Second-class treatment for second city’s gaels

Against the Breeze
By Paddy Heaney

First Published 24/02/2009

DURING the International Rules tour in Melbourne last year, GAA President Nickey Brennan announced that Belfast was being lined up to host the first Test in this year’s series.

Brennan wanted the game to be staged in IRELAND’S SECOND CITY. Unfortunately, others in Croke Park, including the incoming president Christy Cooney, didn’t share Brennan’s enthusiasm for staging the game in Casement Park.

When the discussion returned to Ireland, the GAA’s management committee came up with an alternative plan. They asked the four provincial councils to make a case for a venue in their jurisdiction. At this juncture, Casement Park’s bid to host the first Test was dead in the water.

How can we make this claim? Very simply. That’s the way the GAA works.Can anyone recall the Connacht Council having to submit a proposal for Pearse Stadium when the first Test was staged there in 2006?

The bidding process was a classic GAA smokescreen: its sole purpose was to give the illusion that Casement Park was defeated in a fair, democratic process.

It’s all window-dressing of course. If there was a will by the GAA’s management committee for this game to be held in Ireland’s second city, then it would have been done and dusted with the minimum of fuss. The notion that each of the four provinces had an equal chance is a total farce. After Pearse Stadium was used in 2006, no stadium in Connacht stood a chance. The same applied to any venue in Leinster as Croke Park is used for the second test.

As it panned out, a bid for Casement Park was submitted by Antrim secretary Frankie Quinn. The Cavan County Board also put in a bid for Kingspan Breffni Park. Both submissions paled in comparison to the all-singing and all-dancing business plan that was submitted in favour of the Gaelic Grounds by the Limerick County Board.

Their bid for the Gaelic Grounds came with a letter of endorsement from the Munster Council and included letters of support from a range of third parties including media groups and commercial interests in Limerick. The Limerick County Board and the Munster Council should be congratulated on their success – but it must be noted that the access to the Gaelic Grounds is awful and the changing rooms are no better than in Casement Park. The irony in all of this is that Nickey Brennan, who campaigned to have the Test held in Belfast, received virtually no support from Ulster when he went head-to-head against Cooney in the race for the presidency in 2005.

Meanwhile, Cooney, who got huge support from Ulster due to his opposition to the opening of Croke Park, didn’t seem to remember those votes when it came to holding the International Rules game in Belfast. It’s a pity that Cooney and his colleagues in the GAA’s Management Committee failed to appreciate why this game should be staged in Ireland’s second city.

The dire state of Gaelic games in Belfast is probably the single biggest problem facing the GAA. Dublin is thriving compared to its northern counterpart. The contrast was illustrated at the start of the National League. With the help of Dublin’s enthusiastic fan base, a total of 79,161 fans were packed into Croke Park for the county’s opening game against Tyrone. The following day, a trickle of Antrim fans turned up to watch the Saffron footballers play Wicklow in Casement.

The vast scale of the malaise facing Belfast was rammed home to me a few weeks ago when I accepted an invitation from St Gemma’s High School in north Belfast to speak to some of their pupils, and others from their feeder primaries. Over the course of an enjoyable day, I spoke to four different groups of roughly 30 pupils. From approximately 120 children, about half-a-dozen were members of a GAA club (Ardoyne Kickhams).

In one group, not a single pupil had ever heard of Mickey Harte (some Irish News columnists are better known than others). Like other inner city areas, north Belfast is afflicted by high unemployment, low incomes, poor health, fractured social structures, low educational achievement, and poor housing.

But these problems can’t be used as an excuse for the virtual non-existence of the GAA. Ballymun isn’t exactly the French Riviera, but they have a first class GAA club. Furthermore, the problems experienced in inner city Belfast are the very reason why the GAA should be trying to gain a foothold in these areas.

A sporting and cultural organisation that promotes a sense of individual worth, and fosters pride in place is exactly what these communities need. Yet, let’s not kid ourselves – while the GAA is struggling in parts of west and north Belfast, it’s not exactly thriving in the south of the city. There are three primary schools within half-a-mile of the Ormeau Road and Gaelic football isn’t being coached in any of them.

Again, the comparison with Dublin demonstrates the chasm between the country’s two main urban centres. St Vincent’s from north Dublin won last year’s All-Ireland club championship, while Kilmacud Croke’s from the prosperous south of the city have qualified for this year’s final.

Dublin clubs have benefited from massive cash investment from the Leinster Council and Central Council. Belfast is playing catch-up, but the Ulster Council is in the final stages of completing a strategy designed to address the problems affecting the city.

Yet, just think how an International Rules test in west Belfast would have helped to generate some interest in the GAA. Free tickets could have been distributed to primary schools. Yes, it would only be a start, but it would serve as an introduction to Cumann Luthchleas Gael. But instead, the game goes to Limerick and Munster, the province of the incoming president, Christy Cooney.

Who knows? The schoolchildren among the 570,000 population of urban Belfast might watch it on television. Or then again, they mightn’t even know the game is taking place. Belfast.
As far as some in the GAA are concerned, IRELAND’S SECOND-CLASS CITY.

- Readers of Paddy’s column can enjoy a glossy 12-page Best of Against the Breeze booklet free in The Irish News tomorrow, Thursday and Friday.

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