That's not to say that antiBritishness, much of it latent, some of it overt and deep, has gone away. It was dusted down and given another airing last week when the GAA did the deal with the FAI and the IRFU which will allow soccer and rugby to be played in Croke Park. It's an excellent deal from the GAA's point of view;

top money to rent out a stadium that, in soccer terms, is second class, what with an unusable bank of terracing behind one of the goals. Whether the FAI is paying over the odds, and whether it might have not gotten a better deal by hiring out Old Trafford in Manchester, is one of the uninvestigated parts of the deal. Few would be surprised if the Association was guilty yet again of waste.

The Brit-bashing was obvious in the reaction of some people to the idea of the Union Jack flying over Croke Park, of 'God Save The Queen' being sung there. It was present too last year when GAA delegates finally located themselves somewhere in the late 20th century and agreed that under certain circumstances, Damien Duff would be as welcome in Croke Park as Damien Fitzhenry. It will emerge again during the summer when England play in the World Cup. And then there's the Wolfe Tones.

The moaning over 'God Save The Queen' . . . "many Irishmen will feel deeply troubled", a rather bizarre discussion between Eamon Dunphy and John Waters concluded during the week . . .

is rooted in a belief that because we were so oppressed for so long by the Brits, we will be in some way betraying those who fought against oppression. Did not the Brits murder people in the very stadium they will now despoil by playing rugby and soccer there.

Ireland was indeed oppressed by Britain, for centuries. When we finally got independence, it took us decades to create a nation that we could present proudly to the rest of the world. Lack of experience in governing meant that we governed abominably, crookedly, half-heartedly, rarely inspirationally. It took decades to throw off those shackles and strut confidently amongst our peers.

Those GAA members and supporters who recoil at 'God Save The Queen' being sung lustily and proudly at Croke Park will not let that history go, and one would be inclined to sympathise with their difficulties were it not for the fact that for years the GAA used precisely the same tactics of discrimination and oppression against "foreign" sports. One might say the Association learned well from the oppressor.

The success stories represented by the GAA and Ireland are different to the extent that Ireland had to go through centuries of oppression before emerging as a confident, civilised nation while the GAA benefited from the discrimination it meted out to others. In so far as there is a similarity, however, it is this: in both the shiny, cashrich new Ireland and the equally shiny, inordinately wealthy GAA, there has been amongst many an adamant refusal to acknowledge the sins of the past, to investigate and explain the many dark hours that occurred along the road to enlightenment.

When I have written on this subject before, the reaction amongst young people, particularly the crazies who contribute to a website called anfearrua. com, has been that all this talk of bans and discrimination is so much nonsense, a mere detail in a glorious history.

The ban, the effect of which was to deny to other sports equal access to resources, facilities and personnel, was a key factor in enabling the GAA to build itself up into the monolithic organisation it is today, to be able to build a stadium like Croke Park, and then to develop it into one of the nicest looking in Europe. To the extent that its construction and development wouldn't have been possible without the unfair advantage given to the GAA by the ban, Croke Park is a monument to bigotry.

I've used that phrase before and exhume it today only to try to balance some of the hysterical nonsense that has been written over the last week about the deal between the GAA, the IRFU and the FAI. If the word history was used once, it was used a thousand times, as though the GAA had done something noble, mature, remarkable and brave.

It was an entirely inappropriate use of the word. What the GAA did last week, no more and no less, was to conclude a very impressive business deal with some rival associations.

As an organisation, it is good and well practised at such deals and will no doubt do many more in the future.

So let us praise the Association for its pragmatism and financial skill, through which it so accurately reflects the national personality currently. But let us equally banish any talk about history being made, or about history that will be made when English sportsmen step out on to the Croke Park surface in 2007.

Ireland versus England in February next year will be a rugby match. Ireland versus England for 800 years was a blight on both nations that too many in the GAA used as an excuse to implement their own brand of discrimination.

But that was then and 'God Save The Queen' at Croke Park is now. It's time to move on.