As a new Six Nations rugby championship is underway, today I look back at what was then the Five Nations championship 75 years ago and one of the matches, in March 1950, that took place between Ireland and Wales in Belfast.
While the match itself was notable for how it starkly demonstrated divisions on the island over identity and symbols, the aftermath ended in deep tragedy for some Welsh fans.
A chartered flight from Dublin to Llandow in Glamorgan crashed before landing, resulting in the deaths of 80 people, the worst aviation disaster in the world up to that point.
Under the Northern Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act of 1933, it had been illegal to fly the Irish tricolour flag in the north.
And one of the most high-profile instances of the northern authorities prohibiting its display came at the Ireland v Wales game in 1950.
As in 2025, Ireland had won the previous two championships, including a grand slam in 1948.
It relinquished its title in Ravenhill against Wales, who went on to win the grand slam that year.
A fan who had travelled from Dublin, on displaying the tricolour prominently before the match began, was chased and attacked by RUC members.
A photograph showing the man manhandled by the RUC, with one officer planting his knee on his neck, pinning him to the ground, was seen around the world.
Motorists travelling over the border for the game were also ordered to remove the tricolour by the RUC once they entered the six counties.
Many in the press were outraged by the incident. The Ulster Herald described it as “a remarkable illustration of what it means to live in an armed police state”.
The Fermanagh Herald believed “the setting at Ravenhill looked more like as if the game was being played in an English town, and not in Ireland’s second largest city”, such was the prominent display of Union flags.
The Sunday Independent claimed the Irish Football Rugby Union (IRFU) was directly responsible, urging it to “find some remedy which will prevent the great majority of Irish rugby followers being nauseated” in future.
Other, pro-unionist newspapers, blamed spectators from the twenty-six counties for their “displays of exaggerated nationalism and political assertiveness wholly out of place at a sporting event and in exceedingly bad taste”.
The Strabane Weekly News called for firm action against displaying the tricolour, describing it as “the flag of a bitterly hostile, rebellious foreign country… It is the symbol of hatred, avarice, dishonour and rebellion, and the emblem of a country whose politicians aim at the destruction of the Government of Northern Ireland and the subjugation of its people”.
The Northern Ireland government subsequently relaxed its ruling on the displaying of the tricolour. The flag was no longer considered illegal.
It would only be considered so if it led to “a breach of the peace” by provoking “others to create trouble”, something left in the hands of the RUC to decide upon on a case-by-case basis.
Despite the relaxation on the displaying of the tricolour, the Act was still seen by many, as Henry Patterson has written, “as a prime example of the repressive and sectarian nature of the Northern Ireland state in its relation to any manifestation of the national identity of its Catholic minority”. This Act was only repealed in 1987 after the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985.
To avoid awkward and controversial incidents over flags and anthems in Belfast, particularly after a strike was threatened by southern-based players, the IRFU chose to use Dublin as the sole venue for rugby internationals from 1954.
But while the incidents at the rugby match in Belfast in March 1950 highlighted the deep divisions in Irish society, they were minor concerns compared to the tragedy many Welsh fans and their families endured shortly after the match in Ravenhill.
After leaving Belfast, Welsh supporters who had chartered a Tudor V plane to Dublin for the match embarked on the same plane for the return journey the following day, Sunday March 12.
It left Dublin airport at 2.10pm and was due to land in Llandow at 3.05pm. Llandow Aerodrome was used for civilian flights before facilities were developed at what is now Cardiff Airport.
One eyewitness saw the plane arriving at the airport, attempting to land, climb again, appearing to stall and then nose-dive into a field about half a mile away near the small village of Sigingstone.
It did not catch fire. It “just crumpled up”, as another eyewitness described it.
The plane broke in half as it hit the ground. Fragments of the wreckage were scattered everywhere, as were clothing and suitcases.
Of the 83 on board (78 passengers and 5 crew), only three survived. Seven of the fatalities were women. Two of the survivors – brothers-in-law Handel Rogers and Gwyn Anthony – walked from the rear of the aircraft with only superficial injuries.
Rogers went on to manage the Welsh rugby tour to New Zealand, Australia and Fiji in 1969 and became president of the Welsh Rugby Union in 1975.
As with the recent aviation crash in Washington DC, there was much speculation as to who or what was at fault, with some suggesting that the pilot accidentally moved the controls as he was about to land.
A court of investigation subsequently ruled that the most probable cause was that loading conditions gave a centre of gravity that was too far aft (towards the back) and outside the limit permitted for airworthiness.
What started as a weekend of triumph for Welsh rugby after winning the Triple Crown in Belfast ended in deep tragedy as the lives of 80 people were ended so calamitously just a day later.