Navy whip up a storm
Some say it’s to do with Notre Dame’s third president, Fr William Corby, who was a chaplain for the Union’s ‘Irish Brigade’ during Gettysburg and granted general absolution to troops in the middle of battle. Others say it was down to a turn-of-the-century game against Michigan when a side full of Irish-sounding surnames entered the dressing room trailing and were met with roars of, “What’s the matter with you guys? You’re all Irish and you’re not fighting worth a lick”. What is known though is the university was founded by a French priest and any links with here are tenuous at best.
In fact, in Lansdowne Road today, it’s the Navy that are technically at home and it’s they that are hosting a circus that began before the teams had even gotten off their planes. Earlier in the week, former Notre Dame running back and current university radio analyst Allen Pinkett was banned from the game for saying they need more bad guys and criminals if they are to return to winning ways that completely vanished in the mid-1990s. Oversensitivity to misunderstood words is just another contradiction that goes with America’s true game.
