Paul Rouse: How would Irish rugby look if Michael Cusack stuck with the sport? 

In what way would Irish rugby be different if Michael Cusack had stayed a member of the Irish Rugby Football Union and never founded the Gaelic Athletic Association?

A statue of Michael Cusack, outside Cusack Park in Ennis , named in honour of the GAA founder, who could have guided the country towards rugby instead. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Liam O’Callaghan’s history of Irish rugby – reviewed in these pages last week by Kieran Shannon – is a superb excavation of the place of that sport in Irish life.

It reveals so much about this island and the people who live (and have lived) on it: this is the clichéd good, bad and ugly stewed in nuance and complexity.