Paul Rouse: Irish nationalism is evident in our sporting culture — from McGregor to Hill 16

NATIONALISM allows people to wrap murder in a flag and present it as war in a just cause. And it allows the ideologues of that cause to take history, scrub away the bits that do not fit the new fairytale, and write a version more fitted to their aims.

This is a thing we are well familiar with in Ireland — and yet, although we are good at pointing out the absurdities of those who do it in other lands, we do not want to recognise it in ourselves.