A thrilling triumph for men in red and great work by the boys in blue

THE Fields of Athenry aren’t so lonely now. In fact, in years to come those fields will be packed with more than the 70,000 who were actually present because the bewildered will try convince their grandchildren that — as Max Boyce is wont to say — “I was there”.

The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff last Saturday will have more armchair rugby fans for Munster’s historic Heineken Cup win over Biarritz than the GPO had armchair patriots in 1916.

But the spectral attendance in Cardiff won’t be prompted by anything as venal as the possibility of a mere pension.

Unlike events at the GPO, the liberating red army of Munster beat the French to take the Heineken Cup without a shot being fired, although nerves, it must be admitted, were utterly shot to pieces.

One pundit — a purist, obviously — said during the week that the key moment of the entire campaign was undoubtedly David Wallace’s try in the final minute of the return game against Sale in Thomond Park.

The reason was that it secured the bonus point that delivered the quarter-final against Perpignan.

Not at all. For the fans whose hearts were dangling from the roof in the stadium, the defining moment was when Peter Stringer booted the ball into the crowd and the Heineken Cup was won.

It was about to undertake a glorious odyssey to where it should have been a long time ago.

The pundit may have been technically correct, but the oval ball kicked by the man of the match could have bounced in Perpignan or Biarritz at that precise moment and nobody would have cared — once it didn’t bounce on the pitch at Cardiff.

That was the key moment — when the ball was banished from the campaign forever.

At that precise point, a parachute would have been very welcome up in Level 6, perched as it is on a miracle of engineering, where we were an arm’s length from the closed roof and eternity beyond.

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Nerves moved down a couple of gears and the adrenalin began slowly to drop to bearable, and just about non-fatal, doses.

Analysis and rationale were irrelevant because there was nothing to analyse and rationale had no role.

Should Munster win the Heineken Cup for the next 10 years on the trot, it will never mean the same as the win in Cardiff last Saturday. That occasion was uniquely special. It can never happen again.

And on the ferry home that sense of relief was greatly increased with the news that the hunger strike by the Afghans in St Patrick’s Cathedral was over.

It was inevitable that the hunger strike would have consequences nobody desired because the course of action they had undertaken was ill-conceived.

It may have reflected their desperation over the immigration system here, and the fate they might have faced in their own country, but the Government could never have tolerated capitulating to what was essentially political blackmail.

Had they done so, despite the harrowing images of Afghan protesters being removed to hospital, the state would have laid itself open to similar threats.

The protesters simply did not have the right to seek unilaterally to undermine any law in this country for their own cause, no matter how justified they might have felt in attempting to do so.

This country did not place them in personal jeopardy, but provided sanctuary for them, even if the duration was uncertain.

Imperfect though our system may be considered by some, the week-long hunger strike by the Afghan men and youths was never destined to circumvent it, and certainly not to change it.

Threatening to kill themselves was totally irrational — and totally unacceptable.

It was completely beyond the norms that could be countenanced by the Government in the patient way this dilemma was being handled.

By acting as they did, the Afghans catapulted themselves into a situation which was totally untenable and repugnant, and exhibited a complete disregard for the mores of this society.

BECAUSE of their threat to kill themselves in the cathedral, Church of Ireland representatives asked them to leave the building as they could not allow the church to be desecrated.

Initially, the gardaí were criticised for the large numbers deployed to the area, but they were confronted with an unprecedented situation which posed a challenge beyond their experience.

The gardaí almost immediately encountered a fraught situation where, according to Residents Against Racism, some of the hunger strikers had already attempted suicide.

The circumstances were unprecedented in this state and, from an Irish perspective, were truly bizarre.

The demands of the Afghans that they be granted asylum on their own extreme terms were unrealistic and they were ill- served by those who encouraged them in their course of action

Maybe Amnesty International is right. The secretary of their Irish section, Colm O’Cuanacháin, said that holding asylum seekers for long periods in temporary accommodation without access to education or employment leads to “an unnecessary climate of fear and tension”.

Amnesty has made the point that such conditions would “inevitably” lead to further flashpoints, while also highlighting the fact that the UN’s Convention against Racism had not been incorporated into Irish law.

Mr O’Cuanacháin added that Amnesty had a real concern about the level of racism in Ireland and leadership was needed from the Government on the issue.

“The level of commitment by the state on anti-racism is falling far short of our international commitments”, he said. “We need concerted leadership and investment in anti-racism”.

Perhaps we do, but there is absolutely no doubt that most reasonable people, while having sympathy for the plight of the Afghans, were totally against the way they set about highlighting it.

And that sympathy was being eroded the longer the hunger strike continued.

Some people compared their cause with that of illegal Irish immigrants in America, but that was rather tenuous and far-fetched.

It is difficult to disagree with Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern when he said that the plight of illegal Irish in the US is not same as Afghans here.

There is no comparison because they are prepared to act within the law, and that could be changed to their advantage even today.

Mr Ahern, speaking in the US this week, said: “If the legislature here are discussing the possibility of changes in order to legalise and regularise their position, well, you know, they’re entitled to be here from that point of view”.

The minister said that many Irish immigrants were in the US before 9/11, after which it became more difficult for illegals to slip in and out of the country.

He went on to say that the rules had changed for immigrants after 9/11 and that it was his duty to alert US legislators to the impact these changes were having on Irish citizens.