Hallion; noun, adjective.
Native of West Belfast; spirited, cheeky, without shame, tenacious, resilient.
WHEN I heard the news that the British government wouldn’t support the building of Casement Park in time for the Euros, I felt a familiar twinge in my gut, one that’s been pinging off and on for as long as I can remember – although only in the last while have I been able to articulate what it was.
And that’s what happens when oppression/classism/racism/sectarianism is normalised, you feel the twinge so often it becomes part of who you are, like the feeling of a tickle in your nose just before you sneeze.
Being Westies, natives of West Belfast, most of us will have felt this twinge; well, certainly any of us over a certain age... children of the Troubles. It is my and my twingey gut’s belief that the decision to not support the building of Casement Park is mostly based on sectarianism/classism, it is still in the psyche of the establishment that the West Belfast community is not worthy, an enclave of hallions. What was it they said about us? That they should build a wall around us to keep us all in.
I haven’t a sporty bone in my body, not one. Every Sports Day in school I would be found in the Drama Room rehearsing, I ran out of excuses to miss PE. I rarely watch sport and when Casement is built I'll rarely be in it. But that doesn’t matter. I understand growth, development, opportunity and mostly worth and value – the value you place on a community by investing in them and their facilities.
I have no doubt Casement Park will be built – but it will be the West Belfast community who drive it and who will do all the heavy lifting, because that’s what the legacy of oppression gives us – resilience, tenacity, cheek, stubbornness, drive, spirit…
The spirit of hallions.
