The biennial Scots invasion of Dublin was tentatively under way last night as the curtain rose on the first weekend of another Six Nations Rugby Championship.
It may not have been just the curtain that was rising. With gale-force winds and severe gusting forecast overnight, kilts were at more than usual risk. On a stormy weekend in the Irish capital, Scotsmen are always vulnerable to a sudden up and under.
So between the weather and Sunday kick-off, it was no wonder they were scarcer than usual on the capital’s streets, although thanks to several musicians among the advance guard, they were no less noisy.
A group from Galashiels, for example, was accompanied up South Great George's Street by a father-and-son bagpiping team: both called Billy Eason. And if the local humans were mostly amused at the noise, two Jack Russells tied up outside Dunnes Stores were terrorised.
Nearby, in that well-known rugby hostelry, The Old Stand, things was rather quieter. “This time next week, we’d expect it to be out the door,” said a barman, referring to the Welsh match, which is on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Scots supporters were scarce and the Galashiels group gave a hint as to why: A three-night stay in Dublin was costing them €1,000 each. The equivalent in Cardiff would be €480.
Dublin was “very expensive and getting more so every year”, said the group’s organiser.
In what promises to be an open Six Nations, the jersey on a lone Scotsman on Fleet Street seemed to sum up the first-weekend feelings of many. Instead of a number on the back, it had a question mark. But this turned out not to be a comment on his team’s prospects.
It’s just that he and 20-odd friends from Edinburgh come to Dublin every two years on something called the “Rat-Arse Tour”. The jerseys had been commissioned on a previous trip (“Rat-Arse Tour VII”, according to the shirt). Arranged together in correct sequence, they spelt the line: “Have you ever seen a grown man cry?”
The question-mark wearer, Richard Clarkson, was about to meet the rest of the sentence in Oliver St John Gogarty’s pub where the chances of the shirts being lined up in the correct order were probably receding as night fell.
