Self-proclaimed "plastic Paddy" weighs in on rugby controversy

The Irish Times carries a letter today regarding the rugby match between England and Ireland this evening at Croke Park. Much has been made over the controversial matter of "God Save the Queen" at the stadium, which was the scene of a massacre of 14 innocent people by British paramilitaries in 1920. Dr Richard Lanigan writes from Surrey, England to say that he was the grandfather of Dick Lanigan, who stood
beside Mick Hogan for a team photograph moments before Hogan was shot dead in that travesty.

He goes on to say, however,

On Saturday Grandad would also recall that England gave his son and many other people a living when the Irish Republic could not provide work for the m in the 1950s and 1960s. I spent many happy times with Grandad when my parents broke up in the 1960s and he never commented that his grandson considered himself to be English back then. Today his great-grandchildren have an English mother and a "plastic Paddy"
for a father.

If he were alive, I am sure he would be cheering on the Irish with the rest of the family, hoping sportsmen can set an example where politicians have failed.

The letter was favourably commented on during RTE's morning show on Saturday.
Read the letter at the Irish Times website.