Why is there suddenly a lot of talk about the use of the Long Kesh H-block site? Wasn’t that knocked on the head when, fearing he’d lose votes to the TUV, the UUP and the Alliance Party, Peter Robinson went to America and from that safe distance told his government partners and other Stormont politicians that he was backing out of the deal to develop the Long Kesh site. There was a danger, Peter said, that it might become a shrine to terrorism, so deal’s off.
That was 11 years ago exactly and Talkback had punters ringing in with all sorts of daft ideas.
But why is the use of the Long Kesh site being raised right now? Well, maybe because it’s been 11 years since the DUP thought that the Long Kesh plan might make them look like fenian-lovers and decided that was something they couldn’t risk. Or it could be because Emma Little Pengelly drove past Long Kesh one day and said “Crikey, we could do a co-operative thing with that place.” Or maybe because Edwin Poots told them he’d had a dream in which a shadowy figure had told him “O Edwin, get thee to thy party and get them to remove the finger and impress all DUP lovers with how imaginative and creative the DUP is. And do it now, O Edwin.”
Or maybe because if you’re talking about Long Kesh you’re not talking about Casement Park. Remember it? Remember the British SoS saying not to worry, he’d guarantee the Casement stadium was built? But will it be in time for the 2028 Euros? Not if politicians and people get distracted with talk about how best to develop Long Kesh. Because you can’t focus on Long Kesh and on Casement Park at the same time. It’s called distraction. Besides, the West Belfast fenians will almost certainly be miffed when Casement isn’t developed in time for Euro 2028, which naturally will delight all unionists who enjoy watching fenians being betrayed.
And now here’s Long Kesh. Yippee! Let’s get everyone talking about it, and we can once again back out of an agreement , and leave the fenians doubly miffed.
Here, boys- if we keep going like this we could attract back the odd half-witted unionist voter.
The fenian half of the chuckle brothers made a big mistake when he agreed to support the translocation of the King’s Hall before any quid pro quo. On top of the Presbyterian Mutual fiasco.
I can’t believe how cynical you are Jude. For your hypothesis to be correct we would have to believe that the DUP enjoy seeing Fenians disappointed and they……oh dear.