(Bloomberg) -- Fionnuala Murphy was only three when British soldiers took over Casement Park, the Gaelic games stadium where her uncle worked and was forced to hand over the keys as sectarian violence rocked Northern Ireland in 1972.
Now it stands overgrown and derelict in west Belfast. A rebuild has long been promised, and the most recent proposal is to use a new Casement in the 2028 Euros — one of the world’s biggest soccer tournaments co-hosted by Ireland and the UK — before it reverts to being a home for Irish sports like hurling and Gaelic football.
But over 25 years since the Troubles, the violence between mostly Catholic nationalist groups identifying as Irish and typically Protestant unionists loyal to London, the Casement project is caught up in old divisions.
Murphy and others are adamant it should be rebuilt and the nationalist community can stomach soccer — still seen as largely a unionist sport — being played on their hallowed turf. But just over two miles away in Windsor Park, soccer’s home in Northern Ireland, some fans object to what they see as Irish sports getting a more prestigious stadium, even if it brought the Euros with it.
It’s an early headache for the UK’s new Labour government, with the five Euros matches due to be played at what’s meant to be a 30,000-seat stadium looming over a decision that’s complicated by cost. Anything close to the £300 million ($396 million) estimate under the last government would make for some tricky politics as Parliament returns and Labour grapples with stretched public finances ahead of its first budget in October.
During his first visit after July’s election, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said the stadium will be built “one way or another” but that questions over funding and whether it could happen in time for the Euros needed to be resolved. He called it “probably the most urgent issue” on his desk. Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed that view when asked about Casement in Belfast this week, a visit that came after anti-immigration riots that broke out there and in other UK cities over the summer. “The decision is a political decision,” he told reporters. “In due course we’ll be able to say more.”
Built in a Catholic area of Belfast in 1953, the history of Casement offers a primer for Northern Ireland politics. It has long been associated with Irish republicanism (especially among British unionists) and not only because Gaelic sports were played there. It was named for Roger Casement, who was executed by the British for his role in the Irish independence movement in 1916.
During the Troubles, which left over 3,000 people dead, Casement Park was a focus for the nationalist community and the social club was even used for Irish language lessons. Murphy recalls “spectacular” Halloween fireworks that were otherwise banned due to the risk they would be mistaken for bombs or gunfire.
Its occupation by British soldiers lasted just over a year as part of “Operation Motorman,” a move to retake areas of Belfast controlled by Irish republican paramilitaries. In 1988, two captured British soldiers were taken there and shot nearby in what became known as the “corporals killings.”
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended the violence with a new power-sharing arrangement between nationalists and unionists at the devolved Stormont Assembly. Against that political backdrop, Casement got a face-lift and it began to host regional Gaelic football finals again.
But a further redevelopment project, as part of a wider overhaul of soccer, rugby and Gaelic sports venues to reflect different community support — floundered over mixture of funding shortages, safety concerns and local opposition. The last match at Casement took place in 2013.
“We need a place to call home,” Murphy, who referees women’s Gaelic football in her spare time, said in a cafe near Casement, an area suffering from lack of stadium business. “If it’s going to be built for soccer and other sports then bring it on,” she said, adding: “Casement Park had to fight for everything.”
A major reason Casement is still controversial is that only rugby and soccer — both with strong unionist followings — ultimately got their stadiums redeveloped just over a decade ago. It’s become an equality issue, according to Niall Murphy (no relation to Fionnuala), a human rights lawyer who represents relatives of people who died in the Troubles and is also prominent in the push for a referendum on a united Ireland. He pointed out that equal civic investment in Irish sports is an important part of the peace process.
For Northern Ireland Secretary Benn and Labour, the timing is sensitive. The region’s devolved assembly was only restored in February after a two-year boycott by the Democratic Unionist Party. The appointment of Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill as first minister, the first time an Irish nationalist has held the position, and several elections have suggested that support for the DUP — the main unionist party — is slipping, raising sensitive questions about unionism more broadly.
That has brought talk of a referendum — known as a Border Poll — on a united Ireland more to the fore than it has been for years. Sinn Fein’s gains have coincided with fewer Northern Irish people identifying only as British. That is a trend that worries unionists, but it also risks undermining political stability as it also fans support for more hardline loyalist groups.
“If Labour doesn’t show that the union can work for everyone and bring more fairness and equality, then maybe the last chance is gone,” said Graham Walker, a professor of politics at Queen’s University Belfast.
By definition, UK policy is to defend the union, even if the government is also committed to being an honest broker. Under rules Tony Blair’s Labour government helped craft in the 1990s peace process, only Benn or his successor can sanction a poll — and only if it’s clear the nationalist vote would win.
To be sure, few in Northern Ireland would put the Casement question first when it comes to political stability and keeping the assembly running. The latest DUP boycott (Sinn Fein has also blocked power-sharing in the past) left the devolved government playing catchup in areas like healthcare, while legacy issues from the Troubles and even navigating budget pressure in areas like policing heap pressure on Starmer’s UK administration.
“Labour seems determined not to put the cart — a polarizing poll — before the horse: a society more at ease with its differences,” said Henry Patterson, a politics professor at Ulster University.
Yet Northern Irish politicians understand the sport’s wider political context. Soon after O’Neill’s appointment, she went with the DUP’s deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly to a soccer match at Windsor Park. “I believe in the power of sport to unite communities and bring people together from across the political divide, north-south and across these two islands,” O’Neill said at the time.
Windsor Park crowds often voice some of the loudest opposition to the Casement rebuild. But prominent unionist politicians are also highly critical. Rebuilding the stadium would be an “indefensible use of public money” that could be used to fund the NHS, boost social housing and improve schools in Northern Ireland, DUP MP Sammy Wilson told Benn in the House of Commons last month.
In response, Benn reiterated he is looking at issues of funding and timing. “The government has inherited a commitment to hosting the Euros at Casement Park,” he told Wilson. “The cost has gone through the roof and we don’t know — even if you had the money — whether you could build it in time.”
Part of the issue for unionists is that £300 million for Casement would dwarf the reported £48 million it cost to refurbish Windsor Park and Ravenhill rugby stadium about a decade ago. The counter argument for Gaelic sports fans is that reforming Casement could have been cheaper had it gone ahead then.
More broadly, though, there is optimism in Northern Ireland that Labour and Benn offer more stability, after the Conservatives cycled through five secretaries of state in six years. The period included negotiations with the European Union over Brexit, which upended the region’s trading status and exacerbated unionist-nationalist tensions and triggered the DUP boycott.
Benn himself is considered better briefed than many who have taken his role. His father, Tony Benn, was a cabinet minister in the Labour government that originally sent British troops into Northern Ireland in 1969, though he is better known for his later support for a united Ireland.
“He’s clearly intelligent, has curiosity, having done his homework. It’s all very positive,” Little-Pengelly said in an interview in her office days before the UK election. Benn is “someone we can work with,” she said.
The feeling that Labour represents a fresh start extends to Dublin. Relations were strained under the Conservatives, whereas Starmer — who honeymooned in the Irish border county of Donegal and often references his work on Northern Ireland police reforms in his earlier legal career — has said he wants to improve UK ties with the European Union and Ireland that were scarred by Brexit.
Still, Starmer “is going to have a long agenda,” former Irish premier Bertie Ahern, who was a key arbitrator of the Good Friday Agreement with Blair, told Bloomberg in Dublin ahead of the UK election. “I hope Northern Ireland is not too far down that list and that we will be able to get into a period where we can move ahead.”
Time will tell if that optimism impacts deliberations on Casement. The Irish government also wants the rebuild to go ahead and committed €50 million to the project in February. The Gaelic Athletic Association has also said it would chip in, while the Northern Ireland administration committed £62.5 million back in 2011, reports from the time said.
But it is ultimately in the hands of Benn and the UK government.
“You’re hopeful at some stage that governments will get their act together, get the money raised,” said Conor McCann, a senior Antrim hurler who is one of the only players of his generation who experienced a Casement crowd. “Just getting the stadium back, that iconic venue playable again is all we want really.”
--With assistance from Jennifer Duggan.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
