Ulsterman John Birch receives first Irish rugby caps at 82 for 1970 matches

John Birch was awarded two caps last year for matches he played against Argentina in 1970. As 51,000 spectators prepare to attend Ireland’s autumn Test match against Argentina at the Aviva Stadium on Friday night, the encounter between the world’s third and fifth-ranked teams is anticipated as a significant international event. Although the Pumas have secured notable victories against their Irish hosts over the years, the Irish Rugby Football Union [IRFU] only began to officially recognize games against Argentina as Tests in 1990. Consequently, players who represented Ireland against the South American team but did not subsequently play against what were termed “IRB board member countries” remained unrecognized as Irish internationals for decades, a situation that was corrected just last year. Hooker John Birch, who participated in Ireland’s 1970 tour of Argentina alongside numerous British and Irish Lions, was among these players, though he stated that the five-decade delay in receiving his cap did not concern him. Birch, now 82, commented, “I don’t think I’m being falsely modest, it didn’t really mean anything to me. I knew that I had been with the Irish team. I knew that Ronnie Lamont, Bill [Willie John] McBride, Syd Millar had all been there representing Ireland. If there was a cap, there was a cap, if there wasn’t, it didn’t matter.” Birch began playing rugby as a schoolboy at Royal Belfast Academical Institution, later captaining Queen’s University Belfast and playing for Instonians at the club level. His aspirations for senior rugby appeared to have ended due to marriage, family, and an “old, untrustworthy car,” but while playing for Coleraine in junior divisions, he was persuaded to join the Ballymena team, which included Willie John McBride and Syd Millar, to “give it one last crack.” After performing well enough with the county Antrim team to secure a spot in an Irish ‘probables versus possibles’ trial ahead of the Argentina tour, his performance there positioned him as the likely starter for the journey upon his departure. He recalled, “Ken Kennedy, who was the established Irish hooker at the time, and beside whom I had played prop during my four years at Queen’s, dropped out of the tour so there was a space available. I was very, very lucky to be in the right place at the right time to get a spot in the final trial and the trial went well for me.” Following an extended and challenging journey through Paris and Rio, Birch recollects witnessing horse racing at the renowned hippodrome park in Buenos Aires, the squad’s efforts to understand a Spanish rendition of the recently released Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and consuming steaks so large they extended beyond the plate. “I went on that trip weighing 13 and a half stone and came back 14 and a half stone,” he quipped about the steaks. Ireland competed in seven matches over three weeks in Argentina, losing both encounters against the national team with scores of 8-3 and 6-3. Birch stated, “They were better than us. They were physically hard games. This is well before the days of professional rugby. You just went out and played as hard as you could. By and large it was rugby in the 1970s, two teams doing as well as they could and they were better than us. As far as I was concerned, I’d come from nowhere. Everything about the trip was bonus points for me.” Friends and family of those awarded caps gathered at the Aviva Stadium last year. Birch’s rugby career concluded in the years directly after the tour due to “two shot knees,” prompting him to concentrate on his family and profession. His wife, Helen, was expecting their second son, Jeremy, during the trip; Birch would later jest that Jeremy was the sole infant departing the maternity ward in a souvenir poncho. Fifty-three years later, Jeremy and his brother Simon received another memento from the trip: the actual caps Birch was awarded for the two matches. Both sons were at the Aviva Stadium last year when the IRFU, having chosen to retroactively grant official Test status to previous games against Argentina, Fiji, Canada, and the USA, presented their 12 “overnight internationals” to the crowd before a World Cup warm-up match against England. Birch’s sole regret was that his wife, Helen, was not present to witness the occasion. He remarked, “When the caps were awarded, to some extent, I felt the ifs and buts of it because my wife had died by then. She had been pregnant at the time but didn’t want in any way shape or form to stop me from going. It would have been nice if the caps had been around earlier so she could have seen it.” Birch asserts that the bonds formed through the sport, such as his enduring friendship with fellow tourist Ronnie Lamont, consistently held greater significance than any awards or caps. Nevertheless, he appreciates the chance to reflect, whether during Ireland’s matches against Argentina or simply when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is shown on television. He added, “Doing this now throws me back to a period of time 50 years ago. When there’s leaves in the garden that need brushed, a cupboard over there that needs sorted, you forget that there were good times like that.”