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Near Castlewellan is a slightly better location, but how likely would it be to get planning permission there? Look at the access road for example. A lot of drama made about the road to Ballykinlar, which is an A road and 5mins from Clough (and 15mins from Castlewellan).

It's 'A' shite road

Agreed its a shite road and its a bit of a misnomer to hide behind an arbitrary designation of "A" road.

The only significant problem with that location at the Finn is indeed the junction onto the main road which I'll freely admit is currently a crap one with cars flying over that brow coming from Castlewellan. But placing up smart signalling like this would go a long way to mitigating the problem. Other than that, hard to see the roots of any planning objections.

But lets not lose the forest for trees - that land is literally me querying propertypal this evening. More suitable have probable been ignored over the years to chase Ballykinlar and more suitable will probably coming up over the next few years too.

Potentially good news for Truth Hurts, East Down and Down in general;

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/councillors-overturn-decision-not-to-back-eu-funding-application-by-down-gaa-for-new-centre-of-excellence-AZVJTRKBYZF4BKUJLS2XERJZSQ/

Decidedly mixed feelings on this.


Short term, something is needed. Badly.
Medium term, its probably at a good price and on a sandy base to save some costs in drainage installation.
Long term, its a poor geographic location at the end of very bad roads.


Here is 17 acres of land just off the main Castlewellan Clough road.
Yeah, its ~£300k and you could probably fit in only 3 pitches. But in a ~£12m project, is 3% more worth it when your then located just off a main road slap bang in the (GAA) centroid of the county?


Its only a 25 year lease the county board have on the site. Amortised, thats ~£500k a year then the MoD could potentially pull the rug out from under you?

Who claimed you did dispute that Russia uses these cyber gangs for their own purposes?
In my and most others opinion, being complicit with the Russian based cyber gangs to reap havoc in Europe carries the same weight of guilt as the doer of the dastardly deeds.

So if you hire a builder to put up an extension, your responsible for what the same builder does for the fella down the road?

Donald Tusk warming that Europe is not prepared for war. Laughable five years ago but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility now with Putin well and truly untouchable in his own country.
Where does that leave Ireland, a geographic soft spot on the western fringe of UK and Europe?
Has NATO a blueprint somewhere to save Irelands ass for their own welfare?  And does Ireland know about it?

WHAT?!?!?

So the Russians with their extensive Navy are going to try and invade Ireland, a full EU member, putting themselves at the end of an enormously fragile supply  chain and piss off half of the US on both sides of congress/senate?

If any Russian ship managed to make it to Irish territorial waters I'd be amazed. If any managed to reach shoreline I'd be in a state of disbelief and if they lasted longer than a week before dying of half the USAF's missiles up their hole I'd die of shock.


Of course, the Russians aren't that stupid so would never even try. Not before already occupying all of continental Europe and probably the UK too.

Will he lose his knighthood?

Does it not make him fit in better with the rest of them?

Just another Sir Odious p***k who was honoured for his services to ass-licking the right hole.

Peaceful, where you lads been past 50yrs, Loyalists not accept it, end of. same way the IRA didn't in the 70's.The outcome will be no different, only in reverse this time.

Did you miss the as possible at the end?

joint rule would give loyalists a reason to return to arms

Zero interest in joint rule would just be a massive fudge for 50 years

Consider it a soft landing toward an eventual United Ireland.

In that context, a border poll is more likely to have them up in arms, and with joint rule, the soft unionists here (that is, those that could be swayed by economics) will have a better chance to see the potential benefits of a United Ireland as media focus moves from, or at least spits between, Westminster to the Dail.


I would consider formal joint governance a massive step toward making the transition to a United Ireland as peaceful and prosperous as possible.

If this brings Stormont down it is surely time for something different.

Think it will be ok though.

Joint rule from Dublin and London.

An open threat to do that would likely be enough to keep them in.

Islamic state have claimed it

So America. Jesus.

Eh?

#ProxyWar

#TheTruthIsOutThere

#GetYourTinfoilHatsThreeForAFiver

Windsor and Ravenhill all seated and covered as that's what the need is now to meet supporter's requirements. Casements supporters have the same requirements

Interesting that you ignored this post made in response to the quoted and several days before you posted the above.

Great idea. Windsor all covered all seated, Ravenhill something similar. Casement as suggested above. Croppy lie down

Something similar to all-covered all-seated... except of course Ravenhill has 3 sides covered seats, 1 side partially-covered terrace and 3 sides uncovered terrace. 

In some better news, I gather the proposed design is not all-seater, or at least, not after its converted for GAA use after its initial Euros compatible format.

Whether there is the money to carry out that rejig is another matter.

You are all getting your knickers in a twist...the cost is pure speculation and people have added £120m to it in 2 weeks,

That's the build cost.

What about maintenance cost?

The wolf tones will fill it once a year 

The "Beyond the grave tour 2034" 

But you know what? When it's built, it ends up paying itself off. And then you own it until the place falls apart in 70 years time. So no matter what it is absolutely worth getting the additional rather than some bog basic terraced stadium

You do realise there is a far larger maintenance cost associated to all the above than some bog basic terraced stadium? Since the stadium is constructed at a similar price to the GAA regardless of whether its all-singing or basic, its the on going maintenance costs I'm concerned with.

For instance, those (unneeded) additional areas do not require upkeep, you don't need to periodically check the wiring, fire alarms etc on rooms that don't exist, nor do you need to clean them. Cleaning of terracing after games requires a fraction of the time. You've no seats to replace on terracing.

In the 2019 financial report - first one I got on google - Croke park had a stadium & admin expense of ~€6.2m. Heat/Light/Power was an additional €1m. Staff costs were ~€2.8m.

That is approx €10m to run the stadium. The latter two would be more direct functions of how many events are on - so will disregard them. If we reasonably assume that the stadium/admin costs are directly related to size, then Casement would be approx 40% Croke's maintenance cost - or €2.6m in 2019 prices.

So Ulster Council will need to raise somewhere in the region of €2.6m (2019 prices) after direct operating costs just to upkeep the stadium.

In 2019, Croke had 28 games and 3 concerts to deliver a gross income of around €29m. (total expenses to do that were €17m. We'll remove the "fixed" €~6.2m I mentioned above from this)

So they made approx €580k per game. We'll not factor by size to be favourable to Casement. It still means Ulster council need to fill or nearly fill Casement 4.5 times a year just to keep the stadium.

Needless to say, they won't be able to do this.



It. Doesn't. Fukking. Add. Up.


(Unless of course, there is an open admission that the Ulster Council are actually building a concert venue that they may occasionally let hold a football or hurling match.)

Great idea. Windsor all covered all seated, Ravenhill something similar. Casement as suggested above. Croppy lie down

Something similar to all-covered all-seated... except of course Ravenhill has 3 sides covered seats, 1 side partially-covered terrace and 3 sides uncovered terrace.