Sports camp cancelled after Orange lodge raises 'concerns' over inclusion of kids from GAA club

LAST UPDATE | 15 hrs ago

A CHILDREN’S SPORTS summer camp scheduled to take place in Co Down has been cancelled after the local Orange lodge raised “significant concerns” over the inclusion of children from a GAA club.

The camp was to be run by the North Down Cricket Club and Cricket Ireland has since said it is “dismayed and disappointed”.

Brian MacNeice, Chair of Cricket Ireland, praised North Down Cricket Club for trying to offer the summer camp and said that both Cricket Ireland and the Northern Cricket Union are making plans to run a similar sports camp at Stormont in Belfast.

Cancelled summer camp

The camp was to be broadly focused on cricket, North Down Cricket Club said, including children from ten local sports and community clubs.

Among them was a small group of children from a local GAA club.

However, Goldsprings of Comber Loyal Orange Lodge stated that residents in the Comber area were concerned about the “proposed or perceived move of the GAA into the local community”.

It said that it supported the promotion of sport and youth engagement, but that local residents had reservations about the GAA’s “cultural and historical affiliations”, saying that the organisation has in the past “celebrated or commemorated individuals associated with paramilitary activity”.

It added that until the GAA takes “meaningful steps” to ensure that it is inclusive and sensitive to the identity of the “Protestant, Unionist, and Loyalist community”, it would be viewed with opposition.

‘Unacceptable intolerance’

First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, said that the developments are “worrying and unacceptable”.

“Children should be allowed to play together at summer camp without facing intolerance,” she said.

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O’Neill stated that political representatives need to send a message and overcome what she called “unacceptable intolerance”.

The cricket club at the centre of the storm said it reflects the “best of our community and our Ulster-British heritage”.

It welcomes people from all walks of life, it said, and the sports summer camp was meant to “give young people from different backgrounds a chance to enjoy cricket, try something new, and simply have fun”.

In the wake of the negative reaction, the spirit of the camp was at the risk of being lost, and the club have decided not to proceed, it stated.

“But let’s be clear: openness is not a threat. Respect is not surrender. And our culture is not so fragile that it can’t be shared.”

Alternative camp

Cricket Ireland has called on “all community leaders to show leadership and actively support” it’s new initiative at Stormont.

It has East Belfast GAA and offered an opportunity to the club to participate in the alternative sports camp which will also include other sports clubs.

“We look forward to further engagement with the GAA, and other governing bodies, for the benefit of all,” said Cricket Ireland.

It noted that participation in multiple sports by young people has been “recognised as having considerable benefits both in sporting terms and mental wellbeing” and that the cancelled “can only be to the detriment of the children concerned”.

“Sport can bring communities together and we must all act in partnership to ensure this is the case,” said Cricket Ireland.

-With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper

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