NIO Queen photo row: Her image displayed in GAA’s Croke Park, says broadcaster

Broadcaster and GAA fan Frank Mitchell was speaking on his radio show on Wednesday morning after the News Letter revealed that all photographs of the Queen had been removed from the walls of the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) in Belfast.

Mr Mitchell also pondered on whether a photograph of the Queen on the walls of his own workplace should be removed.

“There is a portrait of myself and the Queen in my workplace, where I work, because I met the Queen and I showed her around my work,” he told listeners. “And a photograph of that is among many other photographs that depicts the history of us working in TV here. And I am just wondering if deep down anyone who ever comes to the building; anyone who ever walks through; anyone who’s ever there as a visitor; would they feel offended by her presence?”

He mused on whether he should now be drawing the photograph to the attention of management.

“It just seems crazy in many ways, doesn’t it?” he asked, then contrasting the situation at the NIO with that of the top GAA stadium on the island, Croke Park in Dublin.

“I am painting a picture in my head of standing looking at the Queen on the wall in Croke Park. You tend to think of Croke Park as a great example of everything that is good about Ireland. And she is there in Croke Park but she is not in Stormont House.”

It is understood he was referring to a photograph at Croke Park which records The Queen’s visit to the grounds during a landmark trip to Dublin in 2011. The visit was highly symbolic due to bloody events in Dublin in November 1920.

British security forces shot dead 14 people at a GAA match between Dublin and Tipperary on the grounds. It became known in Ireland as the original Bloody Sunday.

Earlier the same day, IRA assassination squads, under the control of the organisation’s leader Michael Collins, knocked on doors around Dublin and shot dead 14 people, including 12 men considered by Collins to be the backbone of the British intelligence system in the city.

The killings came during Ireland’s War of Independence. Part of the Croke Park grounds was built with rubble from O’Connell Street in Dublin, which was destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising.

The Irish and Ulster branches of the GAA were invited to comment.