BREXIT WOUNDS
Saffrons ace Mcmanus fears over hard border
ANTRIM’S Neil Mcmanus says he fears the impact of a hard Brexit on both his hurling and professional careers.
With a solution that would allow Britain to leave the EU in an orderly fashion ahead of the March 29 withdrawal date continuing to prove elusive, the potential repercussions on both sides of the border are worrying for the
Cushendall man.
“It’s the only thing we hear about in the north anyway,” said Mcmanus.
“If the outcome of Brexit means a hard border then it’s a huge problem.
“I’m in Dublin a couple of times a week. All the lads who are finished playing will tell you, they remember crossing the border, bus stopped, off you get, through your kit bag, soldiers taking your hurls, throwing them away and all this carry on.
“We don’t want to beinvolved in that, that’s for sure.”
Political stalemate in the north is not favouring Antrim GAA either with the delay on the Casement Park redevelopment ongoing, partly due to Stormont being in shutdown.
“For the first five years of my working life, every Friday I finished work and I went to Casement, hit frees and then bounced into the Andersonstown Leisure Centre for a bit.
“There’s a group of Antrim hurlers who are there now and their generation is going through their Antrim career without any affinity to West Belfast.
“They haven’t got any gra for it. West Belfast is a class wee place, Andersonstown, and it’s turning into a Gaeltacht quarter as well now and they have no interaction because they’re never there.
“From the hurling point of view, we play some matches in Cushendall, which is lovely for me and my club.
“We play some in Ballycastle, we play some in St John’s, Corrigan
Park in Belfast. We’re as familiar to the ground we’re going to play in as the travelling team.
“It’s a home game and you don’t even have an advantage at the minute.”