ALL GAA fans heading by car to Croke Park in Dublin tend to have their own regular match day parking spots, based on factors including security, walking distance to the ground, and of course the proximity of particular pubs for the non-driving members of the party.

Northern supporters arriving via the motorway have traditionally favoured the Drumcondra Road area, from Whitehall through to Phibsborough, but for a range of reasons I have firmly switched my allegiance to Fairview.

It has some fine coffee shops, which are handy for meeting a brother who lives in nearby Clontarf as we slowly transition away from the pubs, congestion after the game is usually at manageable levels, while the district offers a pleasant stroll through a vibrant district, including Fairview Park itself, towards the stadium.

There is a significant amount of literary, political and social history to consider there, with Bram Stoker Park and Bram’s cafe paying homage to the Dracula author, whose birthplace is adjacent on the only Georgian crescent in the city.

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Around the corner is St Joseph’s CBS, which produced two taoisigh, John A Costello and Charles Haughey, as well the composer of The Soldier’s Song, Peadar Kearney, and the actor Brendan Gleeson.

Another landmark on the approach to Croke Park, until it closed a couple of years ago, was the Edge and Sons hardware store, a distinctive and iconic business at the junction of Fairview Road and Annesley Bridge Road for over a century, which is reputed to have inspired the nickname of the U2 guitarist Dave Evans.

It was disconcerting to find that a neighbouring gable end has been turned into a huge tricolour mural, as part of anti-immigration protests by far-right groups which have been escalating over recent months.

Numerous Irish flags have been appearing on lampposts across Dublin, and other urban areas of the south, in a campaign which the organisers have denied is racist but many observers view as divisive in every way.

There is particularly something grating about the idea that a main route to Croke Park through a celebrated and strongly multi-cultural district should be dominated by a display intended to send an entirely hostile message to our new residents.

The GAA, along with many other groups, has played a key role in extending the hand of friendship to individuals from different backgrounds, with the diversity of names on team sheets at all levels confirming the inclusive nature of Gaelic games.

It also proudly flies the tricolour in its proper context above the Hogan Stand, symbolising respect between the two main Irish traditions but also by extension welcoming all those belonging to minority groups.

The stance of the GAA undoubtedly has the endorsement of the vast majority of citizens, who understand the economic and political circumstance which also forced enormous numbers of Irish people to start new lives in other countries down the generations, frequently encountering suspicion and discrimination in the process.

Immigration obviously has to be closely monitored and controlled, and it will be acknowledged that the south, where the population is growing by 1.5 per cent annually, one of the highest rates in Europe, faces many more issues than the north, where the latest increase was less than 0.4 per cent.

There is also the separate question of asylum seekers, with the annual total in the Republic rising from below 4,000 pre-Covid to almost 20,000 now, an estimated 90 per cent of them travelling from the north, where figures suggest less than 3,000 are based.

These are all matters inevitably linked to devastating global developments, including war, famine and natural disasters, but still need to be carefully managed by authorities who have sometimes failed to keep host communities sufficiently informed about the provision of camps for those requesting international protection.

However, no solutions will be found by intimidating vulnerable families and using the kind of confrontational tactics over emblems which are much more closely associated with northern loyalists.

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As Aoife Moore has previously written in these pages, the tricolour is a symbol of hope and promise, not a “keep out” sign, and those who abuse it are demonstrating their own sense of insecurity.

What is reassuring is that candidates promoting policies reminiscent of Nigel Farage and his UK Reform party have so far gained little traction with southern voters, almost invariably performing poorly across the board in the most recent council, Dáil and European elections.

The GAA has shown the appropriate way to honour the national flag, and those who take a different view may find that, like Count Dracula, the creation of one of Fairview’s most distinguished sons, their plans will ultimately fail.

n.doran@irishnews.com

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