Ian Harte has been sparing in his interventions on the state of the football nation since he hung up his boots a few years ago.
But when he does speak, it tends to attract attention. Speaking a few weeks ago, he bluntly said that Northern Ireland have taken over from the Republic and are a more exciting team to watch.
Warming to his theme, he claimed Michael O’Neill’s team were benefiting due to Brexit, or rather the Republic’s team is suffering as our young kids must wait until they are 18 to join a club in the UK.
‘Northern Ireland football is kind of accelerating because their kids are able to move across to England at the age of 16 so they’re already in the system with strength and conditioning, diet and training when they step up to the Northern Irish team,’ said Harte.
Former Republic of Ireland defender Ian Harte says the North are the more exciting to watch
Harte is listed as a football scout on the website of SMI, which brands itself as a ‘leading global agency’, so he has some skin left in the game.
He is also pushing a Leeds United Legends event in the Ulster Hall, hence the recent interview with Steven Beacom of the Belfast Telegraph.
If you were to select a combined XI of both teams even before the latest rounds of Nations League, few would argue if it was dominated by Northern players.
In fact if you were to pick a combined Ireland XI, you could make the case that access to each other’s squads would solve key problems for each of Michael O’Neill and Heimir Hallgrimsson.
In golf matchplay parlance, they’d dovetail nicely.
Caoimhín Kelleher would make many international teams, though O’Neill’s quest for a reliable No.1 took a huge step forward with Man City’s Pierce Charles’ performance in Georgia last week which included a save from a Khvicha Kvaratskhelia penalty.
Ian Harte (far right) celebrates Robbie Keane’s goal against Saudi Arabia at 2002 World Cup
Trai Hume would walk into a defence which needs full-back options and his Sunderland teammate Dan Ballard would put it up to Dara O’Shea and Nathan Collins to convince the Icelandic manager they are both better options at centre-half.
The North’s two star men, Conor Bradley and Shea Charles, whose £30m move to Fulham makes him Ireland’s most expensive player north or south, would both walk into the Republic midfield, with Bradley offering another option at full-back if necessary.
Isaac Price, who has that vital knack of scoring goals for club and country, and Stoke City pair Ethan Galbraith and Justin Devenny would all make cases to Hallgrimsson their Republic counterparts would not to O’Neill.
The North’s Shea Charles (right) celebrates beating Georgia in Tbilisi with his brother, Pierce
Which brings us to strikers.
Here’s the forwards at Michael O’Neill’s disposal for this international window, a mixture of the scarcely-raced and the well-travelled: Josh Magennis, Dion Charles, Callum Marshall, Jamie Donley, Braiden Graham and Céadach O’Neill.
The Republic’s batch of strikers has the same mix of up-and-coming, desperate-for-a-consistent-run ingredients with the added bonus of Real Betis’s Troy Parrott, the one striker in either squad who has delivered over a period of time at the highest level.
Historically, Northern Ireland have struggled even more than the Republic for a consistent goalscorer, with the notable exception of David Healy.
When Harte was in his prime and as the Republic were beginning their build-up for the 2002 World Cup with a win over Russia, Steve Lomas scored in Northern Ireland’s 4-1 friendly defeat to Poland in Cyprus.
They would go another 1298 minutes before their next goal.
Ceadach O’Neill of Arsenal warms up before an UEFA U19 Youth League match against Napoli
Fittingly it was a Healy strike in another 4-1 defeat, this time by Norway in Lawrie Sanchez’s first game in charge, which ended a run of two years and five days without finding the target.
Like many of his predecessors, Michael O’Neill would bite your hand off for a Parrott — and can only look on in envy at the impact made by Adam Idah and Jack Moylan in the Republic’s win over Israel.
And it’s that need for a striker more than anything else which has made the call-up of Céadach O’Neill inevitable.
The Northern Ireland manager needs someone to start scoring goals consistently if his side is to take the next step after plenty of promising performances. And his young namesake is showing the potential to become just what he needs, top scoring in Arsenal’s academy last year.
It hardly matters now, but if Céadach O’Neill wins one more cap, he will never be able to follow his Arsenal clubmate Declan Rice and switch international allegiance.
Not that we have any evidence that such a switch to the Republic was ever really on the cards.
In 2026, being photographed playing gaelic football and ‘coming from a GAA family’ does not mean you are going to play for the Republic.
As an aside, Derry GAA even posted a congratulatory message on social media when O’Neill made his Northern Ireland debut back in June.
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill (left) and goalkeeper Pierce Charles speak to media
He has come through the JD Academy, which effectively hothouses the cream of the talent across Northern Ireland and creates bonds that are real, on and off the pitch.
Even if the Republic were not sniffing around the best talents in Northern Ireland, it’s a sensible initiative — and actually contradicts Harte’s point about any benefits of early access to Premier League clubs.
In fact, those coming through the Northern Academy are already exposed to strength and conditioning, diet and training before they ever go across the water. It’s a resource the Republic lacks.
So if the infrastructure is better, you’re well looked after, you can continue to play with your mates, and you are likely to be capped earlier and more often, why exactly would you turn Northern Ireland down and throw your lot in with the Republic?
Identity? Maybe identity doesn’t matter as much to a generation who mix freely with kids of all backgrounds And maybe we in the South need to realise that.
David Healy, one of the great Northern Ireland strikers, scores against England in 2005
Unless these kids go public, we have no idea who they are which can lead to baseless assumptions.
Michael O’Neill provoked a lot of ire with his use of the word ‘bloodline’ in an interview — but really, if one major news outlet down here can repeatedly report that Céadach O’Neill was out of the current NI squad due to injury yet was fit enough to come as substitute in Tbilisi last week, you can’t really hold his annoyance about southern ignorance of the issue against him.
Yet another O’Neill from a ‘GAA family’, Martin, has spoken about being ‘made to feel like an outsider’ when he was Republic manager.
‘I was called the Ulsterman, just recently I heard an Irish commentator saying we have had outsiders as managers, we had Trapattoni and we had O’Neill,’ he said.
And he wouldn’t be the first northerner to be shocked by the attitude of his fellow Irishmen in the south.
Ceadach O’Neill and Jaden Dixon of Arsenal enjoying themselves during Academy training
It’s the FAI’s job to find the best players it can to play for the Republic.
They can’t afford to look gift horses in the mouth, something Martin O’Neill was fully in favour of when he was in charge of the Republic.
But scouring GAA match reports for potential recruits was never very effective in the past and is a short cut to absolutely nowhere.
Football-wise, Windsor Park is not the intimidating venue it was back in 1993. It’s actually the size of stadium that Dublin is crying out for.
There’s red, white and blue flags on surrounding streets, but as you leave and walk up to the Lisburn Road you are more likely to bump into a migrant who has settled there rather than anyone looking for trouble.
If you go out the other side you can pop into Lidl or Marks and Spencer.
And chances are you’ll bump into a GAA or a Northern Ireland jersey while you do your shopping. Northern Ireland is far from perfect, and sectarianism is still too great a blight. Far too great.
But identifying as Irish is not limited to those who identify with the Republic.
Being Northern Irish is being Irish too, and surely it’s better that the Northern Ireland football team represents all its people rather than only those who used to form the majority.
