Sports camp row: East Belfast GAA children do us proud – no part of NI should be off-limits for them
Suzanne Breen, Belfast Telegraph, July 17th, 2025
Children from a GAA background invited to learn the quintessentially English game of cricket.
You couldn’t come up with a better idea for a cross-community summer camp here. It’s a sport which spread across the world — India, Australia and South Africa — via the British empire.
So it’s bizarre that those harking back to glory days that can’t be recovered, while loudly proclaiming their allegiance to the Union, oppose youngsters from a GAA club being taught cricket.
The bigotry is breathtaking. And, most of all, the petty, narrow-mindedness is self-defeating.
How on earth does this sell the constitutional status quo to those beyond the traditional base and convince them that a Union for all is achievable?
‘The spirit of East Belfast GAA reflects how our city has changed’
The Orange Order should have instantly slapped down the statement from Comber-based Goldsprings lodge about the summer camp. The lodge said that local residents had “raised reservations about the GAA’s cultural and historical affiliations”.
Nationalists the length and breadth of Northern Ireland have reservations about the Orange Order’s cultural and historical affiliations.
Yet they let the loyal orders get on with it on the Twelfth, even if that means they decide it’s best to escape to Donegal or further afield.
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The Goldsprings statement says: “Specifically, there is unease regarding aspects of the (GAA) that have, in the past, celebrated or commemorated individuals associated with paramilitary activity.
“For a shared and peaceful future, such actions are viewed by some as divisive and incompatible with a truly inclusive society.”
Some neck
The Orange Order has some neck. Sunday World last weekend exposed how convicted loyalist bomber Gorman McMullan led part of the Twelfth parade in Belfast. He is also a major suspect in the UVF’s Loughinisland massacre in which six men were shot dead in the Heights Bar as they watched the Republic of Ireland play in the 1994 World Cup.
McMullan was a flag carrier in the UVF Regimental Band from east Belfast on Saturday. In the early days of the Troubles, he was jailed for eight years after being caught red-handed blowing up the Catholic-owned Hillfoot Bar on the edge of the Braniel estate.
I’ve not heard a chirp out of the Orange Order about McMullan’s prominent participation in the Twelfth.
The Comber lodge says that the GAA must take “meaningful steps to ensure it is fully inclusive and sensitive to the history and the Protestant, unionist and loyalist community”.
The Orange Order is an exclusively Protestant organisation. For the Twelfth, Union flags are erected for several months in many mixed and overwhelmingly Catholic areas in Belfast and beyond. Nobody seeks the permission of residents. Nobody is sensitive to their views.
The spirit of East Belfast GAA reflects how our city has changed. It has members from all faiths, cultures and political persuasions.
Its crest reflects its inclusivity. An outline of the iconic symbol of east Belfast — Harland & Wolff’s cranes — sits with a shamrock, a thistle, the Red Hand of Ulster and a sunrise representing a new beginning.
The club’s motto — ‘Together’ — is written in English, Irish (Le Chéile), and Ulster-Scots (Thegither). Its children do this place proud.
No part of Northern Ireland should be off-limits for them.
In a divided society we must tolerate things we don’t like – whether the Twelfth or GAA
Newton Emerson, Irish News, July 17th, 2025
HAS nationalist reaction to this year’s Twelfth been a bit over the top?
I realise this is an easy thing for me to suggest.
Although I do not like the Twelfth, I am not a nationalist, so there is nothing about it that might be seen as setting out to offend me directly.
I am also of an age where the intrusiveness of the Twelfth and of Orangeism overall have dramatically declined throughout my life.
This has given me a very low bar for success: it still feels like a pleasant start to the summer if there is not major public disorder.
Anyone younger will rightly have higher standards, and so probably should I, even though low standards are generally the secret to happiness. Nevertheless, I think it can objectively be said that the Twelfth no longer impinges on almost anyone’s life beyond the level of a minor inconvenience or annoyance.
It has been a decade since the last parade-related street disturbance of any note.
Attempts continue to stir the pot in north Belfast and elsewhere but they are not succeeding, which shows regulation works and peace will hopefully be sustained.
Non violent Disruption is progress
Without violence, the impact of parades boils down to disruption of everyday life: road closures, shop closures, litter, and having to stay out of town centres to avoid the delightful ‘atmosphere’.
In recent years, at least for me, all these nuisances have fallen within what ought to be considered the background noise of a normal society – or as normal a society as ours is ever likely to be.
You might dispute if the motivations behind the parades are normal, but as parades per se they are no more disruptive than any other.
Proportionately, they may be less so: getting stuck in traffic jams no longer feels like a routine summer experience, despite almost 2,000 parades. Litter is a trite complaint when every public event produces mountains of it and it is usually cleaned up within hours.
It is unfortunate that some retail business lose a day’s takings, although this is progress compared to the fortnight-long lockdowns of my youth. A better comparison is the decrepit state of town centres yearround. I avoided Belfast last Saturday because of the Twelfth; I avoid it most other Saturdays because it is filthy and half-derelict.
The Orange Order might be making that slightly worse one day per year but that is the context in which this should be seen.
With so little to complain about parades, the focus has naturally shifted to bonfires.
Without violence, the impact of parades boils down to disruption of everyday life
If the Twelfth is approaching the point where people can reasonably be asked to ignore it, that is an achievement everyone should be able to celebrate around.
These cannot be avoided by people living in the immediate vicinity, who fear for their property and health, despair at the monthslong mess, and hate the anarchy of bonfire night itself. However, few of these people are nationalists.
I live less than 400 metres from what was until recently an enormous, notorious bonfire. It used to keep us awake all night and make the street smell of tyre smoke for days.
But it has been cleaned up and scaled down to such an extent that the only complaint I could make about it this year is that the closing fireworks scared our dog – for one night, unlike the month of canine quivering leading up to Hallowe’en.
Scared dogs aside
Scared dogs aside, the increase in firework displays indicates more ‘normal’ bonfire celebrations.
There were no offensive signs, no tricolour that I noticed (no doubt it appeared at the end) and no election posters. Admittedly, this has been a rare year without a May election.
It is also hard not to notice the site is now tidier, even in July, than the litter-strewn motorway off-slip beside it throughout the year.
Anecdotally, there are similar improving trends across Northern Ireland, but this cannot be judged or confirmed with certainty while bonfires cause enough problems and offence to fill the headlines.
Social media ensures every reckless incident and offensive item will be widely seen. The headline outrages this year were the racist effigies at Moygashel and the asbestos in south Belfast. We should certainly never accept this as normal.
In south Belfast, unionist councillors were making headway before council ineptitude sabotaged their efforts.
But expecting no problems or offence, anywhere or ever, would be setting a standard too high to meet.
Managing a divided society means all of us must tolerate some things we do not like – including Orangemen putting up with the GAA.
If the Twelfth is approaching the point where people can reasonably be asked to ignore it, that is an achievement everyone should be able to celebrate.
