It is an interesting reflection on Stormont’s priorities that Casement Park is more important than education, poverty, infrastructure or the shipyard. The Programme for Government (PfG) promises “progress” on Casement’s redevelopment, but ignores the other four issues.
Sinn Féin even raised a Matter of the Day motion in the Assembly, criticising the British government’s failure to provide an unknown amount of money for Casement. There have been no similar motions condemning the need for food banks in west Belfast.
However, by failing to fund a stadium in time for a professional soccer tournament, Britain has once again been portrayed as inflicting eternal injustice on the Irish nation. First the Famine, now Casement Park.
The real problem in this case was that the GAA allowed itself to be caught up in a game of politics, a sport in which there are no rules. In the end it lost the match, because Casement Park became a political football.
The GAA’s mistake was not to build a 15,000-20,000 capacity stadium for Antrim GAA in 2011. That would have been similar in size to GAA stadiums in Newry, Armagh and Omagh. Even allowing for Davy Fitz’s appointment as Antrim hurling manager, most Antrim football and hurling matches are unlikely to attract more than 10,000 spectators.
Instead the GAA opted for a vanity project: a 38,000-capacity Ulster GAA stadium, similar to Cork’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh, which left the Cork County Board with a €30 million debt. Probably only one match a year (and not every year) would require that capacity in Ulster. Like Croke Park for six months of the year, Casement would have become a concert venue for almost the entire year.
Even building a 25,000-capacity stadium for Ulster GAA would have been a feasible project. However, when local residents reasonably objected to the stadium’s proposed size, the GAA was reluctant to relent. It is not clear if it sought, or was offered, political support from Sinn Féin and the Dublin government, but from then onwards Casement Park became a political crusade.
In the Assembly on Monday, Sinn Féin said: “We will not be denied.” They did not say “the GAA will not be denied”. They said “we”. Casement has become a Sinn Féin project.
Despite that claim, two SF ministers failed to raise Casement’s funding at a meeting with the British Chancellor last week. The following day Britain abandoned the project. Political posturing does not always reflect private dealings.
Sinn Féin did something similar with the Irish language. It campaigned for an Irish language act, even making it a condition for re-entering Stormont after its three-year collapse of the institutions.
Despite that, Conradh na Gaeilge this week described as “scandalous and disgraceful” the Executive’s recent draft PfG, which made no mention of a language strategy, or the appointment of an Irish language commissioner.
As de Valera recognised, the politicisation of Irish culture not only wins votes, it distracts from other government policies. Taoiseach Simon Harris claimed this week that we need Casement. In the current Dáil term he will seek to remove the current rules protecting Irish neutrality.
It is not clear who thought of building Casement Park for a soccer tournament. However, locating a Gaelic stadium in Sinn Féin’s back yard for soccer was certainly political in intent.
Amateur soccer is a fine sport. Professional soccer is not a sport, it is a business, operated in England, for example, by capitalist enterprises from Saudi Arabia to Thailand. That is the opposite of the amateur ethos of the GAA and hardly a reason for building a GAA stadium.
The British played politics with Casement better than most. Hilary Benn’s withdrawal of promised funding for Casement was criticised for coming late on a Friday. However, the real significance of his timing was that two days previously he announced a public inquiry into Pat Finucane’s murder.
That allowed him to pave the way for bad news on Casement and to use that bad news to bury more immoral news: his government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into the murder of GAA stalwart Sean Brown. If the British had found enough money for Casement, the Finucane family might not have got their public inquiry.
So the GAA has been led up the garden path by politicians, both British and Irish. It is a noble organisation which many would reasonably suggest deserved better.
However, by straying into politics you do not get what you deserve. You get what politicians deserve and that is why Casement Park remains a derelict site.