He played for two different all-Ireland teams, organised by two separate associations.

Irish international football was a complicated beast in that era, with the Dublin-based Football Association of Ireland, and the Belfast-based Irish Football Association both fielding teams called “Ireland,” and selecting players from the whole island.

The IFA team played in “St Patrick’s Blue” shirts until 1931, when they changed to green because they clashed with Scotland.

At least 38 players of the era appeared for both teams.

FIFA intervened when both associations entered the qualifiers for the 1950 World Cup (the Home Nations were not affiliated to FIFA until 1946), eventually passing a ruling in 1953 that the FAI team be called “Republic of Ireland,” and the IFA team “Northern Ireland.”

It also ruled then that each team could only select players who were citizens of their political jurisdictions, although the IFA team were still allowed to call themselves “Ireland” in the Home International tournament and select players from the Republic for that tournament IF the FAI agreed.

So Alex Stevenson did not play for the Republic of Ireland. He played representative matches for two different associations, each calling their team, “Ireland.”

I’ve had a Setanta subscription for a couple of years now, and have really gotten into gaelic football in particular. However when I tried to find out about fixtures in Scotland I was able to download a helpful document (from the GAA Britain website) which describes the 2008 league and championship fixtures as “blah blah blah”.

So I guess spurious claims of promotional links to Rangers FC do work, I had no idea there was a team called Glaschu Geals. Heres hoping I can actually find out something about them.