Section:GDN 1N PaGe:35 Edition Date:190724 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 23/7/2019 19:50 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Guardian •
35Not cricket
Ireland deserve their
place in the Test
sun, not English
shade at Lord’s
I
t’s a wonder the Irish are so well known for their
hospitality when you consider the state of some
of the people they have to welcome. The very
same day play got under way in the 148th Open
the papers here led with the Boris Johnson line,
fi rst reported in the Financial Times, about Leo
Varadkar, “ why isn’t he called Murphy like all
the rest of them? ” Add it to the list, along with
Iain Duncan Smith’s blithe dismissal of “this Irish stuff ”,
Karen Bradley’s admission of ignorance of the diff erence
between unionists and nationalists , Priti Patel’s bright
idea to leverage the threat of food shortages in the Brexit
negotiations , and countless others.
“What kills you is the ignorance,” the Irish journalist
Megan Nolan wrote in the Irish Times last October,
about her experience of living in England for three years.
“What grinds you down is how much they don’t know
about the past and, if they do know, how little they care.”
In the Guardian, Ireland’s former ambassador to the
UK, Bobby McDonagh, couched it in more diplomatic
language. “A large swathe of opinion in London,
although of course by no means everyone, has come
to misunderstand seven major aspects of Ireland: our
motivation, allegiance, infl uence, intelligence, resolve,
politics and friendship.”
Pottering around Portrush last week was a short,
quick and incomplete reminder of all this English
obliviousness. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how
beautiful Portrush is when the sun’s out?” I asked a
friend who spent all his young summers here.
“You never asked.”
The Irish did. They spent years pestering the R&A totry to persuade them to bring the Open back there. In the
end it almost got to be a running joke. Every Open starts
with a press conference held by the R&A’s chief executive
and one of the Irish journalists would always make a
point of asking whether they had any plans to bring the
championship back there for the fi rst time in 51, 52, 53
years and counting. And the R&A’s chief executive,
Peter Dawson, would always fi nd some new way to fob
them off , usually something about the political climate,
or the security risks, or the infrastructure concerns, or
the commercial needs.T
hen Padraig Harrington won the
Open at Carnoustie in 2007 and again
at Royal Birkdale a year later. And
Graeme McDowell won at Pebble Beach
in 2010. And Darren Clarke won at
Royal St George’s in 2011. And some
young, mop-haired kid called Rory
McIlroy cleaned up at Congressional
in 2011 and Kiawah Island in 2012 and Royal Liverpool
and Valhalla in 2014. There are no borders in Irish golf
and they all counted as Irish victories. And in the middle
of McIlroy’s run Dawson fi nally relented and made the
announcement that the R&A were going to bring the
Open back to Portrush after all.
By then the Irish weren’t asking for the Open but
demanding it. Their success has defi ned this era of the
championship. Between them they have won it as many
times in the past 12 years as the English have in the
previous 68. And it’s an Open secret that their previous
four major champions – Harrington, McDowell, Clarke
and McIlroy – spent a lot of time lobbying the R&A to
bring it here. “Gentle ribbing,” McDowell called it. The
R&A still waited to see whether or not Portrush would
do a good job of hosting the Irish Open in 2012, when, in
the end, so many people turned up that they broke the
attendance record for the European Tour.
Well, this morning, right around the time that some
of the heavier hangovers from Sunday night celebrating
the latest Irish major winner may just be beginning to
lift, there will be another milestone in sporting relations
between the two nations. Ireland are playing their very
fi rst Test match against England – and at Lord’s, too, the
home of the MCC, one of the few institutions as patrician
as the R&A. The Irish have been waiting a long time for
this one , too , and, while they were, the English were
very happy to take advantage of them by recruiting their
best players into their own team. It
wasn’t just Eoin Morgan but Boyd
Rankin, who they abandoned after a
single Test , and Ed Joyce, who didn’t
even get that many.
Here, too, the Irish had to batter the
door down just to get the English to
answer it. The ECB started giving the
Irish regular games only because they
were spooked into it when the Irish
got India and South Africa to come
over and play in a tri-series in 2007.
After that the ECB decided to throw
the Irish the odd fi xture to keep them
sweet and make sure there were no
more scheduling clashes with their
own matches. And then the Irish went
and beat them at the 2011 World Cup.
Eight years later, they are fi nally going to play a Test
except – except – the ECB, in its wisdom, has decided
this landmark match would be the right time to trial a
new, four-day format of the sport. Now the game may
not have lasted fi ve days anyway, less do these days, but
it still feels like a snub.
“It’s our greatest test at the greatest ground,” the
Irish player Andy Balbirnie said, and here are the
English making them play guinea pigs in it because God
forbid the Irish should just get to play a regular Test,
same as anyone else. It wasn’t meant as an insult, it
never is, but it smacks of what Nolan described as the
English’s “mix of dismissal and casual disdain”. Maybe
if the Irish win this one we’ll fi nally let them play a
fi ve-day game.Andy Bull
The ECB
started
giving
the Irish
regular
games only
because
they were
spooked
into it in
2007▲ The Ireland squad
pose for a photo at
Lord’s before what will
be only their third ever
Test match and fi rst
against England
JULIAN FINNEY/GETTY IMAGESSwimming
Britain’s Scott in
podium protest
after taking bronze
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