"They wear green, so I support them": An exploration of identification with the Ireland rugby union team among British and Northern Irish identifying fans in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This dissertation examines identification with the Ireland national rugby union team exhibited by residents of Northern Ireland who do not identify predominantly as Irish, but rather as Northern Irish or British. It does so through an analysis of this population’s engagement with the symbols that are associated with the Ireland team. It argues that there are multiple ways for Irish Rugby fans to identify with the team, be that to the symbols of the Republic of Ireland used or to the provincial structure of the Irish Rugby Football Union and the symbolism that represents this. This dissertation argues that that due to the presence of these cross-border symbols, identification with the national team can take place largely outside the relationship between international sports and national identity. A survey was completed by members of an Ulster Rugby online fan group, which enquired as to the participants’ responses to the symbols that surround Irish Rugby. From a thematic analysis of the results, a shared identity within the sport, spanning the nationalist and unionist traditions was observed. Establishing, in line with certain works in the field of sports sociology, that fans can possess a sporting nationality, it posits then that engagement with the Ireland team from non-Irish identifying fans represents an engagement with a sense of Irishness. The dissertation concludes with an examination of this sense of Irishness, arguing that in assessments of identity, it would prove fruitful for further research to consider attachment to a place outside the confines of traditional conceptions of nation and national identity.