What the Lions means / Nail your colours to Devin Toner

[riocard911]

Interestingly Clive Woodward recently suggested the comparative lack of success of Ireland, Scotland and Wales against the Southern Hemisphere Big 3 was down to the formers' players overvaluing participation on a Lions tour as opposed to playing for their own countries, whereas for the English donning the white jersey with the Red Rose always came before the red one with four national flowers. Post-colonial inferiority complex on the part of the Celts perhaps? Who knows? Maybe Woodward is on to something. Fact is, that the Charioteers are the only "home nation" - pardon my use of this awful term - to have won a Rugby World cup, while 28 years since the inception of the tournament the Irish haven't even managed to get past the quarter-final.....

It's definitely not because they have 10 times the population of these other 3 countries who are overvaluing Lions places.

Touché!!

[Oldschool]

Interestingly Clive Woodward recently suggested the comparative lack of success of Ireland, Scotland and Wales against the Southern Hemisphere Big 3 was down to the formers' players overvaluing participation on a Lions tour as opposed to playing for their own countries, whereas for the English donning the white jersey with the Red Rose always came before the red one with four national flowers. Post-colonial inferiority complex on the part of the Celts perhaps? Who knows? Maybe Woodward is on to something. Fact is, that the Charioteers are the only "home nation" - pardon my use of this awful term - to have won a Rugby World cup, while 28 years since the inception of the tournament the Irish haven't even managed to get past the quarter-final.....

That's only (and that's a maybe) ever applied to some Irish players from Ulster.
The Welsh and Scots can speak for themselves
Wales have won almost as many ir more GSs than England so not for the first time Woodward spouting off with nonsense.

[jezzer]

Interestingly Clive Woodward recently suggested the comparative lack of success of Ireland, Scotland and Wales against the Southern Hemisphere Big 3 was down to the formers' players overvaluing participation on a Lions tour as opposed to playing for their own countries, whereas for the English donning the white jersey with the Red Rose always came before the red one with four national flowers. Post-colonial inferiority complex on the part of the Celts perhaps? Who knows? Maybe Woodward is on to something. Fact is, that the Charioteers are the only "home nation" - pardon my use of this awful term - to have won a Rugby World cup, while 28 years since the inception of the tournament the Irish haven't even managed to get past the quarter-final.....

It's definitely not because they have 10 times the population of these other 3 countries who are overvaluing Lions places.

Touché!!

Sorry, that wasn't aimed at you! What is Woodward on about though? Seriously. Now, if he said we overfocused on the 6N at the expense of the RWC, he might have a point. But either way, the fact England have done better than us against SH teams is more down to the fact that with their population, they bloody should be.

[Ultra Vires]

You are wrong about the jersey also.

http://365.worldrugbyshop.com/the-story-of-the-british-irish-lions-in-10-jerseys/

Here's the jersey history for you. It has always been either red, white or blue (for Wales, England and Scotland) or a mix of the three colours. There has never been green except until very recently when they threw us a bone with a bit of trim on the socks....how magnanimous of them....around the time they finally got around to acknowledging us in the name of the team.

You'll note aswell that the crest used to be three lions, representing...you guessed it...the royal coat of arms for the king/queen of England. They now just include one of the lions on the shirt...so as not to draw too much attention to the inappropriateness of it.

The initial tours were tours by a "British Isles" side which geographically actually remains an accurate description.

This is news to me. Are you saying I live on a British island? Should come in handy post-Brexit I suppose.
Such nonsense is about as accurate as telling some lad from Punjab that it's better to say he's from British India, or some lad from Tel Aviv that he actually lives in the British Mandate of Palestine....I could go on. Irrelevant, obsolete colonial entities that existed for a very short period of time.

I guess at this point in the proceedings such discussion should really be transferred to another thread...no idea how to do so....Mods??

[Dave Cahill]

Ireland's national colour used to be (a variety of shades of) Blue. Green is a relatively recent thing.

[Laighin Break]

As pointed out above british isles does not "actually remain an accurate description". We are not british. No part of our island is british. We, as a country (with a couple of exceptions it seems) do not recognise it as a term.

[Laighin Break]

Ireland's national colour used to be (a variety of shades of) Blue. Green is a relatively recent thing.

Have the Irish rugby team ever worn blue?

[Oldschoolsocks]

Ireland's national colour used to be (a variety of shades of) Blue. Green is a relatively recent thing.

Have the Irish rugby team ever worn blue?

19th May 2012, winning by a margin of 28 points


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[jezzer]

Ireland's national colour used to be (a variety of shades of) Blue. Green is a relatively recent thing.

Have the Irish rugby team ever worn blue?

Whytes Auctioneers had an Irish jersey for sale last year that was one of the earliest test shirts. It was green.

[Grumpy Old Man]

A bit puzzled by the turn this thread has taken. We are taking about Dev (the long fellow), right?

[jezzer]

I don't think there's a thread going at the moment that hasn't taken some mad diversions. I love it personally, but order and precision were never in my lexicon of life.

[johng]

We are taking about Dev (the long fellow)

Bwahahahaha! He looked into his heart and knew what the people of Ireland were thinking.

[Lar]

Colour of Irish jersey irrelevant. UV said it was red because of British Military redcoats. I think this is wrong. If anything from what I have read it seems it is red because the New Zealanders did not like having to change shirts due to the Lions shirt having traditionally become blue prior to WWII. Whether green was ever in it or ever should have been was not my point.

As far as I know the island we live on is still geographically part of the islands known as the British Isles. That doesn't make us British - it never did. There are numerous examples of geographical descriptions of lands not matching the political position all over the world.

I just thought your rant was anti-British despite your assertion otherwise. I'll leave others to judge that as I have no wish to debate it further.

[fourthirtythree]

The island we live on is not "geographically part of the British Isles".

Some people may use that term. They are wrong. They are wrong in something like the same way that people are wrong when they call the state "Republic of Ireland" (which is the name of a soccer team) or the "Irish Republic". As an example of how that is wrong here is a list of the heads of state of an EU treaty.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 007L%2FTXT

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC,
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF DENMARK,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA,
THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC,
HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SPAIN,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA,
etc. etc.

Both terms (British Isles, Irish Republic) refer to geography and geography is politics. They are both propaganda terms. And, evidently, sucessful ones.

[artaneboy]

The island we live on is not "geographically part of the British Isles".

Some people may use that term. They are wrong. They are wrong in something like the same way that people are wrong when they call the state "Republic of Ireland" (which is the name of a soccer team) or the "Irish Republic". As an example of how that is wrong here is a list of the heads of state of an EU treaty.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 007L%2FTXT

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC,
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF DENMARK,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA,
THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC,
HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SPAIN,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA,
etc. etc.

Both terms (British Isles, Irish Republic) refer to geography and geography is politics. They are both propaganda terms. And, evidently, sucessful ones.

Of course the archipelago we share with our neighbours in the UK has the official geographic title of the British Isles. That should convey no sense of ownership or any other colonial blather- though I'll concede that there's a cohort of "British patriots" who'd like to imagine that. But we can't let idiots or knaves decide on meaning. Consider- would the body of water between our islands be considered ours just because it's called the "Irish Sea"??


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[Sionnach]

Of course the archipelago we share with our neighbours in the UK has the official geographic title of the British Isles.

Official? Under whose authority?

[fourthirtythree]

Of course the archipelago we share with our neighbours in the UK has the official geographic title of the British Isles.

Official? Under whose authority?

It's official like when we call a galaxy M:987 all the little green.... thingies from there are M3987ers. Officially.

[blockhead]

Wouldn't it then be the Great British Isles? Spit
Anyway, "Brittanic isles" has been its name since the 3rd or 4th century BC. Some Greek adventurer gave them the name or maybe it was the French and it included Ireland or "Hibernia".
Then the Germans (Anglo-Saxons) came along in the 5th Century, put a beach towel down and never left.

[Laighin Break]

"Written Answers – Official Terms", Dáil Éireann, Volume 606, 28 September 2005. In his response, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term. Our officials in the Embassy of Ireland, London, continue to monitor the media in Britain for any abuse of the official terms as set out in the Constitution of Ireland and in legislation. These include the name of the State, the President, Taoiseach and others."

[Dave Cahill]

Individual governments always have things that they don't accept in the face of global indifference to their position