as the marching season starts in Northern Ireland, Orangemen are in confrontation with their countrymen on the other side of the sectarian divide. But, for more than a century, Irish rugby has provided a platform for unity and conciliation. One team, one nation is the cry. Chief rugby writer DEREK DOUGLAS reports.

THE British Lions, who return victorious from South Africa to the promise of a reception at No. 10 Downing Street, have been living a lie. Lions they certainly are. British they decidedly are not - and never have been.

The British and Irish Lions does not trip off the tongue in quite the same manner as the accepted nom de guerre for the Northern Hemisphere tourists who sally forth every four years to do battle with the rugby giants of the former colonies of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

But Alexei Sayle-lookalike hooker Keith Wood and the tough-as-teak prop Paul Wallace - keystones of the Lions' pack - would not thank you for labelling them with a Brit tag. Wood, born in Limerick, and son-of-Cork Wallace were joined in the 1997 Lions' squad by Dubliner Eric Miller. The Irish quartet in South Africa was completed by Belfast-born Jeremy Davidson.

As an Ulsterman, Davidson is, of course, British. Yet he plays his international rugby for Ireland - the all-Ireland XV. And therein rests a lesson for the learning. A lesson for all those charged with the task of bringing peace to the blighted Emerald Isle.

Irish rugby, quietly and unobtrusively, has succeeded in bridging the sectarian and cross-border divide in a manner which has eluded virtually every other facet of Irish life.

Maybe when Tony Blair hosts his sporting reception at Downing Street this autumn he should take Messrs Wood, Miller, Davidson and Wallace to one side and entreat them to vouchsafe rugby's secret. Maybe there are lessons there for politicians and, less grandly, for other sports as well.

The all-Ireland dimension to rugby in the Emerald Isle survived partition in 1922. Irishmen good enough to represent their country had been selected without reference to creed or faith since the very first Ireland side took to the field at the Kennington Oval in London in 1875. That was how it was then, and how it has remained through the days of the Free State, Eire and Northern Ireland.

Ulsterman Willie John McBride, still the greatest Lion of them all with 17 Test appearances and who led the 1974 Invincibles in South Africa, was Irish to the core when he played 63 times for his country.

Willie John, from Ballymena, was no less ''Irish'' than that other great Irish Lion, Tony O'Reilly, a Dubliner who was to remark often that whenever the going got a bit sticky on the rugby field he would endeavour to set up a direct ''rescue line'' with the Vatican!

Edmund van Esbeck is the veteran and highly respected rugby correspondent of the Dublin-based Irish Times. After eight Lions' tours, and 30 years as the doyen of Irish rugby writers, he retires from active service this week. There is none better placed than him to shed some light on the great healing and congealing force that the game of rugby has exerted on Ireland.

He says: ''In the years before partition, there were the Irish Football Union in Dublin and the Northern Football union in Belfast. However, right from the start in 1895 the players who represented Ireland were chosen from men who played under the auspices of both Unions.

''Almost immediately there were moves to form one governing body for the whole of Ireland, and in 1879 the Irish Rugby Football Union was formed with its HQ in Dublin.

''Rugby has had an all-Ireland dimension right from the start, and it would not be overstating the case to say that rugby in Ireland has succeeded where generations of politicians from the north and south and Britain have failed.

''Rugby is the only game where you will have the hard-case Unionist, maybe from the Shankhill, coming down to Lansdowne Road and roaring on the team shoulder to shoulder with the most rabid Nationalist.''

Boxing, golf and cricket are other sports that have, sometimes, followed rugby's lead, but rugby remains the highest-profile example of what can be achieved when the spirit and the flesh are willing.

Van Esbeck adds: ''There have been moves to form one Ireland soccer union, but it is unlikely that it will ever come to anything. We have the Irish Football Association in the north and the Football Association of Ireland in the south.

''They used to pick an all-Ireland side, but that stopped 40 years ago and it would be well nigh impossible to bring the two governing bodies together now because of World Cups, European Cups and so on.''

The fact that the Lions are almost invariably referred to as the ''British'' Lions is something that rankles across the Irish Sea.

The fact that Irishmen - from north and south - are so often the forgotten men of Lions' tours is something that the Irish have learnt to live with.

They are, though, irked just a little when outsiders raise the sectarian issue.

''It annoys me when the likes of the BBC will say how many Catholics and Protestants there are in this Ireland side or that. It is not an issue for me or for rugby people in Ireland. It is much more of an issue with outsiders.

''So far as the Lions in South Africa were concerned, I know that Keith Wood is a catholic, but I only know that because I know his family. I would presume that Jerry Davidson is a Protestant, but I wouldn't know what religion, if any, Eric Miller or Paul Wallace have. It is simply not an issue.''

Jeremy Davidson, educated at Methodist College, Belfast, was one of the major successes of the South African crusade. The 23-year-old student, who is now a professional rugby player with London Irish, declares: ''Sectarianism just doesn't come into it with rugby in Ireland. It's unique. Rugby crosses all the divides. Ulster teams go down to Limerick week in and week out and never experience any trouble whatsoever and Limerick would be one of the strongest Republican areas in Ireland.

''Some of my best friends are rugby players from the south. We always joke about sectarianism, but that's as far as it goes. There are no problems whatsoever.''

Without the unifying influence of rugby, it is unlikely that Davidson, the middle-class lad from Belfast, would have had the opportunity to rub shoulders with his countrymen from the south.

He says: ''There are an awful lot of people in the north who wouldn't go near those areas that we play rugby in. You are really going into the depths of republican areas. You go to clubs like Young Munster, Shannon, which are in real republican areas. Young Munster are in the middle of a staunch housing estate - a real working-class club. They treat you like shit when you play against them, but afterwards in the clubhouse you are treated like a lord.''

One team, one nation was the slogan that united South Africans - black and white - when the Springboks won the world crown two years ago. Since then, racial integration in the sport has slowed seemingly almost to a standstill.

Rugby, which shamed its name for so long by only reluctantly breaking links with South Africa when the detestable apartheid regime was at its height, can act as a unifying force.

One team, one nation in South Africa may yet turn out to have been nothing more than a catchy line from the pen of a glib marketing man.

In Ireland it is the simple and satisfying truth.

'Rugby has had an all-Ireland dimension right from the start, and it would not be overstating the case to say that rugby in Ireland has succeeded where generations of politicians from the north and south and Britain have failed.

'The fact that Irishmen - from north and south - are so often the forgotten men of Lions' tours is something that the Irish have learnt to live with. They are, though, irked just a little when outsiders raise the sectarian issue