They were probably booing the ideal of nationalism, embodied in the national anthem. It was clearly a call to bring down the barriers dividing humanity into nation states. What better place to do do this? They obviously saw the boxers as pawns in a cruel game trapped in a ring, forced to battle each other, but for what? They identified with their struggle, and triumphantly denounced the spectacle, and showed it for what it really was, an absurd and futile facade.
cos NI got pwned by the english.
Don't get excited. N. Ireland get pwned by everybody.
That's because we can't even decide what our national anthem is.
At N .Ireland matches, half the crowd stands for God Save The Queen and the other half boos.
If N. Ireland is supposed to be a country in it's own right, why does it have to be the English national anthem? The rest of the UK has their own song.
A lot of people have been suggesting that it should be Danny Boy/Londonderry Air.