Striking up the band to the sound of silence

IF you’d like to know what it feels like to start the most controversial minute’s music in Irish sporting history, there’s someone you can ask in the Phoenix Park.

Pat Kenny — not the TV personality, but an affable Garda based in the main depot on Dublin’s northside, is the man in question. Four years ago Kenny led his colleagues in the Garda Band out onto the grass in Croke Park, took out his baton, and counted them into the first bars of God Save The Queen.

“On the day everybody, including ourselves, was anticipating what was going to happen when we struck up God Save The Queen,” says Kenny. “We were very conscious of that.