Let us take another major benefit which has, partly at least, derived from our international soccer campaigns. For as long as I can remember, as a child and youth, the flying of the national flag, our tricolour, was almost a reserved function. In some respects it was almost dangerous to fly it because if a tricolour flew from a bedroom window or on a pole in a garden, there was an immediate and an automatic assumption that the householder was a supporter of extreme republicanism. That was far from the truth but we hardly realised that we had been robbed of our flag. When just about every other country in the world could take pride in waving theirs at every opportunity, we had to do it almost covertly. Then along came Jack Charlton and the boys in green with tricolours flying everywhere, draped around shoulders and paraded in the streets, often with more enthusiasm than respect. However, we had recovered our flag. Today it is available to all our citizens and the days when we needed the respectability of a political meeting or a GAA match to fly the tricolour are long gone.