In Dublin, a college football game brings harmony in a troubled time

DUBLIN, Ireland — It’s not easy to travel between Tallahassee and Dublin. Two layovers, at least. If everything goes just right — no missed connections, no lost bags — it’s maybe 20 hours door to door. Any way you cut it, it’s a long trip.

As many thousands of Florida State fans who made the journey would attest, the trip seems even longer after the team they came to see suffered an upset loss.

It’s already been reported everywhere that FSU turned in a muddled effort Saturday and dropped its season opener against Georgia Tech, 24-21. The Yellowjackets kicked a field goal as time ran out to hand Florida State its second loss in a row, both to a team from Georgia (the Seminoles were pummeled in January’s Orange Bowl against the Georgia Bulldogs 63-3). Before that they’d won 19 straight games over two seasons.

But let’s back things up a few days

FSU’s garnet and gold was in evidence all over the Emerald Isle in the days leading up to the game. In pubs and taverns, sure — it’s no secret that both cultures enjoy singing off key while downing a beer or two — but also at the majestic Cliffs of Moher and the mysterious Giants’ Causeway, at the staid Irish National Gallery and at Muckross Abbey, a sprawling stone complex built for medieval Franciscan friars.

And Ireland did its best to make the visiting football fans feel welcome, and not just because of the estimated $130 million the game is reported to have pumped into the Irish economy via the estimated 25,000 fans from both schools who flew in.

Large banners that stretched across the various pedestrian walkways of western Ireland’s biggest city carried both teams’ names after the phrase “Céad Míle Fáilte Go Gaillimh” — Gaelic for “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes to Galway.”

Perhaps knowing that fans leaving the 90-degree plus summers in the Southeast for the cool, wet, and windy afternoons in Ireland might be under-dressed, hawkers sold scarves that featured both teams’ colors along with the names “Florida” and “Georgia” in capital letters, not realizing (bless their hearts) that those were two completely different schools.

This is the middle year of a five-year stretch in which Dublin’s Aviva Stadium will host a big college football game, and some locals looking to understand the game compared it to their domestic versions of violent sports: rugby, hurling, and Gaelic football.

“I can appreciate the rough aspect of American football,” more than one resident said. “But I don’t understand why there are so many rest intervals.” Others wondered why two teams located just 250 miles from each other would travel 4,000 miles for a game.

It was widely reported before the game that the FSU football team made the trip to Ireland with a chip on its shoulder after being left out of last year’s NCAA football playoff, despite earning the Atlantic Coast Conference crown and sporting a pristine 13-0 record. It was the first time an undefeated winner of a major football conference was left out of the playoffs.

Unfortunately for the team, Saturday’s game helped quiet those complaints, at least for now.

Many Seminoles fans in Ireland carried the same chip, loudly booing football analyst Kirk Herbstreit every time he spoke during the ESPN “Game Day” pre-game broadcast (Herbstreit was blamed for helping turn public opinion against FSU when it came to selecting playoff teams last year).

After the game, many disgruntled fans turned on the team, using social media to call for the ouster of Coach Mike Norvell despite a 23-5 record since the start of the 2022 season, or for touted transfer quarterback DJ Uiagalelei to be benched after a lackluster debut in FSU colors.

But for the most part, cooler heads prevailed.

The two teams’ marching bands battled it out with their on-the-field performances, but then worked together to play “Danny Boy,” the unofficial Irish national anthem. Hundreds of Irish police accustomed to soccer hooligans just stood watching the mixed allegiance crowds peacefully file into the stadium before the game and then out again a few hours later.

Even a polarizing figure like Ron DeSantis — the Florida governor best known for his feud against Disney World, abortion rights restrictions, and for lashing out against perceived “wokeism” in the state — helped set the tone by combining his trip to the game with a mostly well-received trade mission aimed at improving ties between the two economies (“A Guinness factory in Florida? I’m going to work on that,” DeSantis joked).

In a country, in a state, amid U.S. fanbases bitterly divided over much more than football, there was at least some small relief after the game in seeing fans of both schools together with locals on the sidewalks outside of pubs, raising their drinks in the air, arms draped around each other, and singing perfectly out of tune.