You wouldn’t let cows out on it.
Ragwort is a highly poisonous plant and most farmers take preventative measures to ensure it doesn’t grow in their fields. Cattle, cows, horses, pigs and chickens are extremely sensitive to ragwort. Indeed, one of the few animals that can tolerate the wild, yellow plant are indeed sheep.
Antrim GAA shared a few pictures of the desolate state their county grounds have fallen in recent times on Tuesday night, and the pictures go to show that the only living thing Casement Park is fit for nowadays, is indeed a herd of sheep.
And you’d hardly be surprised if they turned up their noses at this for a grazing ground.
It only gets worse. How sickening is it to see a quality set of headlights, a stand that’s more than fit for purpose, a modern looking scoreboard and a decent press-box all so run-down and neglected when only a small level of maintenance efforts would have kept everything ticking over?
How hard could it possibly have been to just control the grounds up until the time the required finance was raised? How hard would it have been for the GAA to show some respect to a county like Antrim rather than treat it with this out of sight and out of mind negligence?
Weeds, dreary walls, hopelessness.
The photos were taken by ‘Forgotten Ulster.’
Forgotten indeed but the first thing you’d wonder why it’s come so far. The problems all started when Antrim’s plans for the Casement Park redevelopment were contested by locals, who argued that the projected increase in the stadium’s capacity would block the passage of light into their homes.
It was then closed before planning permission was granted, and seemingly ignored.
The Antrim Twitter account hit out at the mess last night.
“How many children will miss out playing Casement Park? We deserve a county ground. It would be nice to sort out and move forward #GAA”
How many children will miss out playing @CasementPark ?
We deserve a county ground. #gaa
It would be nice to sort out and move forward.#LeftBehind pic.twitter.com/RaNrrSpHnW— Antrim GAA (@AontroimGAA) August 21, 2018
Casement Park was once a hallowed turf. The greats played there.
These were the plans for its redevelopment, projected for 2020 back in 2016.
Something must be done and fast.
