The team is currently in Portugal getting ready for the upcoming Autumn Nations Series.
The Irish rugby squad were given an “inspirational” speech by Nando Parrado, one of the Uruguayan rugby players who survived the 1972 Andes plane crash.
Parrado and his Old Christians Rugby Club teammates were on their way to Chile for a rugby tour when a storm took their plane down somewhere over the Andes mountain range.
Twenty-nine of 45 people on board, including Parrado’s mother and sister, died in or after the accident.
In order to stay alive the survivors had to eat the flesh of the deceased.
The harrowing story was depicted in the 1993 film Alive, starring Ethan Hawke, and again last year in the Netflix film Society of the Snow.
Parrado and Roberto Canessa made their way down from the mountain over two months after the crash to raise the alarm, leading to the rescue of the 14 remaining survivors on the mountain.
The incredible survivor is now a motivational speaker, businessman and author.
Andy Farrell’s panel are in Portugal getting ready for the four autumn internationals starting with Friday night week’s clash with New Zealand at Aviva Stadium.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, defence coach Simon Easterby said: “He came and spoke to the group when we arrived in camp.
“Just an inspirational figure in terms of what he and his team-mates went through,” he added. “Terrible conditions. I didn’t realise.
“He was obviously one of 17 players on that flight but he also had his mother and his sister on the flight and he lost them in the accident.”
“He spent two-and-a-half months trying to figure out a way of staying alive. It was really inspirational. Some of it you could relate to because of his rugby background.
“The team that he played with has a shamrock on the jersey and he obviously has a known affiliation too as he had been taught growing up by the Christian Brothers.”
He continued:”So there was familiarity and similarities. A real inspiration and interesting to hear from someone who had come through that and come out the other side to live a very full life.”
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Ireland face the All Blacks for the first time since losing the World Cup quarter-final last year and Easterby, who will take over as interim head coach when Andy Farrell departs for Lions duty after November, is hopeful that the team can start life without Farrell on a strong foot in Dublin.
“It’s our first game for a good while so there’s lots of sub-plots but essentially we’re playing against New Zealand at the Aviva on a Friday night,” he said. “We want to make sure we hit the ground running and the history behind that will probably be something you guys [the media] talk about a little bit more.”
