ENOUGH’S enough. And not only is enough enough, enough’s enough of us having to say enough’s enough every couple of months.
There is justified fury in GAA circles and in the Catholic community over the 12-year delay in delivering the promised redevelopment. And we use the word ‘Catholic’ quite deliberately, because when we say enough’s enough we have to be brutally honest about why this bellwether equality issue has been held up for a dozen years. And quite simply the motivation of those still opposing it at this late stage is the raw sectarianism which drove the partition of this island and which today drives the increasingly desperate attempts of the main unionist parties to ward off the certain day when constitutional change finally arrives.
The litany of excuses for opposition to Casement is a familiar one: health and safety; access; size; cost; amenity; nuisance. Some of them may even have had a sliver of authenticity, particularly those articulated by people who live near and around the Andersonstown site.
But one by one they have all been dealt with, one by one the excuses have been stripped away until now the remaining opposition to Casement is laid bare, and it is seen to be animated by exactly the same base sectarianism behind the increasingly shrill and impotent opposition to the very sight of Irish language in public spaces.
50 years ago those shouting loudest about Casement would have been throwing snowballs at Seán Lemass. 30 years ago they would have been four-square behind the thugs stopping Catholics from attending Mass at Harryville. 10 years ago they’d have been supporting the last hold-outs in the Twaddell caravan as the two-year attempt to force a Protestant march past Catholic homes finally came to an embarrassing end.
As with all deep-rooted hatreds, the sectarianism behind the anti-Casement campaign comes with a large dollop of nihilism as a side. The 2024 dream of the 2028 Euros coming to Casement turned out to be just that – a dream. True football fans in the city and beyond were in the end defeated by the mob and will now have to travel to Dublin to watch the glamour games. But that defeat was as nothing compared to the defeat that the naysayers inflicted on their own ‘Wee Country’. Europe and the world saw this place for what it is – a social and political backwater where divisions of the past not only still exist, but are actively fostered. The massive PR and economic benefits would have gone a huge way to endearing the union to the undecideds who will soon decide the future. But no, it was more important that good things not go to the wrong side of the motorway.
Yesterday’s men and women are losing battle after battle – hence the increasing noise and desperation. They must and will lose this battle too.
