ps: I've observed this issue of "cultural sub-nationalism" a lot since I went to Sri Lanka, and since then I try not to take it seriously. I landed in SL convinced that there were the Sinhalese, and there were the Tamils ... but the very first good friend I made there had a Tamil father and a Sinhalese mother ... confusion enough to make me feel like burning my books about the history of both cultures.
I am however aware of sensitivity on this type of issue so I do say British instead of English. However in France people commonly say "les Anglais" (the English) to refer to Great Britain as a whole.
And actually I know what's behind this sensitivity too: in all the years I've spent abroad, people I'd meet would often say "ah you're French, so you're from Paris huh?". This would sometimes make me pout.
[/i'm actually snarking, I like the fact that there is a Scott & Welsh team in rugby ... but we should also be allowed to have Southwest & Rest-of-France French teams, being different rugby cultures entirely]
Ireland have one rugby team, but two football teams.
The Englaish cricket team is actually officially the MCC (Marylebone cricket club) to get around the fact that Welsh and Scots (and nowadays just about anybody else) can play for them.
West Indies is one cricket team and god knows how many football teams. keep to the Fen Causeway
It's easier to build and support football sides. Look at how many pro clubs London has.
Initially there were two unions both founded in 1874. The Irish Football Union had jurisdiction over Clubs in Leinster, Munster and parts of Ulster; the Northern Football Union of Ireland controlled the Belfast area. The IRFU was formed in 1879 as an amalgamation of the two different organisations and branches were formed in Leinster, Munster and Ulster. The Connacht Branch was formed in 1886.(Wikipedia)
The IRFU predates partition... it was the soccer crowd that split:
Upon the partition of Ireland in 1921 the FAIFS (now the FAI) was set up to regulate the game in the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland). Those behind the FAIFS believed that soccer should be regulated by a federation based in the Free State capital Dublin. The IFA's supporters argued that the federation should be based where the game was mainly played - Ulster and its principal city Belfast. Both federations claimed to represent the whole of the island and both competed as Ireland and both picked players from the two rival leagues - which also split at this time. (Wikipedia)
Which endorses Helen's view I guess: the upper and middle class sport stayed as one because it would have been dominated by rich Protestant or Anglo-Irish and the working class sport split over politics.
While I didn't go to a "rugby school", my father played at some level in London in the sixties...
But then again maybe working class sports are so much a way for the working class to be heard that they don't want to share the glory of being heard with distant others?
Be careful what you wish for Alex, you might not like the outcomes.
There were plans to devolve power to a collection of Regional Assemblies around the country, which would be more or less equivalent to a local parliament, and would deal with local issues in much the same way that the Welsh and Scottish assemblies do already.
There was a stirring lack of interest from most of the regions about this. So although there's a Campaign for an English Parliamen, as Wikipedia says 'politically it remains a minor issue.'
