Five reasons for hating Casement Park

Casement Park, to the GAA, is a stadium. To the DUP and TUV, it is a looming cultural megastructure, a sort of Celtic Death Star capable of firing beams of Gaelic at unsuspecting suburbs. Here are five things they particularly hate about it:

1. Its existence in Belfast

If Casement Park were located somewhere safely distant — say, in Connemara, or preferably underwater — it would be much less troubling. But its presence in Belfast suggests, alarmingly, that nationalists also live in Belfast. This is regarded as an unfortunate development.

2. The name itself

Roger Casement was a nationalist, which already places him beyond the pale. The fact that the stadium is named after him means every weather forecast mentioning “rain over Casement Park” sounds like a political statement. Even drizzle becomes subversive.

3. The funding arrangement

Public money going toward a GAA stadium is seen as scandalous, whereas public money going toward anything else is merely governance. The idea that taxpayers might fund a venue where people shout in Irish and eat chips without constitutional clarity is deeply unsettling.

4. The sheer size of it

A large stadium implies large crowds. Large crowds imply confidence. Confidence implies permanence. And permanence implies that this whole Irish culture thing isn’t just a phase that will pass once everyone calms down and listens to the Twelfth bands.

5. The terrifying normality of it all

This may be the most disturbing aspect. Casement Park isn’t a rebel training camp. It’s a sports ground. Families go there. Children eat ice cream. People cheer. It looks, in other words, completely ordinary. Which makes it harder to portray as the end of civilisation.

Ultimately, Casement Park represents something intolerable: people enjoying themselves in ways not centrally approved by unionist grievance committees. And that, more than concrete or steel, is what really keeps them awake at night.