On rugby, Ireland, Oscar Wilde and wheelchairs

This weekend marks the closing of this year's playing of the rugby tournament known across the northern hemisphere as the Six Nations championship. In times gone by the championship was known as the 'Five Nations' and consisted of the home nations of the United Kingdom - England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales - plus France (the auld enemy from England's viewpoint or the auld ally from Scotland's). With the arrival of Italy on the rugby-playing scene the tournament opened its doors to its sixth member. Those of us from Wales had a special reason to welcome the Italians, for it is said that the Welsh are 'Italians in the rain'. As if to prove the point, not long ago the Welsh squad boasted a Sidoli, a scion of an ex-patriot Italian family business dedicated to the fine art of making ice cream - Sidoli's are the toast of South Wales to this day.

Last weekend's rugby clash between Wales and Ireland brought back memories of a trp to Dublin in support of Wales against Ireland. If I close my eyes and think hard I will conjure up the scene:

It is not immediately apparent that road travel and the European Union are linked until you travel across Ireland by road. The emerald isle is known for its enthusiastic embrace of all things European and not least because of the opportunity to fund all sorts of projects that membership provides, road-building among them. But with an Irish twist, of course. The story has it that each county in the Republic, large or small, had to have the same allocation of money to put into the highway. This in turn meant that once the fund per county ran dry, so did the tarmacadam. Subsequently there are stretches of road in and between counties that rival the art of the French auto-routes at their best which suddenly come to an end, giving way to the worthy but altogether less magisterial efforts of the local authority. The super-highway trail is once more taken up a few miles further along in the next county.

This observation seemed all the more pertinent at the time of crossing these motor trails for it was on the occasion of the announcement of the death of the much-loved former Irish Prime Minister or Tasoieach, Jack Lynch. As well-regarded for his sporting prowess on hurling and Gaelic football field as in the public arena, it was Jack Lynch who negotiated Ireland’s entry into the European Union, then known as the European Economic Community (EEC). At the time of making the journey, from Galway to Dublin and back, the name Jack Lynch was not a familiar one, although I counted myself as a student of history and politics and of European affairs. Through newspaper coverage and the familiar tones of the BBC correspondent John Simpson on Irish radio I learned of how this sporting political hero was almost airbrushed out, removed from of the annals of Irish political history , through the machinations of subsequent political manoeuvrings.

A view of Jack Lynch as honourable man sketched out in the obituaries was echoed in the confines of the poor Claire convent in Galway by those well-informed nuns whose knowledge of the outside world seems to deepen as a result of their silent contemplative life. “ A good man, was Jack Lynch” they concurred, sitting behind a grille in the reception room, during the audience granted to me as a result of my involvement in conveying a wheelchair-bound friend, formerly of the convent ,to visit them.

The European theme continued in Dublin, with the crane-filled skyline paying witness to the building boom that came in the wake of Irish membership of the European single currency. Obligatory visits to some of the ‘must-see’ Dublin sites: the public sculpture of Molly Malone (otherwise known as ‘the tart with the cart’) as well as the water-monument, popularly referred to as the ‘floozy in the jacuzzi’; the rather moving memorial monument to Oscar Wilde inscribed with one of his greatest aphorisms: “ all of us are lying in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars”.

This tribute to human exuberance links to another Dublin trip and accompanying another wheelchair-user – this time for the ‘rugby and the crack’ – Ireland and Wales. During that festival known as the Six Nations rugby tournament, when Ireland play Wales at home, Dublin becomes a party city. From the rugby stadium known by its shorthand label of ‘Lansdowne Road’ through to late night scenes of comic alcohol-fuelled festival mayhem in Grafton Street and the Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephens Green. The experience of acting as navigator and guardian to a man determined to demonstrate he is making the most of his weekend by launching himself out of his chair at the smallest opportunity, is something of an eye-opener. It seemed to me the on-pitch action was safer. This rocket-propulsion enabled the jumping of taxi queues, much to the apparent consternation of fellow revellers – I will never know whether the arm-waving was in celebration of our leaving the scene or anger at our stealing of the ride home. However, the joviality and inevitable hangover was soon dispelled by an early morning phone call bringing news of the death of my companion’s stepfather, felled by a heart attack.

The journey back to Cardiff was thoughtfully sombre, the atmosphere leavened by (rugby) talk of the weekend with Welsh rugby officials we sat with in the plane – those men in jacket and ties known as the ‘blazerati’. As for the rugby, there’s always the next game, the next trip, another opportunity to stare at the stars whilst lying in the gutter. Jack Lynch would have appreciated the scene as would my friend’s stepfather, Colin. Together, of course, with Oscar Wilde and those well-informed sisters of the poor Claire convent.