January 12 1924
The first match on the rugby union’s new ground at Ravenhill Park takes place today, when Ulster meets Leinster in the last inter-provincial match of the season. Both teams have already accounted for Munster, and it is expected that to-day’s game will provide a sterling display. The teams are old rivals, having met on forty-two previous occasions, the northerners gaining the majority of victories. The game will commence at 2.45, and Mr A J Strain, president of the Northern Branch, will be in charge.
To the detriment of upgrading Lansdowne Road in Dublin, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) sanctioned and allocated funds for the erection of a new stadium in Belfast, at Ravenhill in the early 1920s. This allowed the IRFU to continue its tradition of hosting international matches in Belfast and Dublin, a practice that continued until the 1950s.
Food Prices
“The cost of living” is discussed daily in all parts of Ireland and Great Britain now. Wages are falling; food prices are either rising or remaining sternly stationary; trade and employment are improving very slowly, almost imperceptibly – if at all in many areas; the pathways of the poor are harder than at any period since the close of the war; and it is freely asserted all over the country that the distribution of food and other goods involves “profiteering” to a greater extent than even during the most robust years of the World War.
Protests against this alleged excess of profits reaped by those engaged in the process of retail distribution are unheeded. In England Mr Ramsay MacDonald has promised to break the rings, or trusts, responsible for the maintenance of high costs in the building trade. We have not heard much about “profiteering” in Belfast latterly – other topics engross public attention for the moment – but a campaign which may develop into a serious general “movement” is progressing in Dublin. Questions were asked at Thursday’s sitting of the Dáil Éireann. A member was troubled over the prices charged for beer, porter and stout in the Free State; he suggested a conference between brewers, licensed traders and a representative of the government, so that the problem might be debated. President [WT] Cosgrave said the grievance was practically confined to Dublin.
There are signs that the Free State Government will soon be compelled by two great forces of public opinion – farmers and urban workers – to take action of some kind. Meanwhile the course of the struggle in Dublin and other southern centres will be watched with keen interest in the north.