When sport is about more than escapism
AFTER a winter in which the GAA debated how to grow the game of hurling, along comes a DUP minister for an unexpected photo-op.
The whole of Wednesday felt like a surreal Ulster edition of Scór, the association’s competition that aims to promote Ireland’s traditional pastimes and culture. And so there was the arresting sight of Northern Ireland’s deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly holding a hurley and pucking a ball at the St Paul’s club in Belfast. Alongside her was the First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill.
St Paul’s was picked for a reason — it’s the home club of junior minister Aisling Reilly, who also provided the pair with a handball tutorial as they gave that arm of the GAA family a go as well.
Earlier, DUP education minister Paul Givan spoke some words of Irish during a visit to an Irish language medium primary school. He even embraced a bit of céilí dancing for good measure.
‘We are into leadership and that means you lead from the front and that means you also step outside your own comfort zone, what you know well,’ declared Little-Pengelly. ‘We are tasked with leadership together and we are determined to do that. Some might want to call that gesture politics, but by and large I think people find it as a positive and welcome development.’
Her follow-up spoke to a shared future which caught the mood of optimism right now after the restoration of the Stormont Assembly.
‘There is absolutely nothing about learning about the passions, interests, sport or identity of this wonderful place we call home that threatens in any way my own person or who I am!’
Here was sport being placed firmly at the heart of the news cycle.
Of course, it didn’t take long for critics to paint it all as a cheap political stunt aimed at gaining likes — loyalist activist Jamie Bryson criticised the DUP for having ‘betrayed and abandoned their base, shamelessly at this nonsense day in day out’.
Certainly, the proof of any shared vision will boil down to long-term actions. The same visit saw questions raised about the funding of Casement Park and whether the stadium will be redeveloped in time to act as a host venue for Euro 2028.
While O’Neill pledged that it would be ready, her deputy insisted that any funding for the GAA stadium must be provided on a ‘fair and equitable basis’.
Since the Stormont powersharing executive was restored last month, its leaders have taken part in a number of politically symbolic engagements. O’Neill made a point of visiting a women’s centre on the Shankill Road and also attended her first Northern Ireland football match at Windsor Park.
That rhymes with the actions of newly installed GAA president Jarlath Burns who also turned up at Windsor Park.
Recent weeks have seen the news cycle rinsed with sport and politics.
Burns was also at the inquest hearing this week for Seán Brown, the Bellaghy chairman and father-of-six who was attacked and abducted by an LVF gang as he locked the club gates back in 1997 — and subsequently murdered. Outgoing GAA president Larry McCarthy delivered his own stinging assessment of the fight for justice in his last speech at Congress two weekends ago.
On Wednesday evening, the reigning All-Ireland senior club football champions — Derry’s Watty Grahams Glen — felt compelled to release a statement on behalf of their team and management. Not on the usual club business but on the slaughter of innocents thousands of miles away. It referenced the thousands of children already killed in Gaza and how ‘continued silence is beginning to feel like compliance’, ending with calls for an immediate ceasefire.
At Celtic Park last Saturday evening, as the Derry county team hosted All-Ireland champions Dublin, the large swathe of Palestinian flags being waved by supporters in the ground was noticeable for a match that was going out live on RTÉ.
One of the enduring attractions of sport is that it offers a form of escapism. But sometimes it also serves to remind of how the world works.
Golf’s latest Netflix offering dropped on Wednesday. Lo and behold, the opening episodes of the second series of Full Swing revolved around the fractured relations between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-backed rival LIV tour, the latter prompting a massive upheaval and sparking all sorts of awkward conversations about sportswashing and the political motivations behind the billion dollar heist of the game’s traditions and history.
Watching Jon Rahm express his shock at the ‘betrayal’ seems quaint now with last year’s footage quickly overtaken by a shock merger, plus Rahm’s subsequent defection. In the opening episodes, there was as much talk of the politics of the sport as the game itself.
And then there was the other news of another documentary that is to appear on Netflix. That charming riches-to-riches story that is Manchester City’s ‘Treble’ achievement under Abu Dhabi ownership.
The online replies to the news were gloriously loaded, the 115 Financial Fair Play charges facing the club a running theme.
As City strolled through another Champions League outing, the conversations continue to swirl as to whether the once proud competition has lost its lustre, being reduced in part to a petro-state power play.
There is little romance to this title-winning tale.
So many elements of the news agenda have sport stitched into them.
THIS week too saw the news that Bohemian FC will host the Palestinian women’s national team at Dalymount Park on May 15 to mark the 76th anniversary of Nakba, the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A gesture of international solidarity from a club that regularly exhibits a social and political conscience.
‘The funds raised through the match will be used to facilitate the visit of the Palestinian football team as well as provide funds for humanitarian relief efforts in Palestine,’ revealed chief operating officer Daniel Lambert.
The following day, a letter was signed by 67 TDs and Senators calling on FIFA and UEFA to ban Israel’s clubs and national teams from European and international tournaments ‘until this genocide ends’, in light of ‘the continuing human rights violations in Palestine… The murdering of civilians, the blockade of humanitarian aid and the destruction of infrastructure — which also affects players, referees, public servants and sport facilities — cannot be ignored.
‘Both FIFA and UEFA claim to promote the values of equality, respect and human rights through football. All of these are undoubtedly being violated in Palestine today. Football cannot contribute to the legitimation of the occupation and extermination of the Palestinian people.
‘Sport cannot serve as a display for those who violate the most essential rights of an entire population.’
A week then when sport raised all sorts of political questions, around a shared future on this island and so much more.
Sometimes, sport is about a lot more than escapism.