Support for moving old IRA gates as part of funding bid

Unionist councillors had raised concerns about the issue earlier this year, during a debate over a bid for funding to create a new community facility at the McAllister & McVeigh Memorial Park in Glenariff, east Antrim.

The park is used by a GAA club, and the reference to McAllister and McVeigh (who died in the 1920s) had played part of a bitter wrangle among councillors about whether cash should be provided for the project.

On the website of Oisin Glenariffe CLG last week – the gaelic club which uses the park – a message appeared saying that a members’ meeting would decide whether or not “to remove the club gates from the entrance in order to advance [the] funding application”.

The meeting was scheduled for Thursday, and last night SDLP councillor Margaret Anne McKillop (from Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council) said that she understands the club voted to relocate the gates to somewhere else in the field, essentially making them less visible – but that it will depend on the provision of funding.

Speaking in support of the idea of a new community centre at the site, she said: “The SDLP have always supported the community of Glenariff in their endeavours for this much-needed facility.

“The council has a responsibility to provide community facilities, and this is an area in which the lack of such services is obvious.”

In May this year the council met to discuss the project (which was largely being driven by the Friends of Glenariffe group).

At that meeting, DUP councillor Sam Cole had said: “Identifying with one section of the community, that’s naked sectarianism. You tell me what us Protestants feel going through those gates with two IRA men on them.”

After that May meeting, a decision was taken by the majority nationlist/republican council to go ahead with the six-figure funding package, despite objections.

Unionist councillors then demanded the council “call in” this decision – meaning, essentially, that they seek a legal opinion on it.

DUP councillor Paul Clarke – who also understands that a decision has now been taken to move the gates – said he expects councillors to meet tonight to discuss this legal opinion.

However, he stressed that the names on the gates are just one part of his party’s objections to the project.

He said the very fact the park is named after the two IRA men is a problem in itself, and that he and his colleagues have “several concerns” about the entire process behind the awarding of the funding for the project.