Sport and community integration in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article addresses the role of sport in Northern Ireland, a country that, despite experiencing 20 years of relative peace, remains deeply divided along ethno-sectarian lines. It locates this analysis amid publication by the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland's devolved Assembly of its draft proposals to tackle community divisions in the country. The Programme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration consultation (2010) document was the local government's attempt to commence dialogue around how decades of division in Northern Ireland could be meaningfully addressed. However, one of its principle failings has been its reluctance to build upon well-established programmes, many of them using sport as a tool to promote social and community cohesion, which have existed in the country for some time. Moreover, these community-based initiatives are typically at their most potent within the so-called hard-to-reach communities where relationships between the minority Catholic and the majority Protestant populations present particularly challenging concerns. Of course, sport cannot offer all the answers and an overselling of its potential in Northern Ireland, specifically when addressing deeply ingrained levels of mistrust in the country, is contained in a detailed critique in this paper.

Notes

^1. Submission to special issue of Sport in Society (Sport and Communities) Hassan, D. and Brown, S. (2014).

^2. See, for example, Daily Mail, April 4, 2011, Guardian, April 6, 2011 and www.bbc.co.uk/ni (April 4–9, 2011).

^3. In November 2001, the GAA repealed Rule 21 from its constitution, a ruling that up until this point had prevented members of the British security forces in Northern Ireland from joining the GAA. While the organization had received a great deal of criticism around the issue, it was able to point to a series of examples in Northern Ireland in which it appeared the police and British Army had been far from objective in its dealings with the nationalist community and the GAA in particular.

^4. See, for example, http://www.tyronegaa.ie/2011/04/gaa-statement-on-ronan-kerr-murder/ (accessed April 03 2011).

^5. PEACE III EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, 2007–2013, Northern Ireland and the Border Region of Ireland Operational Programme, SEUPB 2007.