Casement back on track

THERE’S something eerie about images of the place, recalling as it does so many images from any number of post-apocalyptic movies. Something out of the Danny Boyle oeuvre, perhaps. 28 Weeks Later that sort of thing. The concrete crumbling, the pitch over grown, nature seeking to reclaim for itself what man has built. It creeps us out because it reminds us of our own impermanence. The Earth was here before us, it’ll be here after we’ve long gone. We can tame nature, but not conquer it.

More than anything though those images of Casement Park remind us of opportunity lost, of time wasted, of a city that should be a heartland of Gaelic games left without a focal point for them and as much as we sometimes lament the focus on bricks and mortar in the GAA in this instance the money would be well spent.

Belfast needs to have a proper venue for Gaelic games, it’s the second biggest city on the island and at the moment there’s nowhere for the Antrim teams to play any games of significance. Kids in Belfast need a venue they can aspire to playing Gaelic games in, the way they can for Windsor Park and Ravenhill. As much as anything it probably comes down to something as elemental as a parity of esteem. Gaelic games needs what its rival sporting bodies have. Of course, there are reasons why Casement hasn’t been redeveloped up to now – failed planning applications, but mostly it’s because of a failure of politics.

With the Assembly and the Stormont government in abeyance for the last three years there’s been nobody with the political authority to make a decision on Casement. Until now. And all it took was for the DUP and Sinn Féin to both realise that their intransigence was doing them no favours whatsoever. Shedding votes and seats in the Westminster election focussed minds with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Julian Smith threatening fresh elections unless a deal was reached for a return to power-sharing.

It’s amazing what the power of self-preservation can motivate politicians to do. Now that the executive has been restored there’s a fresh commitment to the Casement redevelopment and with a Sinn Féin Minister for Finance in place there’s a half decent chance this time it’ll get done. The GAA in Belfast can’t wait any longer.