Sir, - In the welter of commentary following last weekend's historic European Cup triumph by Ulster, there has been much analysis of the opportunities this marvellous sporting victory could bring.
The most tantalising benefit, the pundits would have us believe, would be that rugby could break down old enmities in the North and unite the public across community lines. What people seem to forget is that this has been occurring on a weekly basis in Ulster rugby for years. For just as the GAA in Ireland's most northerly province is based on a nine-county structure, so too is the game of the oval ball.
For decades, teams containing gardai, members of the Irish Army, and inter-county GAA footballers (among many others), have been crossing the Border to visit places such as Ballyclare, Lisburn and Ballymena of a Saturday. I know, because I went with them, often smiling to myself as I saw our Northern counterparts throw a curious glance at the odd player who arrives at the ground clutching his local GAA club's crest-embossed hold-all.
And ordinary grassroots Ulster rugby folk, whom some media commentators rather patronisingly suggested might never have travelled south of the border before last weekend's game, have regularly been journeying to counties Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan for years.
On each occasion that the Republic's eight Ulster Branch IRFU-affiliated clubs - Donegal Town, Letterkenny, Sheephaven Bay, Inishowen, Ballyshannon, Cavan, Monaghan, and Virginia - played counterparts from the other side of the frontier, ties were forged and friendships formed which transcended religious and cultural differences.
And these ties have endured throughout the worst of the Troubles. Not many people know that a club side from Co Donegal had just finished playing Woodvale RFC - a working-class team drawn from Belfast's Shankill Road - on the very afternoon that an IRA bomb caused such appalling mayhem and death less than half-a-mile away.
Clubs that play Woodvale traditionally go after games to a local working men's club in north Belfast, where they are fed and watered with the odd pint of Tuborg. On that evening, worried for their visitors' safety, the club officials politely suggested their Donegal visitors head home straight after the game. They did just that, nobody took offence, and teams from the South continue to play against Woodvale.
Teams from Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan also occasionally play cup matches against the RUC's rugby team, though all games, whether home or away, are played in Northern Ireland for security reasons.
Our club is typical of many in Co Donegal, and I suspect in Cavan and Monaghan. With no rugby-playing schools from which to draw players, we recruit from anywhere we can. Class and religion are not an issue for us, whether playing at home or away - but finding some poor unsuspecting unfortunate to fill a vacant wing berth on the second XV at the last minute frequently is. - Yours, etc., Robert Love,
Shelbourne Village, Dublin 4.