Casement Park debacle
British government pulls plug on stadium redevelopment
14 October 2024
Derelict: Casement Park
The recent announcement by the British government that it would not be providing any additional funding for the redevelopment of the Casement Park GAA stadium in west Belfast is a major blow for the Stormont Executive and for Sinn Fein in particular.
The expectation was that the building of a high-grade multi-sports stadium at Casement Park would allow Belfast to be one of the host cities for the finals of the Euro 2028 soccer tournament. This linked into an Executive plan which has the hosting of prestigious sporting events as one of the key drivers of economic growth. However, for Sinn Fein the Casement Park project had a significance well beyond the economy. It was bound up with a broader narrative around the advance of Irish nationalism and the achievement of cultural equality. The assumption is that a new stadium at Casement Park would be one of the markers on the road to an inevitable united Ireland. This has now been brought to a shuddering halt by the announcement on financing from the British government.
Saga
The latest debacle around Casement Park is just the latest in a long line of problems that have beset the project since it was first proposed over ten years ago. At the outset, the GAA wanted to build a 38,000-capacity stadium, but planning approval was overturned in 2014 after a legal challenge from local residents. It was not until the summer of 2021 that a revised plan for a 34,500-capacity stadium was given formal approval. The overambitious nature of these plans was one of the reasons for delay. In the opinion of many experts the site is not suitable for a stadium of that size. Even if it were, such a stadium would only be utilised to its full potential on a handful of occasions each season. Another reason for delay was the escalating costs, with projections rising from £77.5m to more than £400m. This latter figure is an estimate for a stadium fit to host an international tournament, and while that is now redundant, the cost of a scaled back GAA only stadium would still cost more than £200m. To date, only a fraction of that money is available, a long-standing commitment of £62.5m from the Stormont executive, £15m from the GAA, and approximately £43m from the Irish government. That leaves a shortfall of around £100m that is unlikely to be made up by Stormont or the British Treasury. With the SoS stating that Stormont must keep within its means, the redevelopment of Casement Park is unlikely to commence anytime soon if at all.
Maze / Long Kesh site
The origins of the Casement Park debacle can be traced back even further - to almost twenty years ago and the failed attempt to develop the former Maze / Long Kesh prison site. The ambition was to create a space that would be a showcase for economic growth and political stability in a post conflict Northern Ireland. In January 2006 the Maze Development Corporation unveiled its plan for the site. The centrepiece of this was a 42,500-seater multi-sports stadium that would be shared by Ulster Rugby, the GAA and the Irish Football Association. The plan also included a “conflict transformation centre” with a section of one of the H-Blocks to be preserved as part of this. The demolition of the prison began in October 2006. However, the plans for the site soon ran into opposition from within the DUP. In June, DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds claimed that “whatever spin is deployed, the preservation of the H-Blocks - including the hospital wing - would become a shrine to the terrorists”. He said it was “quite clear now the price for Sinn Fein support for the Maze project, including the stadium is a shrine to IRA terrorism”. This was followed by an attempt by unionist politicians to de-list Maze buildings which potentially would have erased any trace of the former prison. This move was blocked by Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuiness. Plans for a sports stadium were cancelled in January 2009 by DUP sports minister Gregory Campbell citing a lack of political consensus. As an alternative he began to pursue upgrades of the existing Football, Rugby and GAA stadia. This is the point where the Casement Park saga commences.
Despite losing the focal point of a sports stadium, plans for the re-development of the Maze / Long Kesh site continued to be advanced. A proposal for commercial and industrial use of the site which also included an arena for agricultural shows and a “peace centre”, received planning permission in April 2013. This plan envisaged a £100 million investment before 2016, which would see the construction of a £25 million Peace Building and Conflict Transformation Centre. Its longer-term objectives were built on projections that £300 million in public and private sector funds would be invested over the next decade or so, providing 5,000 permanent jobs and 2,000 construction jobs.
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness jointly praised plans for the redevelopment of the site claiming it would have a transformative effect. Robinson strongly criticised unionist opponents of the peace-building centre who feared a “shrine to terrorism”: “I rather suspect the people who are making the noise today will be very silent when they see the fantastic outcome that we will have in a few years’ time.” However, faced with opposition within the DUP, he was soon in retreat. In August 2013, Robinson stalled the Maze plans. In his infamous “Letter from America” (where he was on holiday) he stated that there would not be any progress without a change of attitude by Sinn Fein towards IRA violence. This was effectively a demand on Irish Republicans, and Irish nationalism more broadly, to accept the Unionist/British view of the Troubles as the consequence of a criminal conspiracy rather than arising from repression and inequality. In retrospect the withdrawal of support for the Maze redevelopment plan marked the beginning of the end of Robinson’s leadership and also foreshadowed the eventual collapse of the Stormont Executive under his successor
However, discussion around the Maze / Long Kesh has continued. In May 2019 Terence Brannigan, then chairman of the Development Corporation, said that plans for a peace centre at the site had been “set aside” – partly because of lapsed EU funding and planning permission. He lent some credence to the Unionist position by claiming that the controversy over a ‘peace centre’ had been “recognised as a potential barrier” to the site’s development. Recently it was announced that First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly would meet the board of the development corporation tasked with transforming the Maze/Long Kesh site to discuss a way forward. Despite the passage of time the position of unionists has not changed. This latest announcement saw the old rhetoric about a “shrine to terrorism” being rolled out again, most notably by the DUP education minister Paul Givan. Around the same time as he was sounding off over the Maze, Givan held a meeting with the Loyalist Communities Council, a group representing the UDA, UVF and RHC, to discuss its opposition to the building of an Irish language school in east Belfast. Another DUP minister, Gordon Lyons, met the same group to discuss issues around social deprivation.
Symbolism
The double debacle of Casement Park and the Maze site is yet another example of the incompetence of the Stormont Executive. More fundamentally it reveals a political system which is reliant on the financial support of the British state and on the political support of Unionism for its existence. The proposition that these arrangements represent a transition towards a united Ireland is risible. Despite being the largest party in the Assembly and occupying the office of First Minister, Sinn Fein cannot even advance its minimal programme of “cultural” equality in which the redevelopment of Casement Park and the Maze site have acquired totemic status. What do empty fields and a crumbling derelict stadium symbolise other than failure?