Sir, The increased awareness of the impact of sport, and rugby in particular, on boys' development and the lives of men has been most welcome. But while the recent RTE documentary on the harsh, competitive culture of schools rugby generated important commentary in The Irish Times by Gerry Thornley and Eddie Holt, the core issues of how power, violence and fear of difference and vulnerability works to sustain patterns of destructive male relationships were still being avoided. At last this has begun to be put right by the courageous decision by the Landsdowne and Munster rugby player Paul O'Connor to "come out" as a gay man and the sensitive way the matter was handled by one branch of the media. Paul told his story to Neil Francis in the Sunday Tribune of May 13th and the result was quite simply the best piece of socially aware sports journalism ever produced in this country. It was it deeply compassionate to the struggles of gay men and embracing of their right to freely express their sexual identity. And it was all the more remarkable for the courageous way in which Neil Francis, as an star rugby "insider", honestly confronted the homophobic reality of the locker room and the "conservative macho grain" of rugby culture and schools, where "any show of weakness. . .is mercilessly derided".
While pressure for change can come from the outside, ultimately it is only when men from within such systems challenge their norms and expose the insidious pain of homophobia for gay men and how it plays into a culture which is destructive to all boys and men that things can really begin to change.
Rugby correspondents are no less prone to feeling vulnerable to exposing these painful realities than any other men and it is to be hoped that all journalists will now feel more able to take on such issues in the future. - Yours, etc.,
Harry Ferguson, Professor of Social Policy and Social Work, UCD, Dublin 4.