THE VISIT of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland and the opening of Croke Park to soccer and rugby have helped move towards achieving a united Ireland, GAA commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh told a conference at the weekend.
Ó Muircheartaigh told Uniting Ireland – Towards a New Republiche believed a united Ireland was "somewhere between here and the horizon"and it would be achieved by some generation though he didn't know when.
In the meanwhile, it was important to build bridges and both the visit of Queen Elizabeth to the Republic and the decision of the GAA to open up Croke Park to soccer and rugby along with various cross-community initiatives in the North were important milestones.
“I think the recent visit of Queen Elizabeth brought that day nearer. The way she came, I think it was obvious she came with enormous goodwill, not in the way that her predecessors came to look upon her subjects, but she came as an equal.
“The way she went to Croke Park with all its historical associations and the Garden of Remembrance. And she also went to Islandbridge and here to Cork where she got a great welcome and that opened minds in terms of how we see others and how they see us.”
Ó Muircheartaigh said opening up Croke Park “brought us another step along the way” and he recalled how he had the pleasure earlier this month of attending the Dalriada Festival in the Glens of Antrim for an event hosting by Glenarm GAA club.
The small north Antrim club’s camogie team played a compromise match with a ladies hockey team from Belfast and “by a bit of bad refereeing or maybe it was good refereeing”, it ended in a draw and events like that too helped foster ties and build relationships.
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