In a Word: It is said that Éamon de Valera came close to winning an Irish cap
He believed rugby suited the Irish psyche and he played for Blackrock College in Dublin, as student and teacher, and was full-back for Munster in 1905 when, it is said, he came close to winning an Irish cap. Who would have thought?Michael Collins, on the other hand, was a GAA man, described by one historian as an “enthusiastic if not a skilful” player “and generally a bit of a mullocker on the pitch”.
Then there was my fellow Rossie, Douglas Hyde, who – though a patron of the GAA from 1902 – was demoted and banned by it from attending any Gaelic games for – as Ireland’s first president – attending a Poland-Ireland soccer match at Dalymount Park in Dublin in 1938. The ban extended for all of his presidency, until 1945. It meant this most patriotic of Rossies was unable to see his beloved county win its last All Ireland senior football titles in 1943 and 1944.
It was 1971 – 33 years later – when they named the football pitch in Roscommon town Hyde Park, after him.Rugby, named after English public school in Warwickshire, where the game is claimed to have originated
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