Irish fans celebrate a close-shave Six Nations

Momentous. Emotional. Epochal.

For fans of facial hair, there was barely a whisker between the outpouring that greeted BOD’s retirement and the news that Gordon D’Arcy’s beard had also played its last game for Ireland.

Twitter lit up with “before” and “after” pictures of the Beard, as Jonathan Sexton stretched out a strapped hand to shave off the outcrop.

Colm Tobin (@colmtobin) tweeted that he was “Really emotional. It’s the end of an era. Cannot believe we’ll never see Gordon D’Arcy’s beard in an Irish shirt again.” Cian Healy (@Proper Church) tweeted: “Sexton gets to shave the beast!!! Finally.”

Others tweeted to ask “What is life without the beard?” and received the response “Nothing. Life is nothing without the beard.”

But for genuine fans of passion, courage, and unrelenting heroics, neither our Six Nations win nor the baring of Grizzly D’Arcy’s chin could eclipse the end of an era for Brian O’Driscoll.

Brian himself tweeted a picture of his Ireland shirt, hanging in the changing rooms, draped with the boots that played their last in the Stade de France.

“Phew! Worked out ok! Thanks for all the messages of support. Unreal feeling. Not easy taking this off for the last time,” he tweeted from (@brianodriscoll).

Over the course of Saturday, there were more than 210,000 tweets celebrating our victory. The peak came between 7pm and 8pm as the heart-stopping game against the French ended and Ireland finally got to lift the Six Nations trophy.

The most mentioned player of the match was @brianodriscoll. There was more than 118,00 mentions of terms relating to Brian O’Driscoll on Saturday.

Teammates generously posted Twitter pictures that gave an insider’s view of celebrations in the locker room but it was Cian Healy’s “selfie” that generated the biggest reaction with more than 23,000 retweets and counting.

However, President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Enda Kenny took the more traditional step of issuing a press release.

The President extended his “warmest congratulations” to the team and described Brian as “a warrior and a genius”, just the kind of attributes needed in an FG director of elections, should BOD feel inclined toward politics. Congratulating the team as a whole, he added: “On behalf of the Irish people I would like to extend a special tribute to Brian O’Driscoll on this, his last game in an Irish jersey. Brian has finished his career on his own terms which is appropriate because that is how he played the game.”

Speaking in Boston yesterday, he said: “The team showed incredible courage. it was a very physical match. But fair play to them, they epitomised what the fighting Irish should be about.”