, straddling the Border, and sent on their way: the game then resumed.
Taboos are curious things. Even when they are formally lifted, they remain in place. You'd think if soccer players learned they could score by missing the goal and putting the ball over the bar, that is what they would do the entire time. But it doesn't work like that. Most of the BRITON Gaelic team are by background soccer players, and they repeatedly found themselves within point-scoring distance of the DF goal.
But it's like telling the Little Sisters of Bernadette that the Pope has just ordered all nuns to perform the can-can nude in public: you'll be hanging around Lourdes a long time before you see any action. And so it goes with soccer players putting the ball over the bar. Can't do it. And when the BRITONs did get the occasional point, it was invariably by accident; and the naked nun on Grafton Street is not being obedient, but sleep-walking, and is in for a rude shock.
At half-time, the Army No 1 Band played "Killaloe" in the rain, and in their new uniforms, which have been highly praised. These matters are personal: frankly, I think they look like a cross between an American mid-western high-school marching band and Toytown. Which of course doesn't detract from the band members' musical abilities.
The players re-emerged from their tents, and it was quite clear that the BRITONs had been given a stern talking to by their manager, Colonel Callow. Their left full forward swiftly garrotted the Defence Forces goalkeeper, and in a platoon attack down the right side of the pitch, aided by rocket-firing Apaches, the visitors managed to scramble a goal. The home goalkeeper was carried off to the sound of the Dead March from Handel's Saul. This unexpected reverse merely caused the home team to fight all the harder, and soon the points were coming in from all angles. The visitors got back into the scoring mode with an elegant cover-drive off the back foot for four. They then holed out with a birdie on the second, finishing off their points spree by pocketing the black after a break of 35.
But it was not enough. The Gael was once again victor, by a score of something vast to something less vast; and victors and vanquished retired to the bar, and I know not what. However, it does say something pretty uncomplimentary about the way we have been conducting relationships on these islands that this was the first such sporting encounter in Ireland between the two armies, though they have managed to play one another abroad on UN service.
Still, it's a start. Perhaps at the next encounter the Defence Forces might return the end-of-match cheer from the BRITONs.
The Army No 1 Band, by the way, is playing tonight under the elegant baton of Mark Armstrong at Taney Parish Centre, and featuring the tenor Emmanuel Lawler, in a fund-raising concert for a Romanian orphanage.