Beautiful game still struggling to get out of Ireland’s ugly old divisions

“IF you’re Irish come into the parlour

HAS the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) been taking the chorus lines a little too literally of late? Unionists in the Stormont Assembly evidently think so. Last week, two whole hours were devoted to a debate on who’s Irish and who’s British or Irish, or both — but Northern Irish as far as the beautiful game is concerned.

Unwittingly, the debate revealed that for all the bonhomie between the ‘Chuckle Brothers’ — Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness — Northern Ireland is still a place defined by different, and often conflicting, senses of national identity.