European Cup Final: John O'Sullivanfinds that distance - and time-zones - are no barriers to watching Munster play in Cardiff
FEW WILL forget the sights and sounds of Munster's Heineken European Cup triumph in 2006, a red letter day for the province in every respect.
Many of those that didn't make the pilgrimage to the Millennium Stadium congregated in O'Connell Street in Limerick, the television footage beamed on to the big screen in Cardiff.
It was a galvanising factor acknowledged by the Munster players in the aftermath. Less obvious, but arguably no less passionate, would have been red-shirted advocates in hundreds of pubs around the world, clambering for vantage points in front of screens, big and small, at all hours of the day and night depending on the time zone.
Munster have managed to replicate the journey of two year's ago and once again 50,000 Munster supporters will descend on Cardiff, while those marginally less fortunate will head for Limerick's main thoroughfare.
In countless Irish pubs and clubs around the world the clamour for access to the final will be no less ardent. The Celtika Irish Bar Restaurant in Santiago, Chile, expect to welcome about 20 Irish ex-pats through the doors for the game.
The are about nine drinking establishments in Santiago that claim Irish heritage, but Celtika is one of only two that boasts Irish owners. Paul Dicker and Niall Farnon are from Beaumont on the north side of Dublin while Damien Keohan is from Firhouse.
Dicker and Farnon, both of whom qualified as engineers, are childhood friends, while they met Keohan (an optician) at university. A round the world trip in 2004 spawned a love-at-first-sight courtship with Santiago and the friends decided to stay, before being joined by Keohan in 2006.
Farnon confirmed that the Munster game would be made available to their punters. "We actually bought a brand new plasma screen last Friday week specifically for the match and we are advertising the event all week with giveaways and special promotions on the day.
"The Irish community is around 50-100 strong in Santiago and Chile has strong Irish connections. Their liberator from the Spanish was a man by the name of Bernado O'Higgins whose father, Ambrose, hailed from Co Sligo.
"In fact, the main avenue of Santiago is named Avenida O'Higgins. Chile is also littered with street names such as Lynch, MacKenna and O'Brien, all named after their war heroes."
Just up the road in Ecuador's capital, Quito, Ursula Brankin, an Antrim native, confirmed that Finn McCools' bar would be showing the match live. "At the moment in Quito we have a few passionate Munster fans who are here giving their time to various local charities," said Brankin.
"Our bar tends to try to provide our clients with all major sporting events which have proved popular as coverage in this part of the world tends to be poor."
Definitely one of the last places to see the match live, from a time perspective, will be Mulligan's on the Blue bar in Maui, Hawaii. Opened in 2001, it belongs to Clonmel native, Mike O'Dwyer.
"We will be showing the game live, albeit we are 11 hours behind, so we will also show it during the day. We show all the rugby games from all over the world, especially from New Zealand and have a big Maori following who have performed the haka in the pub on more than one occasion.
"We have a close-knit Irish community of about 16 people on Maui, which has a population of 136,000. The head bartender is Damian Nestor (Roscommon) and our most regular Irishman is Mick O'Rourke (Westmeath) who owns the local wood flooring business.
"We keep it simple and Irish and pour the best pint of Guinness in the Pacific. We may not have many Irish out here but we proudly fly the Irish and Munster flags from our entrance overlooking the Pacific Ocean . . . and as the Hawaiians proudly tell us we are all islanders."
Jerry O'Regan, the proprietor of a pub bearing his own name in Montreal, points out that his establishment is the only one in the Canadian city that shows "all the rugby".
He laughs: "Last year some of our regulars (32 guys) had to go on staff just to be able to be legally on site at 4.30am. The local cops were going mad suggesting that a small Irish pub with 32 cleaners all having a staff pint at that time of the night was a bit suspicious."
O'Regan opened the pub five and a half years ago and claims to be the only Irish-born pub owner in Montreal and runs what he considers to be a bona fide Irish experience from the food to the culture to the music.
Some drinking establishments are prepared to go that extra mile and that would certainly seem to be the case for Durty Nelly's Bar in Australia, Sydney's oldest Irish bar according to licensee Zelman Nissen.
"Durty's is showing the Heineken Cup final which is telecast live on ESPN here in Sydney on Sunday at 2am," said Nissen.
"As the hotel can only trade to midnight I applied for an extension of trade which was granted for us to trade to 3.45am. If the final against Biarritz, which we also showed live, is any indication of the turn out, then it is going to be a full house.
"My family have owned Durty's since 1998. We are an Australian family (not of Irish decent) running an Irish pub. We sponsor several Irish and employ many Irish staff which I believe is part of why the patrons enjoy their time at Durty's.
"Whether ex-pats or back packers we have a very healthy Irish patronage and there are times when I am the only Aussie in the pub! We are proud to host, sponsor and support a number of clubs and associations. Durty's are proud sponsors of Michael Cusack's GAA NSW GAA since 2001."
It appears that the Munster team's circle of admirers reaches most corners of the globe.
