OUR Wee Country is split over Casement and a soccer civil war looms.
The Irish Football Association (IFA) is confident the stadium will be ready by summer 2028, should the Ireland/UK bid to host the Euros be successful. IFA Chief Executive Patrick Nelson is unequivocal about the many benefits that Noel ’n’ Alan can expect to reap should France, Germany, Italy, Spain or England be among the first to tread the turf in the state-of-the-art new GAA stadium. “Northern Ireland has hosted international sporting events on a global stage,” he said, “and this exciting collaboration between the Irish Football Association, government partners, Belfast City Council and GAA will welcome the world for a UEFA Euro 2028 festival of football that will unite, inspire and benefit generations to come.”
VISION: How the new Casement will look when finished
Meanwhile, a rebel alliance of supporters’ clubs, politicians, concerned citizens and stakeholders© is holed up in the Belfast Hills ready to descend on the capital singing God Save the King to save Loyal Ulster from the appalling prospect of a massive financial and PR boost to sport in the Pravince.
’Parntly the rebels oppose the idea because the estimated costs have rocketed in the decade or so since the stadium closed. (Let’s be merciful and set aside the fact that the delay was attributable in part to the fact that many of the self-same rebels have spent that decade opposing the development by pretending to share the concerns of some residents living near the stadium.) It seems that many of the objectors have suddenly developed a passion for social services, nurses, schools and orphanages for blind babies, all of which need the money much more than Casement.
The pragmatic wing of the rebel alliance (The Windsor Popular Front) hasn’t completely ruled out the dreaded idea of some of the world’s top players coming to Belfast – their manifesto argues that Casement can only be part of the Euros bid if the GAA significantly increases the £15 million contribution to the cost it originally committed to all those years ago before just about everyone involved except them did everything in their power to get it stopped.
Meanwhile, the idea of soccer being played in a stadium that is not built for soccer is what has motivated the purists who have aligned themselves to the cause. ‘Football Games for Football Stadia’ reads the text on their flag of war. Ideally, they would like to see Parc de Windsor host the Euro matches here, but since that venuelet has the capacity of the Lisnagarvey hockey ground, there’s as much chance of the CBS all-weather pitch getting the nod.
The truth is, of course, that these objections are a sham. Forget the bogus worries about cost, contributions, stadia and whativver ye’re havin’ yerself, the fact is that the image of the world’s top players playing at a state-of-the-art venue in Catholic West Belfast being beamed across the globe while the Green and White Army looks on sullenly from across the M1 is simply too appalling a vista for some to contemplate.
The Giro d’Italia came to the North for two days in 2014, despite the fact that the Newtownards Road is not the Via del Corso and Ballymena isn’t Bologna. And guess what? The only part of this city not included in the route was West Belfast.
It was a huge financial and PR success, a success which would not only be replicated but magnified many times should one of the world’s most glamorous sporting events come to Belfast. The IFA knows full well the shot-in-the-arm that such a development would be to the game here, although just as somebody once remarked that he’d rather eat grass than be in the single market, the rebel alliance would turn down the côte de boeuf, the risotto alla Milanese and the gambas al ajillo in favour of the usual pastie supper and a milkman’s orange.
Arlene has got her just rewards
AS part of its celebrations to mark 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, Queen’s University this week presented former DUP leader Arlene Foster with a ‘Chancellor's Medal for Achievement in Public Service and Civic Leadership’.
The award acknowledges Arlene’s place in history as the first female First Minister of This Here Pravince, says Queen’s in the blurb for its GFA conference this week, which seems to Squinter to be akin to presenting a lottery winner with an award for services to good fortune. After all, the best move she ever made politically was to oppose the very Agreement that propelled her into the history books by leaving the under-pressure UUP and buying a ticket to Jurassic Park – Operations Manager Dr Ian Paisley.
Other honorees have rather been overshadowed by the singular focus on Snarleen Arlene’s medal, so in order that other worthies can enjoy their public place in the sun, herewith the full list of Queen’s awards...
Boris Johnson: The Charles and Camilla Award for Services to the Family Unit and Marital Probity.
Jim Allister: The Royal Victoria Hospital Award for Services to Blood Pressure Awareness.
Sammy Wilson: The Taste of Ulster Award for Services to Sausages, Chippies and 99s.
Suella Braverman: The Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown Award for Racial Harmony, Public Speaking and Community Relations.
The BBC: The Humanitarian Society Award for Services to Distressed and Unemployed Tories.
Leo Varadkar: The Mary Lou McDonald Award for Services to Sinn Féin.
Doug Beattie: The Elon Musk Award for Outstanding Effort in Social Media Outreach.
Tony Blair: The Israel Tourist Board Award for Services to Peace in the Middle East.
Jeffrey Donaldson: The Jamie Bryson Order of the Blue Bin for Courage in Leadership.
Keir Starmer: The Boris Johnson Award for Outstanding Political Ethics and Principles.
Stephen Nolan: The Swami Vivekinanda Award for Radio Services to Mindfulness, Positivity and Inner Peace.
GB News: The Beano/Dandy/Topper Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.
Ian Paisley: The Alan Whicker Award for Travel and Hospitality.
Warning: One letter will not be enough
EXTRAORDINARY the depth of emotion and anger sparked by the trans debate, particularly in the wake of the rally called by ‘Posie Parker’ at the Big Fish on Sunday after which opposing sides were at daggers-drawn on social media.
Squinter’s aware that many people – including family and friends of his – rightly or wrongly are extremely exercised about the issue of trans people in public spaces, although it’s interesting that they’ve become infuriated by it at exactly the same time as the right-wing media in Ireland and Britain were busy telling people to... become infuriated by it. And at the same time as the deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party let slip that in the absence of Jeremy Corbyn the Tories are going to make ‘culture wars’ the central plank of their next election campaign, with a particular emphasis on trans people.
SISTERS: ‘Posie Parker’ introduces Jolene Bunting at the rally
Leaving aside the pros and cons of the argument, it’s objectively the truth that Parker’s events are a magnet for horrible people. Fascists, Holocaust-deniers, racists and haters of all sorts are piggybacking on populist concern in an effort to introduce their extreme and often violent ideologies to an audience that wouldn’t normally be welcoming or even receptive.
Which is why we’ve been seeing the rather unedifying spectacle of people with otherwise progressive politics desperately trying to explain that the Big Fish event was open to all and that “we can’t help it if nasty people turn up”. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but the fact is that the appearance of Britain First-types at the Parker rallies is as predictable as the appearance of blue bags at an Orange parade. And if you turn up at a rally where you know for a hard fact you’re going to be rubbing shoulders with people who later that evening are going to put masks on and picket migrant centres or spout raw hatred from anonymous online accounts with union jacks and Israel flags, well... that’s your decision and owning it would be rather more honest than ‘nothing-to-do-with-me-guv’ denial.
And there’s a reason that Parker is the darling of hard-right, secretly-funded ‘pro-family’ lobby groups in the US and UK – and it’s not that they share her confessed concern for women and girls. It’s that they see trans people as a wedge issue to divide the LGBTQ community. Indeed, groups have already sprung up with the Q for queer and T for trans letters dropped from their acronyms. But if the L for lesbian, G for gay and B for bi people who have turned against their former trans brothers and sisters think that their letters aren’t going to be next on the target list, they haven’t bothered to find out what ‘pro-family’ means.
Charlie's not my darling...
A YOUGOV poll has found that more than half of Brits couldn’t care less about the upcoming coronation of King Charles (above), even though the right-wing media, including the Tory-controlled BBC, would have us believe that it’s the most exciting thing to happen in London since Jim Davidson’s comeback concert in 2003.
Squinter has no idea why it is that the Jo Soaps of Birmingham, Glasgow and Merthyr Tydfil are so indifferent towards Charlie. Fair enough, he was regularly having it off with Camilla while Princess Diana was crying in the next room. But, look, Squinter has it on good authority that they locked the door and did their best to keep the noise down and didn’t leave any underwear lying about.
Yes, Charles has been accepting briefcases stuffed with cash from Qatari politicians, but his minions briefed the media that he would no longer be personally accepting cash donations from Arab oligarchs and, of course, it is to his credit that he will no longer be dirtying his hands with oligarch dosh and will have a go-between dirty his hands instead.
And true, Prince Harry said Camilla was “dangerous” and a “villain” who had “left bodies in the street” in her desperation to manipulate the public image of her as the woman who did the dirty with Charles on the Queen of Hearts. But sure what’s a bit of adultery at the expense of a mentally fragile woman with two young sons if you can’t act the Wicked Stepmother with one of the princes 25 years down the line?
