"A lot of people will ask during 6 national time and autumn internationals time, why don't all the Irish teams sing the anthem," Craig Doyle told Ryan Tubridy, explaining how he and Brian O'Driscoll set out to answer the question and address the complex history behind 'Ireland's Call' in a new documentary, 'Shoulder to Shoulder'. "It seemed like a very obvious story to tell and we were really surprised no one had told it before."
"We just got on with it," said Brian, of his playing career. "We didn't see that there was any political or religious divides or issues in the team room or out on the pitch. We saw one another as teammates."
There are of course layers upon layers of history and hostility to take into account when the issue is given deeper consideration, which is exactly what the pair set out to do. Craig spoke about how they were keen not to shy away from some of the more violent aspects of The Troubles.
"It's a very hard story to tell and I think the reason we started off with very graphic images of some of The Troubles and some of the bombs (was) because younger people… don't know was it was like, they've no idea, and it was important that we started by saying look, this is how bad it was to highlight how incredible the rugby team is."
The pair and their crew paid a visit to the home of Orangeism, Loughgall in County Armagh where Brian was controversially invited to play the Lambeg drum
"I kind of had a split second moment of, what am I going to do here… I know this is a big deal to them, but I know it's a big deal from a Republican perspective from what the Lambeg represents, but yet I thought, this guy's asking me, I'm sure they don't flippantly ask anyone to go up and play their drum, particularly a Catholic from the south or a Republican so I said OK… Obviously, there was a big fallout from it later on that evening but I woke up the next day and I thought to myself if I was put in the same situation would I do it again and I absolutely would."
Returning to the history of 'Ireland's Call', before we had that number to belt out together before a match, Brian recalled with some mirth how during the '87 World Cup, a different kind of neutral ground was settled upon. "They decided to play 'The Rose of Tralee', just the instrumental, version of it."
"They must have just wanted the ground to swallow them… Let's just get ourselves pumped with 'The Rose of Tralee' instrumental."
"It's really funny," chimed in Craig. "They're in a huddle and this music's going on and they're so self-conscious at that time!"
Click here to listen to that interview in full.
(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)