POLITICAL unionism knows full well what it has to do if it is to reverse the seemingly inexorable drift towards union’s end.
It doesn’t involve smashing Sinn Féin or the Alliance Party. It doesn’t involve ripping out the Irish Sea border. It doesn’t involve getting permission to walk the Garvaghy Road or put the union jack back up on City Hall. Quite simply, it involves persuading a relatively small number of republicans/ nationalists and undecideds that this isn’t such a bad place to live after all.
The Casement Park Euros 2028 project was a perfect opportunity for unionists to make a simple statement of faith in the future. It was an opportunity they not only turned down – it was one that they publicly and joyfully punted into the stand.
So preposterous are the claims about the rising costs of the stadium that they have spawned internet memes. There’s no doubt that Casement is going to be a hugely expensive build, but as the quotes push relentlessly towards the half-billion figure, the weaponised expense debate has become a meaningless charade. In the days since the British government decision to kill off the Casement Euros dream, we have had no sober, professional analysis of the currently envisaged level of spending required, rather we’ve had fantastical and partisan claims designed to inflame the public rather than inform it.
Nevertheless, we agree that Casement is a vastly expensive vision, whether the eventual cost is the brand-new and unlikely figure of £400 million plucked out of the air by the new Labour government or considerably less than that. The benefits for unionism, however, are considerably more than the benefits for the people of West Belfast, or to non-unionists across the islands.
Participation in one of the world’s most glamorous sporting events does not begin and end in the four weeks of 2028 during which the tournament takes place. The build-up will be long and exciting; the sense of anticipation will grow with every qualifying game that passes. The opportunities thrown up by the protracted run-up to the Euros will be many and immense.
And when summer 2028 does roll around, what incredible PR the games at Casement will be not just for the city of Belfast, but much more widely across the North. Young people from all over who know nothing of the years of conflict will see Andersonstown and the city as a whole chock-full of international visitors; Casement and its concourse will be a roiling, colourful sea of football fans from across Europe. And those young people taking part and looking on will see proof that a different future is possible from the one being offered to them at present.
The fly in that ointment, of course, is the word ‘Andersonstown’. Had the Euros 2028 vision involved Windsor Park they’d have the pitch laid before Christmas. But if Casement is the wrong side of the motorway for senior unionists, their enthusiasm for destroying the dream puts them on the wrong side of history.
