GERALD MORGAN, FTCD,
Madam, - I write as a past president of the Connacht branch of the IRFU and I direct my comments to the present members of the IRFU committee. These gentlemen are charged with the future of rugby in the whole island of Ireland and I appeal to them to think again before effectively removing a quarter of the country from their domain.
Every other sport in the country is trying desperately to broaden its playing base. The IRFU committee, on the other hand, appears set to make a short-sighted financial saving by telling all those who have worked so hard over the years to keep the game alive in Connacht that they were wasting their time and that their children should look elsewhere for their sporting interests.
Future generations throughout the country will condemn such a measure.
Financial savings have to be made, but let them be across the board and not result in the effective expulsion of one of the four proud provinces of Ireland. - Yours etc.,
Dr CONOR CARR, Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
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A chara, - Your Editorial of January 11th was timely and well judged, for the IRFU has lost sight of the gravity of the issues at stake. In my view it would be preferable to lose all our international matches than to lose our sense of the Irishness of the national team.
I have been critical of Ireland's Call in the past, but I have not hitherto found anything objectionable in the reference to "the four proud provinces of Ireland". Proud indeed they are, and rightly proud, and equally proud. These words have to bear their true meaning and be more than the merest hypocrisy if there is to be a real future for rugby in Ireland.
Connacht must not be cast adrift. The players of Leinster, Munster and Ulster (and the vested interests supporting them) have no right by themselves to the name of Ireland. They would certainly need a new anthem (perhaps Abba's Money, Money, Money).
I hope the IRFU will listen not to accountants but to the voices of those wonderfully passionate supporters of Connemara All Blacks, who made the final of the Division Three Championship match against Trinity at Lansdowne Road last May so memorable an occasion. - Is mise,
GERALD MORGAN, FTCD, Trinity College, Dublin 2.