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DUBLIN - Security will be tightened in Dublin tomorrow for a historic first rugby match between Ireland and England at a stadium remembered in Irish history as the scene of a pre-independence British shooting of 14 Irish.
While Ireland's President Mary McAleese has urged people to give England "a welcome to beat all welcomes", a small fringe group opposed to British rule in Northern Ireland will protest.
Republican Sinn Fein (RSF), which split from Northern Ireland's main Sinn Fein nationalist party in the 1980s and opposes a 1998 peace deal that largely ended 30 years of violence in the province, said the match should not go ahead.
In November 1920, British-led forces opened fire at Dublin's Croke Park stadium during a Gaelic football match, killing about 14 people on a day that became known as Bloody Sunday.
Playing the British national anthem, God Save the Queen, and flying the English flag "insults the memory" of those killed at the home of traditional Irish sports, the splinter group said.
"We are protesting at the political symbolism of this event," said party spokesman Ruairi Og O Bradaigh. "There's a political agenda to try and make out it's a normal situation between Ireland and England, whereas in fact it's not."
Britain's Foreign Office warned people about the planned protest on its website, although RSF said it would be peaceful.
Nevertheless, extra police will be on duty in the Irish capital and a cordon thrown round the stadium where a sell-out crowd of more than 80,000 is expected.
Police chiefs hope to avoid a repeat of ugly clashes in Dublin last year sparked by a rally for Protestants from Northern Ireland who want to retain the province's British ties. Gangs smashed windows, burned cars and attacked riot police.
Croke Park is hosting rugby games for the first time while the Lansdowne Road stadium in the south of the city is rebuilt.
Reflecting the wider public mood, a nephew of one Bloody Sunday victim said Irish fans should welcome the English.
"It all happened before our time. We are a different generation now, we have to move on," Michael Hogan told the Irish Examiner newspaper.
Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said people should remember the "terrible incident" of 1920, while acknowledging the progress made in recent years.
Ireland won its fight for independence from Britain in the 1920s but counties in Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom. That division has been a source of huge bloodshed in the past although the province is now largely peaceful.
- REUTERS
