WE ALL PARTIED.
We spent our summers in St Tropez. We clinked glasses in the exclusive tents at the Galway Races. We became experts on the slopes during our Februarys.
We rammed our cellars with the finest of drops. We helicoptered to the local Centra for our messages. We continental-breakfasted in all the chic eastern European playgrounds.
And we drew up plans for a 34,000 all-seater stadium in Belfast.
On Friday, the British government delivered the news that few had been truly expecting.
There would be no money for Casement Park in time for the 2028 Euros. It had all been nice positive remarks and reassurances from the Labour party right up to then. Looks like that Donegal jersey Simon Harris presented Keir Starmer with wasn’t quite the masterstroke after all.
There’s many questions left to be answered, but there is a sense of sheer wonder about how so many were putting faith in the British government on a week in which they denied the family of Sean Brown a public inquest into the murder of their husband and father, carried out by those under their protection?
There will be a new ground built in west Belfast. Eventually. For now, the news that arrived on Friday was just the latest hitching post in a squalid culture war.
The enshrining of the Good Friday Agreement means that anyone who wishes can entirely ignore the partition of Ireland in 1921 to produce a statelet called ‘Northern Ireland’.
Instead, they can identify as Irish and travel on their Irish passport. There is nothing subversive about this.
There are others that feel very differently. For them, they are inclined to describe themselves as ‘Northern Irish’. The recognition of a six-county state is important to them. Those that refer to the ‘north of Ireland’ get up their nose.
The beliefs of this section of the population are given a prominence that is out of kilter with voting patterns now.
However, the unionist viewpoint is one that dominates Northern Ireland broadcasting and the majority of print media. Whenever the GAA and Casement Park are discussed, local broadcasters will typically pitch a journalist who writes on GAA matters against, say, a member of the Traditional Unionist Voice party.
The starting position for such debates, will be that the GAA have something to be apologise for. Those clubs that bear the name of Republicans and United Irishmen will be flung onto the bonfire of rational discussion.
Oftentimes, the show goes down the dead-end of ‘Yah-Boo’ stuff with people just shouting at each other. It would be naïve to think that some broadcasters aren’t aiming for exactly this. Sowing division has long been the bizarre aim of many.
Unfortunately, it works.
But for those who identify with Northern Ireland, they have soccer as an almost exclusive method of self-expression. They have the Irish League, and they have the Northern Ireland soccer team.
The possibility of the Euros in 2028 coming to this part of the world would have been something wildly cheered on. Call us naïve, but hosting a game in a major soccer tournament would surely have been a sign that Northern Ireland soccer was taking its place among the nations of the world.
Instead, it was met with opposition.
David Healy, the record goalscorer and darling of the Northern Ireland fans, was unequivocal in his opposition last winter, referring to the level of Government financial support.
“£160m in this day and age? Everybody’s talking about the cost of living crisis, the daily challenges and everything else, so when you weigh it up, with the health system the way it is at the minute, the education system the way it is at the minute, is it fair?” he asked.
TUV deputy leader Ron McDowell in February published this on their website: “It is beyond unreasonable for the new GAA president to double down and insist that his organisation will not be contributing anything more to cover the cost of Casement Park.
“The original breakdown for the project would have seen the GAA pay 20% of the costs. Now the estimated cost has ballooned but the GAA contribution has remained static.
“It is important to remember that this is not an organisation which is short of a bob or two. Last year the GAA brought in €112 million. In 2022 it got €7.6 million from the Gareth Brooks concerts at Croke Park.
“Frankly, the GAA is far too greedy and is taking hard pressed tax payers for a ride.
“They must up their contribution to the project and further government funding must be conditional on tax payers being able to claw back some of their generous contribution to the project via the profits of non-GAA events at Casement.”
Now, I might have expected a TUV man to get the spelling of Garth Brooks right, given the devotion in the north Antrim heartlands for that brand of Country and Wobbly music, but that aside, he makes a point.
It is not anti-GAA, to question the validity of the Casement Park project.
There are many uncomfortable truths for some involved with this project to come to terms with. One that the Ulster Council have kept well under wraps is the sheer apathy that representatives of some other Ulster counties have towards it.
At various meetings over the last two years, the size and scale of the Casement Park development has been raised.
Those doing so were hardly anti-GAA.
GAA volunteers in Ulster have been responsible for some of the most impressive feats of fundraising and inventive means of construction and utilising space for their own clubs.
Go around counties like Tyrone, Down and Derry and look at the facilities at all levels. In the smallest of towns most one-horse of villages, huge capital projects are built around the GAA clubs.
These places then become the hub of the community. Not only are there numerous teams training on the pitches and in the gyms, but there is music, song and dance, there are initiatives to provide company for the elderly, and they transform into venues for catering after funerals.
That is volunteerism at its most impressive.
Casement Park, a Celtic Tiger fever dream conceived by professionals, has the danger of being the exact opposite of that: under-used, or not used for the primary purpose of Gaelic Games and culture.
In the Event Management Plan for the Casement Park Redevelopment document, submitted to Belfast City Council in April 2018, there is a table outlining the forecasted usage each year.
There are events that will be attended by nobody, such as county training sessions, some that a small crowd may go to such as schools and club matches, and so on.
Then it states that the two Ulster senior semi finals are “two matches annual with attendance typically around 20,000″.
This year, Down and Armagh brought 12,116 to Clones for their semi-final. The same two met the year before at the same stage and draw a crowd of 22,520. Where did those 10,000 people go to?
Even the two biggest-supported counties, Donegal and Tyrone, couldn’t break the 15,000 mark.
The Ulster final would, naturally, be expected to fill the stadium. And then there was provision for, “up to a maximum 3 outdoor music events per year,” across June, July and August.
2018 is not that long ago but the reality of when those aspirations were drawn up is not the reality now. It was a business case based on concerts and events. But Dublin is only 90 minutes down the road now.
There has been much talk of business units being rented out and conferences hosted at Casement Park, but it’s just talk.
No doubt, Belfast needs a stadium. There will be some funding made available. But it does not need a mini Croke Park. And the GAA’s reluctance under successive leaderships to fully get behind the project means they dread another Pairc Uí Chaoimh.
In time, Casement Park will be rebuilt. What needs to happen at this point, though, is a proper examination of scale, size and sustainability.
Building a stadium to crowbar in a nothing group game in a Euros tournament sounds now like a crazy gamble. Ulster, along with Antrim, need to develop a fit for purpose stadium.
At volunteer level, the GAA have an exemplary record of developing facilities. Nothing good comes out of those seeking to leave a legacy.
