By Peter Makem
Over twelve years ago a decision was made at Stormont to develop three new stadia for soccer, rugby and the GAA. It was revolutionary and a symbol of reaching out to the three major sports. Regarding soccer, it meant the radical development of Windsor Park in the heart of Belfast; for rugby, the radical development of Ravenhill; and for the GAA the creation of a totally new stadium in the Andersonstown area of West Belfast.
The first two were completed in normal time and to ultimate satisfaction. But Casement Park— named after Irish patriot Roger Casement who was hanged by the British in 1916 — was different. The stadium, created in 1953 had once been a heart and soul of Ulster football and scene of many historic Ulster finals with a capacity of 40,000. But the last Ulster final held there was in 1971 and the Troubles saw all Ulster Finals after that go to Clones in Co. Monaghan.
Gradually Casement fell into ruin and the only remedy was a totally new stadium to be funded jointly by Stormont and the GAA. The projected cost was £77 million.
But deadlock quickly arrived. It has now been 11 years since the GAA first announced it wanted to build a major new stadium, but following a legal challenge largely influenced by locals who felt the massive new arena would affect their privacy and daylight etc., revised plans were submitted in 2017 with a reduced spectator capacity of around 34,000. Others strongly felt that the traditional site of Casement was unsuitable for a new stadium and perhaps it should be moved out to the Maze area toward Lisburn.
All that time later there is still no agreement how to plug a £33 million funding gap plaguing the project. Discussions are “ongoing” between ministers and the GAA to agree the proportions each will pay in a revised budget, and a new business case has not yet been signed off.
The original budget £77m budget with Stormont pledging around £62m and the GAA providing £15m. But last year it emerged that the projected cost of the new stadium has risen to £110m.
GAA chiefs want more public money to plug the shortfall, with one senior official saying they are “not looking to increase” their original financial commitment. The Department for Communities (DfC) which is in charge of new developments have stated that as partners in the Casement Park stadium delivery, they and GAA had not yet agreed the details on how the proportions of a potential revised project budget would be allocated. Outstanding issues such as planning remain to be finalized.
My own feeling is that a major mistake was made in placing a new stadium on the site of the old one instead of looking for a site outside the city where none of the problems such as parking and local housing opposition would not have been a problem. Then what do they want with a 35,000 seater when it would only be filled to capacity every two years in Ulster Finals — rock concerts and other events would be needed to make it viable. But the thought of getting a magnificent new largely government funded Casement Park in Belfast may have been too much for the imagination to think things out rationally.
So as one drives down the motorway into Belfast these days and looks to the left hand side they will see four floodlight towers standing like great bowed heads over the remains of the old stadium as year after year, the weeds grown ever longer and the cost of the proposal grows ever higher. It hardly does justice to the name of Roger Casement.