An Irishman’s Diary: Patriot Games – cricket or rugby? a choice no longer

An Irishman’s Diary: Patriot Games – cricket or rugby? a choice no longer: "There’s a theory, or at least there used to be, to explain why certain former British colonies, specifically India and Pakistan, chose cricket as their main course from the imperial sports menu while others, including this one, preferred rugby. I can’t remember how it explained the likes of Australia and South Africa, which somehow embraced both: something to do with their multi-ethnic emigrant populations, perhaps.
As for the sub-continent, the suggestion was that cricket was more amenable to the caste system, allowing people of different social groups to play together without getting physically close. There was no such reserve in the Irish mentality which thrived on rugby’s bodily contact.
As usual, James Joyce expressed the dichotomy most succinctly, or had Leopold Bloom do it for him. Passing Trinity College park on a sunny afternoon in June 1904, Bloom observes: “Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it here. Duck for six wickets [...] Donnybrook fair more in their line. And the skulls we were a-cracking when McCarthy took the floor.”
All right, Joyce makes no overt reference to rugby (McCarthy was an Enniscorthy brawler, commemorated in song). But in mentioning both Donnybrook and assault, all he’s missing is the ball.
A later commentator, Eamon de Valera, was more explicit. He thought that, alongside hurling, rugby was the sport closest to the national spirit. And he was himself so handy at it that, around the time of Bloom’s critique, he was almost picked for Ireland, at full-back."



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