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Interesting article in the Irish News from last week, which deserves a wider audience. It seems that for all Sinn Fein's yearning for a "Shared Future" when it comes to Sport (i.e. The Maze), they're somehow not quite so keen on the concept when it comes to Housing. Might it be that they don't want people to leave the ghetto, in case they also leave behind the ghetto politics which go with it? Perish the thought...

(Btw, for any of "The Usual Suspects" thinking of trying to discredit the piece by going off on one about the Author - Newton Emerson - there's no need, it's understood)



So where does SF stand on our shared future? Eye of Newt...
By Newton Emerson
05/02/09

Last month, thanks to a £3.4 million grant from the Housing Executive's 'Shared Future' scheme, Clanmil Housing Association purchased 22 properties on a 140-unit private development near Lisburn for use as mixed social housing.

Last week, in the assembly and on the pages of An Phoblacht, Sinn Fein MLA Martina Anderson attacked the whole concept of mixed social housing in the most vehement terms.

Her closing remarks in the assembly were: "Meeting the needs of people is being undermined by the pursuit of a flawed shared future agenda that prioritises the social engineering of mixed communities over the objective need of those who are homeless. Shame on it."

Her subsequent elaboration in An Phoblacht, audaciously headlined "New strategy must be founded on equality", was so extraordinary that it must be quoted at length.

"Shared Future refuses to even acknowledge the reality that sectarianism was actively promoted by both the unionist regime and the British state," Ms Anderson wrote.

"The securocrats who dreamed it up did so to airbrush their own role in the conflict from the history books. Instead, they would have us believe that the conflict took place simply because Catholics and Protestants refused to live together."

"Unfortunately," Ms Anderson went on, "this policy still continues to influence some of those in public office, which is why we see the prioritising of artificially engineered 'mixed' communities over the objective needs of our people for social housing."

"Sinn Fein's position is clear. The allocation of housing and the administration of any government policy should be done on the basis of need, not creed."

It requires quite an effort of intellectual gymnastics to begin an argument with the premise that the state forced us to live apart and end it by complaining that the state is forcing us to live together.

Ms Anderson's case makes slightly more sense (or at least sounds slightly less deranged) when you realise that by "objective need" Sinn Fein means "objective community need". The SDLP has also flirted with this dubious concept, along with some unionists and campaign groups such as the Committee for the Administration of Justice.

The implications of "objective community need" can be seen in the row over social housing on the Crumlin Road Jail site in north Belfast.

There are Catholic and Protestant people on the waiting list but Catholics make up around 80 per cent of the total. Working through that list on the basis of objective need would result in a Catholic-majority mixed area. However, under the concept of objective community need it is the Catholic "community" itself which has the need and therefore all the houses should be allocated to Catholics.

Tellingly, in response to this Sinn Fein demand, the DUP now insists that no social housing should be built on the site it all. It appears that scuppering mixed areas is what tops both Sinn Fein and the DUP's list of priorities, if I can say so without sounding like a securocrat.

It must also be said that Sinn Fein takes this line consistently. When the first Shared Future housing scheme opened outside Enniskillen in 2006, Fermanagh MP Michelle Gildernew damned it in similar terms.

An argument linking "British state" promotion of sectarianism to a need for segregated housing is so bizarre that it has to be a pure red herring.

Of more interest is Ms Anderson's objection to "social engineering" and "artificially engineered 'mixed' communities".

Sinn Fein does not normally object to social engineering. Quite the opposite, in fact. But there is no social engineering at work here in any case. Shared Future housing is filled from the top of the waiting list down, with applicants merely asked if they mind mixed neighbours. Nobody ever minds. The truth is that it is segregated housing, which has to be artificially engineered, by slotting people into separate waiting lists regardless of their needs or wishes. All Housing Executive estates were once casually mixed by default, as most private developments are now. It is only the intrusion of aggressive tribalism and control-freak "community" politics which, left unchallenged, begins to divide an area. Mixed housing may require special protection from this threat but that does not make it artificial or unnatural. It just makes it vulnerable. Aren't we supposed to protect the vulnerable?

Ms Anderson can bend whatever argument she likes around the construction of mixed housing. The argument which best fits the facts is that Sinn Fein actively wants the construction of segregated ghettoes.

newton@irishnews.com
 

[January 15, 2009, 06:47:27 PM]

Not long after "Myles Na G" started posting, something stirred in whatever it is passes for a brain of yours to cause you to conclude that MNG was actually me, posting under another identity. You have since repeated this assertion a number of times on various threads, invariably accompanied by smilies, winks and digs of various sorts etc, indicating that you clearly feel proud of yourself for your little "discovery".

And naturally enough, when both I and MNG denied it - well, "we would say that, wouldn't we" - further "proof" of just what a duplicitous bunch "themmuns" really are.

Of course, it is rarely easy to prove a negative, especially over the internet. I suppose we could post photos of ourselves, but hey, that might work for Decommissioning(!), but I don't suppose ypu'd accept the photos as genuine, would you? And it would be a bit of a coincidence if we both had mutual friends who could vouch that we both post separately on this Board - at least friends whose word you'd be prepared to accept. And we should hardly have to disclose our real identities publicly, even on the sayso of one so wise and perceptive as you, Lynchbhoy.

So how to prove it, eh?

Well, as it happens, not so long after your "scoop", some pretty conclusive evidence happened to present itself, in one of those serendipidous coincidences which occur from time to time, though I chose not to let on straightaway (to see how long you'd go on gloating over your "revelation").

You see, on the Ogra Sinn Fein/Narrow Water thread from last month, these three posts (below) appeared in succession:




1.    
Re: Ogra Sinn Fein and their Commemoration at Narrow Water
« Reply #119 on: January 15, 2009, 06:47:27 PM »
   
Quote from: carribbear on January 15, 2009, 05:36:30 PM
I still don't understand why you're on a GAA board in the first place.
Since certain people seem obsessed with who I am, rather than what I think, I have had to explain more than once that I have several reasons for being a member of this Board.

Now so long as I conform to the rules etc, I don't see why I should have to explain them to you or anyone else (much less justify them). But since you ask, one of the chief reasons is to be found here:
www.onesmallstepcampaign.org

2.
Re: Ogra Sinn Fein and their Commemoration at Narrow Water
« Reply #120 on: January 15, 2009, 06:47:48 PM »
A few points. I think I said I have 'a passing interest' in GAA. If anyone can show me a post in which I've claimed to be a massive GAA fan, or indeed, a GAA fan at all, I'll eat my boxer shorts. I said that I played gaelic football as a youngster, both at school and for a club. Both these claims are true. I also happen to be a Celtic supporter. Big deal. I mentioned these things, and the fact that I'm from a Catholic / nationalist background, only in response to taunts from clampits like Carribbear - a true bigot if ever there was one - about my support for Rangers / Linfield / Geordie Seawright/ DUP etc etc. I've no objection to being called a unionist other than that it is factually incorrect. I've been called a liar on here for no other reason that people cannot accept that someone from a Catholic background can be critical of militant Irish republicanism. It doesn't fit with their carefully constructed world picture, therefore I must be telling porkies. Seriously, people, a wee bit of self reflection wouldn't go amiss.

3.
Re: Ogra Sinn Fein and their Commemoration at Narrow Water
« Reply #121 on: January 15, 2009, 06:48:35 PM »
Quote from: lynchbhoy on January 15, 2009, 06:07:11 PM
Quote from: carribbear on January 15, 2009, 05:36:30 PM
Quote from: Evil Genius on January 15, 2009, 04:14:45 PM
[
After all, if someone like Myles Na G can generate such suspicion, even hostility, there's not much hope for someone like me!  Cheesy


Never a truer word said, I still don't understand why you're on a GAA board in the first place.
to p**s people off , get thrown off and be able to complain and whinge back to his sectarian soccer shower that the GAA fans are as bad as they are perhaps ?

There's no flies on you, that's for sure... Roll Eyes




Note the times of those posts, Lynchbhoy. Now note that the first was posted by a certain "Evil Genius", the second by "Myles Na G" and the third by "Evil Genius"...

Now I may be Evil, I may even be a Genius, but not even I am able to log on as EG, post, log off; log on again as MNG, post, log off; then log on again and post as EG, all in the space of one minute and eight seconds.

Unless, of course, you think I'm really Doctor Who, maybe? You know, use my Sonic Screwdriver to pause the old Space/Time Continuum for a few minutes whilst I whisk around in (cyber)space in my Tardis?

So, back to you, Lynchbhoy - explain that one to me. You may enlist the aid of the Mods on this one, if you like...

Little Jack Horner sat in a Corner,
Eating his Pudding and Pie*,
He stuck in his Thumb,
And pulled out a Plum,
Saying 'Oh What a Good Bhoy Am I !'

* - Humble Pie in future, Jack Lynchbhoy?

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/mcginn-picked-for-northern-irelands-hungary-friendly-14033846.html
Nigel Worthington has called up Derry City youngster, Niall McGinn, for NI's friendly with Hungary later this month (above).

Hardly had the story appeared, when a certain well-known "personality" rushed to post the following comment on the B.Telegraph website:
"Surely this lad should be aspiring to lay for the real Ireland team"*
Posted by Tony Fearon | 04.11.08, 15:32 GMT

It's a shame (though no surprise) that Tony isn't also a subscriber to the Londonderry Sentinel, since he would have seen the player himself quoted as saying the following:
"There has been a lot of talk about one thing and another over the last few weeks, but to get a call up for my country would be amazing," he said.
"If Nigel Worthington were to call me up and say I was part of his plans, firstly I would be shocked, but then it would be unbelievable.
"If I was called up and trained for a few days with players like David Healy, Steven Davis and Aaron Hughes that would be amazing and certainly would improve my game.
"To be playing and training with players who are playing in the Premiership in both England and Scotland can only help me."

Still, I've no doubt Tony will join all the rest of us in wishing young Niall - who's a Tyrone man, btw - all the best...


* - Note that such was his rush to post, Tony didn't even stop for a "p", never mind a question mark! 

Jim Cusack hits a few nails firmly on the head, I'd say...

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/now-th...ch-1410557.html

Now the taigs are filthy rich

By Jim Cusack
Sunday June 15 2008

Earlier this year, when the Rich List for Northern Ireland was published , there was one little detail that went completely unnoticed -- well over half of those on it were Catholics. Places one, two and three were all filled by Catholics. The richest part of Belfast, the Malone Road -- think Ballsbridge in Dublin 4 -- now has a Catholic majority. Across the city, at least 75 per cent of the Victorian red-brick villas in the leafy avenues leading off the upper Antrim Road -- think Clontarf -- are owned by Taigs. They drive big cars and have holiday homes, many in Donegal, but more and more they are jetting off to exotic locations where they dine and play golf alongside their fellow arriviste multi-millionaires from the Republic.

The next time you are in Belfast, drive along the Lisburn Road, which runs parallel with the Malone Road, and check out the boutiques and cafes. There is an exhibition opening in one or other of the art galleries at least twice a week in season. High-end retail in Belfast is booming. In the city centre, the local jewellers, Lunn's, has gone from one to three stores in recent years, the latest branch opening in the city's spectacular new shopping centre, Victoria Square. Jigsaw, the top-end UK ladies fashion chain, which closed its Grafton Street store in 2006 to the dismay of many of its southern customers, has just opened outside the new Victoria Square and is reported to be doing very nicely.

Chris Sherry, editor of the Ulster Tatler, the North's social and personal monthly, refers to the Lisburn Road as getting a "bit like Kensington". Ulster Tatler, the bible of Ulster's social elite, has, according to consultants Millward Brown, 279,000 readers. In response to the consumer buzz surrounding the Lisburn Road, it launched a new magazine, South Belfast Life, a few years ago. "It's doing fine," says Chris.

If you want to see the North's rich living it big, check out the annual Waterloo Ball charity bash organised by the Lord Taverners. They flew in Bryan Ferry this year. Top of the raffle list is one of the last remaining Back to the Future De Loreans.

Hold on a second. Isn't Northern Ireland supposed to be, er, depressed, like, after three decades of terrorist violence? Aren't the Catholics supposed to be "oppressed" like Gerry Adams keeps banging on about and the Southern meeja still seems to believe? Bertie Ahern certainly thought so when he gave €580m (yes, €580 million) of our money to build roads in the North after the St Andrew's Agreement. Incidentally, if it does go to road building, the bulk of it will go to very rich Catholics who dominate the construction industry in the North. Thanks, Bertie.

A Belfast property professional, interviewed to ascertain just how well Catholics are doing in the North -- after he had stopped laughing -- rhymed off a string of Catholics whose fortunes he put in the "hundreds of millions". He had heard recently that 13 private jets were on order for customers in the North. The majority, he said, were ordered . . . that's right, by Catholics.

So why do an awful lot of people in the "26 counties", as Sinn Fein and many Northern Catholics continue to refer to the Republic, still believe the myth about Catholics being "oppressed" in the North? Many people still adhere to the strange belief that the Taigs are the "most oppressed people ever", a kind of northwest European version of the Palestinians: people who have to "struggle".

What did Bobby Sands kill himself for anyway? Was it so that his fellow Northern Catholics could own jets? Drive Beemers?

Bobby would be especially bewildered by what has happened to his fellow Provos. They've let him down big time, poor schmuck. Most of them have moved up the economic ladder, and out of the oppressed "ghettos". Your average West Belfast Provo now lives in one of the new private housing developments that have sprung up in the past 20 years on the western outskirts of the city. One of the most popular with the Lads is the area where Sinn Fein MLA and former bomber, Gerry Kelly lives.

And a funny thing about the rich Provos is this: they are still looked down on by the Middle Class Catholics (MCCs).

When the Provos started buying holiday homes in Donegal, they targeted the lower half of the county. It suited them to head west along the M1, which is beside west Belfast, and head over to Donegal via Enniskillen. Around Glenties, where IRA tout Denis Donaldson was shot dead in his holiday home, is popular. Gerry Adams doesn't much care to rub shoulders with the rank and file and has his holiday gaff a little further north, at Gortahork, a place much favoured in the past by the Belfast middle-class Taigs.

The Belfast MCCs congregate further north. They drive there via the M2, north to Derry. Marks & Spencer, that definition of middle-class taste, has located a new food-only outlet just before John Hume Bridge over the Foyle to cater for them, when they stop off on their way to Donegal for the weekend. They fill up at the wine department, which saves them having to drink pints with the Gaelic-speaking yokels.

The MCCs -- remember, most of them are only one or two generations away from the "ghettos" -- are, like middle classes anywhere, smug: they love to make jokes at the expense of their social inferiors. The Malone Road and Antrim Road crowd even have a witty quip about the holiday-home class demarcation in Donegal. The Sinn Fein voters whose cottages are in the south of the county drink their lager in "Costa del Provo". The middle classes chill out and sip their M&S wine in "SDLP sur Mer".

The Shinners may now have loadsamoney, big motors and holiday homes, but they are still social death. You move to Malone ward in Belfast not only to ascend the social ladder but, more importantly, to get the hell away from west Belfast and the Provos.

Malone votes for three parties: the SDLP, Ulster Unionists and Alliance, usually in that order. There is apparently a handful of votes for the Shinners, a cause of great amusement and some speculation at dinner parties. On the Malone, they call it the "Tiocfaidh ar la-di-da vote". They joke about Sinn Fein's latest wheeze of gaelicising street signs -- done largely to annoy Prods -- and laugh at how Malone Road will become Bothar Maigh Lon.

The most ambitious and the group that most hates Sinn Fein in the MCC scene is the less rich mob: the young aspiring professionals and those in mid-ranking civil service jobs. They occupy the smaller houses on the avenues that stretch away -- but not too far away -- from the mansions on the Malone and Antrim roads. They dream of large piles on Malone Park.

This mob is as ferociously anti-Shinner as Paisleyites, but for different reasons, of course.

In the last general election, Gerry Adams had apparently convinced himself that this Catholic social stratum was ready to embrace his great love and leadership. The Shinners poured massive resources into Belfast South in the 2005 election. The growth of the Catholic middle-class vote in south Belfast meant that the seat went, for the first time, to an SDLP candidate, Dr Alastair McDonnell.

Sinn Fein candidate Alex Maskey's profile had been pumped massively by the SF machine, which made sure he appeared alongside Gerry Adams on every single "peace process" photocall -- and there were lots of them. Maskey came fourth, beating the Rainbow Dream Ticket candidate and the guy from the Workers' Party (they still have that up there).

Truth is, cross the Ormeau Bridge over the Lagan, up into those nice leafy streets, and the arriviste MCCs would rather be seen wearing shell suits and trainers than vote Sinn Fein. Gerry, baby: Middle Class Catholics define their social position primarily through the distance between themselves and you and your voters. About as many Catholics vote Sinn Fein in south and south west Belfast as in Dun Laoghaire. If you live in a part of Belfast that has a street sign in both Irish and English, any self-respecting MCC would cross the road to avoid you.

The story is the same in Foyle and south Down -- the other two Westminster constituencies where the SDLP was returned. In the last local government elections in 2005, there was a tussle between Sinn Fein and the Green Party for one of the last seats in South Down. The Greens won. In short, you can easily spot rich Catholic areas in the North at election time. They vote SDLP.

Recently, the MCCs have been in revolt over -- no, not British oppression, dummy, but over the Sinn Fein Stormont Education Minister Catriona Ruane's attempts to abolish academic selection for 11-year-olds.

The North has a secondary education system that is based on selection: children who do well in their 11-Plus exams go to grammar schools, and those who don't do too well go to "secondary" schools. Lefties and Sinn Fein hate the 11-Plus exam. But, the Catholic middle class got where they are today because they were smart and determined and they went to exceptional secondary schools where the results are exceptional.

The MCCs in the North are as nuts on education as middle classes anywhere. Grammar schools such as St Malachy's on the Antrim Road gets near-as-makes-no-difference 100 per cent of its A-Level students into third level. Twenty or 30 pupils a year from St Malachy's go to Cambridge or Oxford, making it one of the top-rated schools in the UK.

St Malachy's has wonderful facilities that make "top" schools in the Republic look just ordinary. And, get this, school-fee-paying parents of Dublin: St Malachy's is, more or less, free. All the schools in Belfast are. Those damned Brit-oppressor taxpayers pick up the tab. The poshest girl's school in Belfast, Victoria College (twinned with Rathdown in Glenageary in South County Dublin) does have fees, around £370, or about a twelfth of Rathdown's. Of course, the posh Catholics are also sending their children in larger and larger numbers to the post-Protestant/state grammars such as Royal Belfast Academic Institution, Belfast Royal Academy, Methodist College and Victoria. This is the first generation of Catholic boys and girls in the history of Northern Ireland to play rugby and hockey. This is the first generation of Protestant/state pupils to have Irish on the curriculum.

While the Catholic middle class flourishes, the Protestants aren't having such a good time. They feel oppressed now. Their sons and daughters, when they pass their A Levels, tend to go to university in Scotland and England -- and afterwards, they inevitably stay there. They don't like Queen's in Belfast because it's full of rough Sinn Fein-supporting country types who get drunk and play hurling with each other at night in the flatland around the university. The Belfast journalist, David McKittrick (working-class Prod from Shankill married to nice middle-class Catholic girl) last year made famous a new acronym that describes the flight of these young middle-class Protestants -- NIPPLES (Northern Ireland Protestant Professionals Living in England and Scotland).

OK, so life is good for the MCCs but not so much the PCCs whose children are clearing off. But at least they are all living well. Remember, they have one of the finest hospital services in Europe and, of course, that's free as well. Aneurin Bevan's free-from-cradle-to-grave health service encompassed Northern Ireland. Those damn B*atard Brit oppressors at it again. The only way to spend a night on a trolley in the North is to actually demand it. And it would probably be a nice corridor.

OK, enough of the good life of the MCCs. What about those who haven't made it? What's it actually like living in a Catholic working-class ghetto? It's sh*te, according to people who live there and the social workers and academics who study them.

In Belfast, there are 83,000 "income-deprived" people, and an awful lot of them are Prods.

Eight out of the 10 most deprived electoral wards in Northern Ireland are in Belfast. Nine of the 10 worst "health-deprivation" wards are in Belfast. Belfast is now 47.2 per cent Catholic and 48.6 per cent Protestant, so you can guess at the maths. Maybe the income deprivation is a bit higher on the Catholic side because the Protestants have been moving out of the city to places like east Antrim where they are in a big majority.

The peace process spawned an incredible number of "community" jobs, which have proved a haven for ex-terrorists. A study by Ulster University found recently that there are 30,000 "community workers" in Northern Ireland, again, paid for by those dirty Brit taxpaying sonsabitches (although we and the other EU taxpayers have also fired in a couple of billion to help smooth the way for ex-terrorists into less destructive work).

But, nonetheless, west Belfast, Ardoyne and West Bank in Derry have gone down the plughole. These are the social and economic models of a Sinn Fein-dominated society. They are like a German Democratic Republic on the dole, and on dope.

Adams and his mates have largely decamped. On March 14 this year, Gerry was living it big in New York with his new best buddies, multimillionaire CEOs of companies such as bankers and sub-prime mortgage operators, Mutual of America and Lehman's, at Bobby Van's on 54th Street, the steak house where Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack ate, drank and picked up broads.

Later that same evening, back home in the heart of west Belfast, Frank "Bap" McGreevy, a 51-year-old ex-IRA prisoner, well-known and liked in the community, was beaten to death in his home. A TV was smashed over his head as he lay unconscious in the living room of his flat on Ross Road in the lower Falls. Bap was one of the IRA people who didn't cash in on the peace process.

Years ago, the Provos would simply have kneecapped the trouble-causing youngsters, but since getting into Stormont they have had to stop the punishment beatings and shootings, which has not been popular with the electorate. The Shinners can no longer blame the Brits or the "Black Bastards" in the RUC/PSNI now that they have signed up to policing and the British Army has left for sunnier war zones.

Drink- and drug-fuelled joyriders and thugs are making life a misery and there are no IRA goon squads to break their legs any more. The Shinners set up a community restorative justice scheme -- paid for by them Brit taxpayers -- but it has been useless.

In the past year, two other local men have also been murdered as crime and drug-taking have spiralled out of control in Gerry Adams's heartland, from which he is increasingly absent. Harry Holland, another decent and popular ex-republican, was stabbed to death as he tried to stop youths stealing his van from outside his grocery shop. Another man was killed in a machete and hatchet attack at his home off the Falls Road.

In any other constituency in the UK, you might expect the local political leadership to come in for some kind of criticism. But Sinn Fein has turned west Belfast into an old-fashioned, GDR-style fiefdom and no criticism of the Great Leader is allowed.

What Adams and no one else expected was an attack from inside his own backyard. After the murder of Bap McGreevy, the local rag, The Andersonstown News, ran an anonymous column attacking Adams and his rich pals for abandoning the area to hoods and scumbags. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The newspaper owner and Adams devotee, Mairtin O Muilleoir (a former Sinn Fein councillor who was present at Bobby Van's in New York and wrote up Adams's lunch with the CEOs on his blogsite) must have been equally shocked. In the next edition, the "Andytown" carried a front-page reply from Adams denouncing the article as "offensive and hurtful" and a suitably grovelling apology from the editor and presumed author of the offending article, Robin Livingstone.

So there you have it: rich Catholics living in Brit-supported paradise. Poor Catholics living in Sinn Fein-dominated hell. Neither wants a united Ireland. And, incidentally, just in case you were thinking about it Mr Cowen, we really couldn't afford to keep them.

- Jim Cusack

Baldrick McElduff's cunning plan to get the Brits out! God Help Mother Ireland, if it's come to this....

Ordinary republicans can 'erase partition,' Tyrone rally told

WEST Tyrone MLA Barry McElduff said ordinary people can help to "erase partition" by insisting on the right to enter their nationality as Irish and their place of residence as Ireland on official and company forms.

A good place to start would be with UCAS forms filled in by applicants for university and college places, he suggested.

Mr McElduff was speaking at a republican rally in Galbally on Sunday after a parade to mark the 27th anniversary of Martin Hurson who died on hunger strike on July 13, 1981.

More than 2,000 people followed the colour party and two bands – the Martin Hurson Memorial Flute Band from Gortin and the South Derry Martyrs Flute Band. Banners represented Pomeroy, Galbally, Aughnacloy and Ógra Shinn Féin.

The parade followed a football match played at Galbally GAA grounds in which teams from the county competed for the Martin Hurson Cup.

From the Galbally Community Centre , the parade went to the republican monument in the village of Cappagh for a ceremony at which wreaths were lain on behalf of the IRA, Sinn Féin and the National Graves Association. A special mention was given to a wreath laid by Cllr Brendan Farrel on behalf of the McManus-Hurson Cumann in Longford.

After the lowering of the flag, West Tyrone MLA Barry McElduff paid tribute to the organisers of the event and spoke about the important role of the IRA in Tyrone.

"Tyrone has a very distinguished list of (IRA) Volunteers," said Cllr McElduff. "That is something we are very proud of."

He added that "Martin Hurson's death on hunger strike swelled the ranks of the IRA in Tyrone". The MLA also remarked how the British forces tried to cover up incidents in Tyrone and, in particular, in the village of Cappagh.

"The IRA assassinated two SAS men in an ambush just outside this village and the Brits tried to say it never happened: but we all know it happened."

Cllr McElduff also said that there are many ways to "erase partition" referring to SatNavs and UCAS forms.

"We should not have to enter our nationality as British and we should lobby and tell these companies that, when referring to the fictional state of Northern Ireland, the occupants are Irish.

"Tactics like these alone won't end the occupation here, but succsessfully building campaigns on these types of issue will dissolve the border," he said.

Police presence for the republican event was minimal and more republican events are listed for August in Loughmacrory, Clonoe and Derry City.

http://www.nwipp-newspapers.com/UH/free/364024654876872.php

[BTW]

You can delete or lock this thread when I've posted this if you like, but I was not "accusing" BTW of being in the IRA (or the INLA or UVF or any of the other organisations whose members ended up in Long Kesh).

Of course, if I try to explain that it was a mere throwaway remark, with no offence intended, I don't suppose I'll be believed.

But I can point out that BTW clearly didn't seem to take any offence, if his reply, with smilies, was anything to go by:
"   my name derives from my role as a sporting spectator EG - nothing to do with the long kesh men"

Anyhow, just what is it about you HHNB, that you take it upon yourself to defend, or answer back on behalf of, other posters with whom I am engaging in debate.

Why are you not content to let them speak for themselves? They are perfectly entitled to reply in kind (and often do), or may make a complaint about me to the Mods (which if any has, I'm not aware of)


 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7084951.stm

Lest We Forget. 

[I find it hard to believe that nobody on the County Board knew about this issue. I have played senior club football in Fermanagh for over a decade and I have been aware that Darren Graham has been on the receiving end of sectarian abuse and I would have guessed that plenty of officialdom knew too.]

In the original Graham thread, I asked a question along the following lines:

"Assuming the Graham Affair were eventually settled so that his abusers were punished and he felt able to return to playing, would that be the end of the matter? Or should the GAA take further steps to remedy the situation whereby the Protestant/Unionist tradition is so seriously under-represented in NI GAA that, for example, Graham would remain the only Protestant playing GAA sports to a significant level in the whole of County Fermanagh?"

Unfortunately, this question got lost in the whole controversy about Graham himself, which is why I've started this thread to consider the eventual aftermath.

To get the ball rolling, here is an interesting article from the Sunday Life by journalist and Fermanagh GAA player, Colm Bradley:



GAA: This sectarian abuse must be stamped out

Sunday, August 05, 2007

By Colm Bradley

When it was reported this week that a local duel player Darren Graham was quitting the GAA because of sectarian abuse it was clear that it wouldn't be long before the story was picked up by the broadcast media.

And true enough, by 12 o'clock on Wednesday Darren was speaking on Radio Ulster about how ever since he started playing GAA he had been on the receiving end of some form of sectarian abuse at the hands of opposing players, opposing fans and officials, and that the abuse had increased greatly since he had graduated to senior action.

A Fermanagh County Board spokesperson, also speaking on the radio, explained that there was nothing the board could do until an official complaint was made.

It sounded a bit like an attempt to shift the pressure away from themselves and onto the player and as I listened I began to feel more uncomfortable.

The spokesperson went on to say that personally they were unaware of any sectarian abuse directed at Darren Graham and that as far as they were concerned nobody else on the county board was aware of it either.

Although to be fair it was made clear that the Fermanagh County Board would condemn any such sectarian abuse. Well thank God for that then, eh!

I find it hard to believe that nobody on the County Board knew about this issue. I have played senior club football in Fermanagh for over a decade and I have been aware that Darren Graham has been on the receiving end of sectarian abuse and I would have guessed that plenty of officialdom knew too.

It is actually with a fair degree of shame that I admit knowing and, as a journalist, I should have highlighted this unacceptable behaviour a long time ago.

The story is out now and I hope that the small minority who actually believed that this sort of behaviour did not go on, with respect to Darren, will think again.

In truth I am a little disappointed at the initial reaction of the County Board. Rule 7(b) of the GAA Official Guide states that the GAA is non sectarian and rule 142 (a) states that a county committee has the power to investigate breaches of rules. To argue that the County Board is powerless to do anything until an official complaint has been made is incorrect.

The very least the board should have done was to immediately state that it intended to launch a full investigation into these allegations of sectarianism. But instead it will wait for the player to go to the club and then the club to go to the county board! Bullshit bureaucracy!

There is always some banter and name calling in sport and that will continue, but for our own sake sectarian abuse is something which must be rooted out of our games.

The vast majority of GAA people are not sectarian but as the old saying goes, 'Bad things happen when good men do nothing.'

The Association needs to be much more proactive in reaching out to the Protestant community. Yes, all are welcome in the GAA, we know that, but is it enough just to say it? For instance I wonder what percentage of GAA clubs have actively tried to promote our games in Protestant primary schools - I would imagine it is pretty low.

And in an even bolder step, I would suggest that the wording of Rule 2 in the GAA Official Guide should be changed. Currently it reads 'The Association is a National Organisation which has as its basic aim the strengthening of the National Identity in a 32 County Ireland through the preservation and promotion of Gaelic Games and pastimes'.

I have no problem with it but I can see how people from a Unionist background would have difficulty with the rule.

I understand that when the Association was founded these initial rules were drawn up in response to a concerted effort by the ruling class to obliterate the Irish language, Irish pastimes and Irish culture itself.

However 123 years later things are, thank Goodness, a little different and I think the GAA should do everything in its power to be as open as possible. The following wording maintains the need for the preservation of Gaelic Games and pastimes but in my opinion removes much of the ambiguity which could be read into the current rule. 'The Association is an Organisation which has as its basic aim the strengthening of the National Identity in the 32 Counties on this Island through the preservation and promotion of Gaelic Games and pastimes'.

I believe we need to be completely wholehearted in our approach to attracting those from the Unionist community into the association which means we have to look at what are perceived to be the obstacles preventing them from joining, and we have to be prepared to do something to improve the situation.

Instead of a wishy washy rule that blandly states the Association is non sectarian there needs to be a zero tolerance policy towards sectarianism.

At the moment, in my experience we are a long way from this.

The GAA is a fantastic organisation which embraces people from all ages, social backgrounds and in recent years more and more women are getting involved too.

It is an organisation with much to offer the community.

Let's not let the minority voices have the final word.

We can see from the Darren Graham story that if we continue to brush this sort of problem under the carpet eventually great players and great Gaels will simply walk away from the Association.

http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/sport/article2836540.ece 

(Admin - If this should be added to another thread, or even moved to the GAA section, by all means please do. It's just that I didn't want it to get lost in some of the other threads on the topic, sidetracked as they are into interminable rows* about flags and anthems etc)

http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/sport/article2815030.ece


GAA: Grounds for concern

Should the GAA back new stadium?

Sunday, July 29, 2007

By Maurice Kennedy

Funny how with this whole debate about the proposed new stadium for the Maze/Long Kesh, the one thing that has been taken as given is that the GAA is unequivocally on board.


It's ironic that while Minister Poots has called on all interested parties to have their say there has been precious little transparency within the GAA over its involvement.

Maybe I'm missing something but I can't recall any dialogue on whether or not the GAA should hitch its wagon to the so-called national stadium for Northern Ireland.

Maybe now that the Stormont government is weighing up the issues it's time the GAA's Ulster Council did likewise before it gets ahead of itself. Now there are all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why the GAA has, seemingly, given its unqualified support for the new stadium. Some of them might be deemed unhelpful but hey, that's free speech for you.

One particularly cynical line of reasoning argues that you don't bite the hand that feeds you and that, yes, the GAA has (quite rightly) benefited greatly from Sports Council funding. Now it's payback time and the GAA has to be seen to do the right thing.

That might all be very well but there are still a few issues that GAA people need to be looking at.

It might not seem all that important in this new era of political pragmatism, but you can't ignore the fact that the GAA has already got a 'national stadium'. The suspicion is that that there's a political agenda behind the proposed 'national stadium for Northern Ireland' and that's something a lot of GAA people committed to a 32-county set-up wouldn't be entirely happy about.

But even that might not be the main issue - what ought to be, however, is the lack of open and honest debate on what exactly the GAA has in mind for other stadia like Clones and Casement.

Talk of a multi-million pound refurbishment of the west Belfast venue seems neither rational nor credible if indeed the GAA is signing up to hosting a few of its top games every year at a new sports stadium 10 miles down the road.

And as for Clones - even allowing for the hosting of the Ulster Final there for the first time in four years - there is a deeply held suspicion, not just confined to Monaghan, that the standing of the once undisputed home of Ulster football has been deliberately undermined.

There's an argument commonly proffered east of the Bann that Clones is isolated and out of the way and that no amount of redevelopement could get St Tiernach's Park up to the kind of comfort levels we've grown used to at Croke Park.

Firstly Clones is a great deal more central to a greater number of people across Ulster (nine counties, of course) than any big carpark on the edge of greater Belfast. Try telling someone from south Donegal, Fermanagh, Cavan or west Tyrone that it's only a run up the M1, and now that the border roads have been restored Clones is accessible from all points on the compass.

There might of course be good financial reasons for the GAA rowing in behind the Lisburn stadium proposals but it would be disingenuous in the extreme to say that Clones can't cope with future Ulster finals if the decision has already been taken to deprive it of major investment.

There are plenty of us who still have a tremendous attachment to Clones as the home of the Ulster final and who believe the sense of tradition and the special atmosphere that surrounds big match days in Clones is something we should be celebrating and capitalising on, not abandoning in the name of progress.

If it was all about creature comforts and corporate imagery, the Munster final would have long since departed Thurles.

Leaving politics out of it - and I'm not sure that that is possible - the GAA already has two fine stadia of its own which, with some investment, can be enhanced and improved to cater for all but the very biggest games in Ulster.

Of course Croke Park was pressed into action in recent years because Clones simply couldn't cope, but now we're being told that the Lisburn stadium will be only marginally bigger and certainly not big enough to host the odd monster gate that only Croker can cater for.

The new Lisburn stadium might be a great idea for other sports, and good luck to them, but the GAA has enough of its own.

It's one thing to say you'll play the odd game in Lisburn in the interests of sporting ecumenicism - it's another to allow yourself to be billed as an anchor tenant.

Is there something we're not being told?

Maurice Kennedy is editor of Gaelic Life





* - Usually blamed on me, into the bargain!

[not]

These "outraged Portugese compatriots" wouldn't be Protestants, by any chance? 

And do any Irish observers who support the idea of Portugal being absorbed into Iberia also deny the right of e.g. Catalonia or the Basque Country not to be included in the new entity (or Spain, for that matter)?


http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2776124.ece
Writer calls for Portugal to be province of Spain
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Published: 17 July 2007
The Portuguese writer and Nobel Laureate José Saramago has outraged his compatriots by urging Spain and Portugal to unite in a single country that he proposes to call "Iberia".

Portugal would not lose its identity as part of Spain, Saramago says, but would become an additional autonomous region in a country that already enjoys greatly devolved powers.

"I believe we'll end up as one integrated country ... in which Portugal will be another province of Spain. We would continue to speak Portuguese, and write, think and feel in our own language," the writer predicts in an interview in the Lisbon daily Diario de Noticias. Spain consists of various nationalities and languages that coexist, he says, and Portugal's position in Spain would be comparable to that of Catalonia or Galicia.

"Catalonia has its own culture, and is at the same time part of Spain, as is the Basque country and Galicia, so we wouldn't have to become Spaniards," said Saramago, 85, the first writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature for work written in Portuguese.

Saramago's proposal flies in the face of the prevailing view that, rather than absorbing new territory, Spain risks splitting apart. He dismissed that view, saying: "The only region in Spain that seeks independence is the Basque country, and no one really believes it."

His prophecy aggravates a longstanding rivalry between the neighbours, who share a frontier but "turn their backs on each other", as the saying goes. Portugal predates Spain by several centuries and dominated a trading empire, while Spain was a mere patchwork of warring kingdoms; but it still feels overshadowed. Spain, meanwhile, tends to mostly ignore Portugal.

"It's very easy to hate Portugal from abroad, and more difficult to defend it from abroad, which Mr Saramago is manifestly incapable of doing," railed Antonio Martins de Cruz, a former foreign minister and ambassador to Madrid. "Mr Saramago's vision is of the 19th, rather than the 21st, century," the diplomat said.

The Portuguese have not forgiven their only Nobel Laureate - an anti-establishment figure and Communist Party member - for abandoning his homeland. Saramago quit Portugal after Lisbon banned his 1991 novel, The Gospel according to Jesus Christ, claiming it was offensive to Catholics. He moved to Lanzarote, in the Spanish Canary Islands, with his Spanish wife.

Saramago's fiction is an intricate combination of comic fantasy and astute political observation. The novel The Stone Raft, published in 1996 - two years before he received his Nobel award - tells how the Iberian peninsula breaks away from Europe and floats into the Atlantic towards South America seeking cultural identity, and bumping into the Azores en route.

But he has thought out his one-nation proposal in some detail: "We wouldn't be ruled by Spaniards: there would be MPs from both countries in a single parliament representing all the political forces of Iberia. And just as in Spain, where each autonomous region has its own regional parliament, we would have ours, too."

Sean Paul Murray, the IFA's Grassroots Development Officer for North & West Belfast was on BBC News this morning publicising the second running of an annual football (soccer, if you prefer) tournament for youngsters he's promoting over the Twelfth Fortnight in Ardoyne.

Last year's inaugural event was very successful, so much so that he received an Official UEFA Award for "Most Valuable Grassroots Event of 2006". Indeed, it may not be entirely coincidental that 2006 was the first time in over 30 years that the Army/Police weren't called in to quell rioting by local youths in the area.

This year promises to be bigger and better, as the event takes hold:



Lee Carroll (Grassroots Manager), Brendan Clarke (North Belfast Interface Network), Norman McNarry (George Best Foundation), Sean Paul Murray (Grassroots Officer), Barbara McNarry (George Best Foundation), Tomas Turley (Ardoyne Youth Club), Fr.Aidan Troy

http://www.irishfa.com/grassroots/grassroots-development-project/news/2667/grassroots-development-officer-receives-special-uefa-award/
GRASSROOTS DEVELOPMENT OFFICER RECEIVES SPECIAL UEFA AWARD
19/12/2006
The IFA Grassroots Development Officer for North & East Belfast 'Sean Paul Murray' has been officially recognized by UEFA for his promotion of Grassroots Football.

In a recent ceremony Lee Carroll (IFA Grassroots Manager) handed over a plaque celebrating his achievement of hosting the country's 'Most Valuable Grassroots Event'.

This event took place over the traditionally tense 'July Week' in the Ardoyne area. The IFA's Grassroots Development Officer with Belfast City Council for Belfast North and East, Sean Paul Murray, along with Norman McNarry of the George Best Foundation and local Parish Priest  Fr Aidan Troy , looked for ways to provide constructive and enjoyable activity for young people in the Ardoyne area of Belfast .

The idea of running an evening soccer tournament took shape, in line with the aspirations of the George Best Foundation and the result was the first ever George Best Trophy Competition.

In partnership with the Ardoyne Marrowbone Community Empowerment Partnership and the North Belfast Interface Network, months of preparation and organisation went into the competition.  This paid off when, on the first evening (Monday July 10th) over 300 people of all ages turned up to take part.

Sean Paul said:

"I'm overjoyed with the huge amount of people from all ages who turned up on the first night of the competition. It was a great success and a very enjoyable evening for all involved. Everyone who participated added to the fun, family atmosphere and I'm delighted to say that the community and the George Best charity will have benefited a lot from the massive turn out. It was an extremely worthwhile venture for all parties – football, the community, and the George Best Foundation, and I hope the rest of the competition is as successful"

The competition ran from Monday July 10 – Friday July 14 and matches were played each night from 7pm to 10pm at The Holy Cross Boys' School pitches in the Ardoyne area ofBelfast . There were three age groups (14-16 years, 16-18 years and 18-plus) within the competition and a donation is to be made to the George Best Foundation from the registration fees.

This initiative attracted wide interest and very positive coverage from local press, TV and Radio.  Certainly the Ardoyne area, in general, enjoyed a more peaceful week than in previous years and it is to be hoped that the provision of alternative, enjoyable activity may have contributed to this.

Such was the success of this first competition that plans are already being made to repeat it next July, and hopefully for years to come.  Great credit is due to Sean Paul and all those who put so much hard work into this project.

Such positive co-operation among bodies such as Belfast City Council, the Clergy, the George Best Foundation and local Community Groups is an example of the good work which can be achieved through the IFA's Grassroots Programme.

Teams and officials involved in the event were also rewarded with footballs and t-shirts from UEFA as reward for their achievements.
 

http://www.orange.co.uk/news/uk/4485.htm?linkfrom=news_uk_&link=link_7&article=newsukheadlines
last updated: Wednesday 4 July 2007, 09:54am

Adams branded a traitor over handshake
 
Gerry Adams has been branded a traitor by nationalists after he publicly shook hands with Northern Ireland's head policeman.

The Sinn Fein president invited Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde to a private meeting with community representatives to discuss a feud in the area which has already claimed one life and damaged a catalogue of properties in the Ballymurphy area.

Mr Adams was dubbed a traitor by republican dissidents as he arrived at the Whiterock Community Centre and was also harangued by a family at the centre of the violence in the area.

Dialogue has centred on a dispute between two families in Ballymurphy which has been linked to over 800 incidents.

The stand-off was triggered by the stabbing to death of Gerard Devlin, 39, in February 2006 near his home in the area.

The talks between Sinn Fein and the police are an important sign of the nationalist party's commitment to policing which opened the way for a political settlement.

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

When Gerry proffered his hand, how hard was it for for Hugh to resist the temptation to snap the cuffs on him? 

Still, as Van the Man used to say, "Mamma always told me there'd be days like this" 

Then again, Van's mammy was probably off her head...

Sinn Féin's double standard when dealing with the past

(by Liam Clarke, Sunday Times)

Many of the worst crimes in history were carried out for political motives by people who felt fully justified in perpetrating them. Their politically motivated offences were still crimes, of course, and could not just be forgotten about. This is a point that entirely escapes Sinn Féin.

A republican ballad recalls how Kevin Barry, a young IRA man hanged for killing a British soldier in 1920, walked to the gallows with his head held high, saying he wished to be shot like a soldier and not hanged like a dog. The song eulogises his political motivation, his clear conscience and his calmness facing death.

The problem is that exactly the same could be said of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator who showed dignity and courage before his executioners. It is also true of Adolf Eichmann, the SS leader who coined the term "final solution" for the Holocaust, or Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator who maintained that history would absolve him.

All three men, generally regarded as monsters, walked to their deaths with their heads held as high as Barry's. Like him, they asked to be shot like soldiers rather than hanged like dogs. They even showed great fortitude in their last minutes.

Hannah Arendt, a Jewish writer who chronicled Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem, concluded that the Nazi was the type of person who "commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well nigh impossible for him to know that he is doing wrong". Perhaps this is the true definition of a political offender.

It would be facile to say that Barry, a boy of 18, was in the same league as these mass murderers. Neither is the IRA to be equated with the SS on the scale of evil.

The fact remains, however, that Eichmann, Saddam and Ceausescu were all political criminals. Their clean consciences and their courage in the face of death does not excuse their deeds.

We will not forget their crimes, nor refuse to mention them for fear of causing offence, any more than we will forget the crimes of the modern IRA. The fact that a person feels good about what he has done does not wipe out the consequences of the action.

It is quite sensible to argue that, since they are unlikely to reoffend now that the terrorist campaigns are over, former paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland should be given a break when seeking employment. Most signed an agreement to abide by the ceasefires when released and I believe they should be given the chance to integrate into society, and should not be pushed to the margins by being discriminated against in employment.

It's quite another thing for Martina Anderson to propose that criminal records earned by republican and loyalists during the Troubles should be expunged. She is herself a former bomber captured in 1985 in a flat in Glasgow from where a wave of attacks across Britain was being plotted. She clearly feels comfortable in her own mind about what she has done, and more often talks about her harsh treatment in prison than the mayhem she plotted. One of those captured with her, Patrick Magee, was convicted of murdering members of the Tory party in the Grand Hotel.

The Brighton bombing was undeniably a politically motivated act.

"We had a political situation that produced political prisoners," Anderson has argued. The underlying assumption is that if an assault or robbery is carried out with a political motive, it is less reprehensible than if carried out for personal reasons.

Last year Anderson visited the Scottish parliament as the guest of Margot McDonald, an independent MSP. It was recently put to her that, during the visit, she had said that Tory MPs were legitimate targets. She declined to comment, telling the questioner, Gregory Campbell of the DUP, not to dwell on the past.

Unfortunately for her, this is not how the world sees things.

Again and again the republican movement's view of its actions collides sharply with reality.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were repeated attempts to get international courts to give IRA convicts prisoner-of-war or political status. All were unsuccessful. The grading of offences by motivation was something that had no validity outside republican ideology.

For Anderson, political motivation means that, here and now, IRA actions should not be dwelt on except at republican commemorations when ex-prisoners are congratulated and the dead remembered. At best the political motivation, now that the campaign is over, becomes a springboard for political action of a more conventional type.

"Let us take on this task readily, with determination and with container-loads of energy, following the example of the people down the years who gave their lives in pursuance of this struggle," Anderson said at the Edentubber commemoration for the four IRA members and civilian whose lives were wasted when a bomb exploded prematurely in Co Louth in 1958.

This sort of thinking may be useful as a psychological device to deal with her violent past, years in jail and the death of her friends.

Otherwise, she might suffer the full mental anguish that would normally be associated with such memories. But as a line of argument it won't be accepted by anyone who did not support the IRA campaign. She is speaking a different language from most of the population.

Sinn Féin operates a seemingly unconscious double standard in which the wrongdoing of others is to be remembered and probed, but IRA activity, although it caused pain, sits outside the criminal justice system and truth-recovery process. Anderson, now a member of the policing board, speaks of instances of politically motivated collusion between the security forces and paramilitaries as "crimes against humanity".

Yet IRA actions were never crimes against humanity, because they were inspired by the same sort of political motives she attributes to the police.

The point featured in a recent exchange between Martin McGuinness and Stephen Nolan of the BBC, who has a gift for bluntness.

Nolan asked McGuinness if he had killed anybody. McGuinness hedged and talked about being an IRA leader at a time when people suffered.

"I'm wondering if I am looking at a killer," Nolan persisted. "You can wonder all you like," replied McGuinness.

Asked if, now that he supported law and order, McGuinness would like people to report anything he had done wrong, he replied: "I'm not a criminal. I was never a criminal . . . I'm not asking or advocating that republicans and nationalists should give information on the IRA over the IRA campaign. I can't do that."

This attempt to close the book on the IRA campaign because of its political character, while calling for public inquiries into other acts of violence that sprang from the political conflict, won't wash.

It leaves Sinn Féin looking like hypocrites, having no answers to the hard questions.

liam.clarke@sunday-times.co.uk


June 11, 2007

Article in today's Belfast Telegraph below. Your thoughts, please?

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/sto...sp?story=716410


How GAA escaped from moral Maze

The proposed multi-sports stadium at the site of the Maze prison is causing problems for the GAA. Terry McLaughlin examines the dilemmas it poses for the association....

27 November 2006

The GAA will not hold a province-wide vote of its membership on its decision to back the proposed new national sports stadium on the site of the former Maze Prison.

The decision means that those in the GAA membership opposed to the Maze development because of the deaths of ten republican prisoners while on hunger strike will not be allowed to scupper the project.

The GAA is prepared to take stock of all viewpoints before making a final recommendation to central council in Croke Park regarding the multi-sports stadium concept.

The gauging of opinion, however, will be confined to Ulster and will not involve any other section of the association.

But while that process has already started, sources within the GAA told the Belfast Telegraph that the only criteria for a final decision will be one "based on economic viability and the positive benefits for community progress".

The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) will be relieved to learn that while the GAA is committed to as comprehensive as possible an analysis of grassroots opinion, it will not allow those views to ultimately jeopardise the scheme.

NIO negotiators currently involved in the brokering of a deal to satisfy all of the participating sports bodies has given a commitment, backed at the highest levels of Government, that any newly-elected Stormont Assembly will not be able to dump the present Maze blueprint.

The Belfast Telegraph has learned that the Government, during the latest meeting held at Stormont within the past month, gave a firm commitment that it will not be deflected by business or political demands to accommodate an alternative development to the Maze.

"The only viable option on the table as far as the Government and Minister (David) Hansen is concerned is the Maze," GAA sources confirmed.

"That is our viewpoint from the start of this process."

The GAA is aware of the still high level of opposition by sections of the association to the usage of the former Long Kesh prison where ten IRA Hunger strikers died in 1981.

Last year, before stepping down from office, former Antrim chairman Joe O'Boyle declared that his county would never play at the former prison site.

New chairman John McSparran has adopted a much more conciliatory approach.

And while he has said that he can understand the argument of football supporters who want a Belfast venue, it is inconceivable that Antrim, provided they are given assurances regarding the continued status of Casement Park, would carry out their boycott threat.

The biggest concern, however, for Antrim is the future of Casement Park on the Andersonstown Road.

The Antrim board has genuine fears that despite the millions spent in recent years in the refurbishment of the 36,000 capacity venue it will become a white elephant if the Maze scheme goes ahead.

As part of any future deal to smooth the way forward for the Maze scheme the GAA is, it is understood, is prepared to provide assurances that Casement Park will be used for the hosting of major games.

"We want to concentrate on the positives," a spokesman said.

"Any new stadium should be seen as complimentary to, rather than a direct competitor for Casement Park.

"The rapid expansion of Gaelic games will require additional facilities in the years ahead."

The use of the ground for an Ulster final has not been ruled out.

The findings of a special Ulster council subcommittee on grassroots opinion will be forwarded to Croke Park.

But the Belfast Telegraph has learned that the GAA will not allow the issue to be treated as any form of referendum based around emotional rhetoric.

The Belfast Telegraph has learned that representatives of the Ulster council headed by the president Michael Greenan and secretary Danny Murphy will take the final decision on the Maze before their recommendations are forwarded to the GAA's Central Council.

The 42,000 capacity stadium concept has the full backing of both the British and Irish governments, as well the local political parties, as being able to provide the template for a working reality of a shared future for Northern Ireland through the medium of sport.

The GAA, as the single most important sports element in securing cross-community backing of the project, has also signalled its positive intent.

The message that the GAA is convinced is the correct one to get across is that the economic benefits of expanding the sporting horizons of Northern Ireland to just eight miles outside the city of Belfast has the potential to redraw mindsets as well as maps.


© 2006 Independent News and Media (NI)

P.S. I appreciate this subject has been touched on before in this Section, but it seems to have been some time ago, with events having moved on since