France vs England vs Ireland

Today England plays against France in a semi-final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup.Ireland was knocked out of the competition two weeks ago.Yesterday on RTE radio's so-called sports programme this game was hardly referred to.The other semi-final between Argentine and South Africa ,was discussed in detail.I ask myself ,how can someone in our national radio station justify this obvious begrugery and lack of sportmanship.'We're not in it therefore its not of interest to us'...seems to be the reason.
Of course it rankles that our 'ancient enemy' is still in the competition with a reasonable chance of winning an historic double.To further frustrate us our sometime historical friend (General Humbert,Wolfe Tone ,Maud Gonne /Sean Mc Bride) France ,was the country that was directly responsible for our exit.(Cheval a horse of a man....or maybe ''A Man Called Horse'').
So our dilemma is ,who can we cheer for ? As far as RTE is concerned the answer is ,nobody.

The reasons for our antipity toward England,(or Great Britian,or the U.K. or 'across the water' as our media people sometimes euphemistically,refer to that other island that is John Bull),these reasons are well documented in our history books .Our relationship with France is more based on our conception that 'our enemy's enemy is our friend'.We also misunderstand the true relationship between England and France.These two countries have a 'love-hate' relationship with each other that no other country will ever understand.Bound together by history and geography ( and literature),often seeming to severly criticise each other they still managed to jointly complete two of greatest engineering projects of the twentieth century....the channel tunnel and the Concord (the reason Concord eventually failed was to do with economics not engineering).The eponomymous ''Two Cities'' of Dickens famous novel are now joined together in space and time (approx 2 hours apart).
Likewise we in Ireland are so closely bound to U.K. (etc...) we hardly notice .Just witness the row going on in Limerick because Aer Lingus pulled out of the Shannon/Heathrow link.We are now causually 'crossing the border' through the North simply to get to weddings in Donegal....,despite the fact that there is a different currency and laws (speed in m.p.h. rather than k.p.h.)
Our relationship with France is different,of course we called them in during our various rebellions against the British,but as far as I can remember from my Irish history,we also called in the Spanish,and even , during the 1916 Rising , Casement endevored to bring in the Germans I think we found the French aloof ,mainly because we had never really taught the French language.But our writers like Joyce and Beckett have found France a country in which they were very much at ease.Stephen Roche who won the Tour also settled there ,I remember our (?) most famous international thespian , Michael Mac Liammore , was known to have commented ,when presented with one of France's highest accolades,''why me ?I have done nothing for France ,except love Her.....
So let us all cheer ,let the best country win and may our rugby team be ready for the next world cup.....with Eddie O'Sullivan still in charge....