South African election - Great nation at another cross roads

AT lunchtime today, if the weekend reports are correct, Paul O’Connell of Young Munster, Munster and Ireland will be named captain of the British and Irish Lions to tour South Africa this summer.

He and the 35 other players, their backroom team and the tens of thousands of supporters who will travel to support them, will visit a country unrecognisable to the one visited 35 years ago by an earlier Lions team captained by another fearsome Irish second row — Willie John McBride.

In 1974, South Africa was still a divided and nasty country. The majority population were treated like third-class citizens and kept in poverty and uneducated servitude. The minority white government used force to maintain the status quo. Dissent was not tolerated, even the movement of the non-white population was restricted by the hated Pass Laws.