ON THE AIRWAVES: Mary Hannigan's ear is buzzing after a day of radio reaction to a story of momentus proportions

Which side are you on, boys - Roy's or Mick's? If yesterday's limitless number of vox-pop opinion polls on radio and television were anything to go by, a new partition has surfaced in Irish society, one that might well be infinitely more divisive than that which was created by our forefathers' inconsequential squabbles, one that could well leave scars for millenniums to come.

"It's black armband time," said NewsTalk's Daire O'Brien when word filtered through of Roy Keane's expulsion before lunchtime. A caller phoned in to complain that the 'Roy story' had resulted in the 'Pony or Phoney' competition being shelved. Daire apologised, but only through gritted teeth.

If the caller couldn't comprehend that this was the most momentous story in global history since Joseph triumphantly declared 'It's a boy!' in a run-down Bethlehem out-house, then, well, maybe the Lord above should shower her in pity.

At that point Sky News, bless them, stepped in, realising the magnitude of the story, prompting them to delay their live coverage of the joint press conference between George Double-U and that German bloke who doesn't, allegedly, dye his hair. Cue wall-to-wall-Roy-coverage for the rest of the day. Culminating in a poll which asked their viewers: which side are you on boys? Roughly 75 per cent backed Mick against Roy, roughly the same percentage who oft back Ian Duncan-Smith against Asylum Seekers.

Liveline on RTE Radio. A 'mother from Cork' rang in. Her five-year-old boy Michael is a Roy Keane devotee. "Then I heard the news on the radio and I turned to him and said 'they've sent him home' - he literally burst in to tears'."

Then Ray Houghton came on Liveline. He recalled the time, at the 1990 World Cup, when Ireland reached the quarter-finals, when he and his room-mate John Aldridge couldn't fit their suitcases in the door of their Roman hotel bedroom door. The FAI lads? They were staying in rooms that had "two big double beds and an en suite". If Roy was listening he might have said: "case rested, your honour".

The only place to be, though, yesterday was Today FM. The Last Word. Dunphy. Eamon Dunphy. On the War Path. Liam Brady, Mark Lawrenson, John Giles, to a man tried to calm him down, but he was having none of it. All three guests agreed that Mick had no choice but to send Roy home. Dunphy nigh on spontaneously combusted. "But what do you do if the manager is a Muppet," he asked Giles.

Soon after Paul McGrath came on the phone. McGrath was 110 per cent behind Roy. "Devastated for him," he said, "disgusted by it, to be honest . . . it's wrecking my head. We had great hopes for this World Cup, but they've been blown apart by idiotic management. Roy Keane is the reason they're (the rest of the squad) are out there and I won't stray from that . . . as captain he should have the right to go to Mick and Packie and say how he feels - that's why he's captain."

Dunphy asked him for his thoughts on Niall Quinn, Gary Kelly and Steve Staunton criticising Keane. While McGrath hummed, Dunphy hawed - "they circled the wagons and stood beside the wagons . . . those wagons," he spat, in reference to McCarthy and the man from the FAI, Milo Corcoran. Indeed, wagons, the lot of them.

Have a good summer Roy, wish you were there.