‘Even putting GAA and east Belfast together in the same sentence - what it spoke to me was a future of hope and change’

Against the setting sun of an August evening, Keir Herink runs on to a pitch to join his GAA clubmates while a police rugby team train at the opposite end.

The medical student has passed through security barriers at the entrance to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Athletic Association grounds in leafy south Belfast, where a plaque commemorates members “killed in the execution of their duty”.

Schoolgirl camogie and junior soccer players throng the vast Newforge sports facility by 8pm when training begins for the East Belfast GAA’s first team ahead of a championship game this weekend.

Herink, who speaks with a soft English accent, is studying at University College Dublin (UCD) and didn’t take up the sport until two years ago when he responded to a tweet seeking recruits to a new club in the east of the city – an area where many unionist strongholds remain but is also home to younger residents from different traditions due in part to cheaper house prices.

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The club’s founders were inundated with responses, including many from Protestant backgrounds who had never played. Within months of the club’s formation, a pipe bomb was planted in a bin at a council pitch where the fledgling team was practising. Another device was placed under a member’s car.

I went to an integrated school so I find some of the nasty comments on social media about the club really difficult to understand, especially when you see all the good stuff it’s doing

Players huddled in trees as police checked their vehicles.

“You look back and think, did that actually happen? I tell people down in Dublin about the opposition from some members of the public and they can’t get their heads around it,” says Herink, club player of the year for its first season.

“For them, it’s just a sport.

“I was six years old when we moved over to Northern Ireland as mum is from here. I went to an integrated school so I find some of the nasty comments on social media about the club really difficult to understand, especially when you see all the good stuff it’s doing.

[ Star turns: The brilliant Belfast boys who defied the sectarian tide ]

“But it’s clear the opposition is among a minority of people, and on social media a lot of it is anonymous.”

East Belfast GAA now has more than 650 members on its books – including 200 children – and is among the biggest clubs in Ulster.

The club had no permanent base to train, and it emerged last month that Belfast City Council had earmarked a disused pitch in an east Belfast park for development as a GAA facility.

Fresh white markings were painted at Victoria Park – though the club was never made aware of the move.

The development sparked a backlash on social media by loyalists, and work was “halted” at the site by council chiefs “pending further engagement”.

By Wednesday lunchtime, the Victoria Park pitch markings had disappeared on overgrown grass where a lone jogger was running laps.

For Dave McGreevy, the East Belfast GAA founder who posted the single tweet on a Sunday morning in lockdown asking people about their interest, the fallout from the park controversy is something the club wants to distance itself from.

“We didn’t approach the council for a pitch, no club can do that,” he insists.

“I’m assuming they carried out an appraisal of their facilities, there’s pitches down there that haven’t been used in over three years so they thought they could put a GAA pitch there.

“But even if we had that pitch it still wouldn’t cover everything. We have 12 different adult teams that train twice a week and then have one match a week.

“That’s 36 different sessions you have across the week and that’s just the adults. For the kids’ section, they train and then they have matches that need to be hosted.”

Dressed in a black polo shirt with the club crest - the red hand of Ulster, a shamrock and thistle, as well as the Harland & Wolff cranes to symbolise its cross-community ethos – McGreevy is coaching from the sidelines at Newforge.

His focus is on building relationships through sport – and winning games.

“We’re going in the right direction,” he says.

The club motto, written in English, Irish and Ulster Scots, is “together”.

“If anyone was to come and watch our training, there’s plenty of guys and women wearing Northern Ireland soccer tops.

“It’s fantastic to see what it’s become. There’s all these friendships now - there’s even a couple of engagements.

“I remember the first night up training with the women. We partnered people up with someone who had played and someone who hadn’t. I showed them the basics but I walked about and let them talk; there was a good feeling about the place where people were making friends and that’s just continued.”

A Co Down man who played for London for seven years, he and co-founder Richard Maguire are both married to women from east Belfast.

“I would say the majority of people support this club,” adds McGreevy.

“But there are vulnerable people who read this provocative stuff online and that’s what gets them worked up.

“The pipe bombs were viable devices.

“Someone was coming up and putting glass all over the pitches that our kids were using. There was spray-painted crosshair targets on the walls.

“The groundskeeper said it was disgraceful and told us we were more than welcome. Different soccer clubs were also coming over to us telling us how welcome we were.”

As the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement approaches and Stormont remains deadlocked, is there a future for a club like East Belfast on home turf?

Independent unionist Richard Garland believes there is – despite being targeted online by loyalists after attending his first club hurling match last month.

In what he describes as “sinister” threats, one post urges people to report his movements to loyalists and brands him a “traitor”.

I do have issues with the GAA but I do see there is benefit of kids getting playing sport. I really enjoyed the game. All I could find was a team who was genuinely trying to be cross-community

Mr Garland made a statement to the PSNI on Thursday about the abuse.

“I don’t know who is attacking me so I have to take precautions. The post is still up in a group with 8,500 people.

“I do think it’s a small minority, as I’ve had an overwhelmingly positive reaction since expressing my support for East Belfast GAA.

“But that type of rhetoric is dangerous, particularly in unionism. My dad (former Ulster Unionist member Roy Garland) was victimised for speaking to Sinn Féin in the early 1990s. We had a big sign put up at the end of our street calling him a traitor.”

The club invited Garland to attend a game after he criticised the GAA.

“I think outreach is important and now is a bad time in Northern Ireland; I feel there’s been a lot of sectarianism over the last couple of months so I accepted the chair’s offer and went over.

“It’s not adults who are involved in this club, it’s kids as well. You’re giving them something to do.

“I do have issues with the GAA but I do see there is benefit of kids getting playing sport. I really enjoyed the game. All I could find was a team who was genuinely trying to be cross-community.

“I feel there is an onus on us to support a club that’s showing leadership.

“We’ve got segregation in our education systems, segregation in our housing… with all that in mind why do we have segregation in sport?”

Irish language activist Linda Ervine, sister-in-law of the late Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader David Ervine, was among those who publicly thanked Garland, saying: “Continue to break down barriers Richard, it’s our only hope for a better future.”

Raised in east Belfast – she describes her mother’s family as unionist but says her own views are “left wing” – Ervine is honorary president of the GAA club.

She admits she had “no connection” to Gaelic games.

“The first time I ever saw a game was when I was invited down by the GAA to watch a game at Croke Park. I had no interest in sport and went to be polite – I nearly thought I’d have to bring a book. It was hurling and oh my god it was amazing, it was just one of the most exciting things I’d ever watched.

“What struck me on the day were the crowds and the great camaraderie. The fans were all mixed in with one another – not like a football match.

“So when I saw the tweet David put out that Sunday morning in lockdown, it resonated with me because it made me think about the work I’ve been doing with the Irish language for so long.

“The fact there was going to be people playing GAA in east Belfast and even putting GAA and east Belfast together in the same sentence; what it spoke to me was a future of hope and change; of a new Northern Ireland and moving away from the past.

“I sent them a private message wishing them good luck and they asked me to be part of it.”

Last September, Ervine was left reeling after a social media hate campaign prevented an Irish-language nursery opening on the site of an east Belfast school.

She had campaigned for Naíscoil na Seolta, which was due to open to 16 children at Braniel Primary School, the first of its kind for that part of the city.

Its principal said she was “saddened and sickened” by what happened, adding it was due to the actions of “those who are not of our school community”.

“I am in despair about how we move Northern Ireland forward,” Diane Dawson wrote in a statement to parents.

If you’d told me a few years ago that a someone like me from a Border village would be training in police grounds and lifting a cup with East Belfast on it, I would never have believed it

Ervine says the same minority are using social media to block progress for the GAA club.

“Overall there was a lot of positivity in Braniel but there was a small number of people who claimed to be speaking on behalf of residents, when they weren’t from the area.

“There are those who are still living in the 1980s and they shout very loud; they have a platform on places like social media but the rest of us keep going.

“Sometimes these people get too much of a platform. When we had the trouble in Braniel, my son said to me, if you didn’t have social media you wouldn’t know anything about this.”

SDLP councillor Séamas de Faoite has supported the club since its inception and criticised those opposed to a pitch in the area.

“That’s not to say we shouldn’t have engagement between people who are using the council’s facilities and those who live nearby,” he added.

“The good thing about the club is that it wasn’t set up for any sort of political reason or because of a culture war; it’s because they love the sport.”

As dusk falls, East Belfast captain Ronan Meehan stares across the Newforge back pitch at his team-mates laughing together.

“There’s a group of lads who never knew each other, some of them have played all their lives. Others have never kicked a ball. They’re friends for life.”

Growing up in the Co Fermanagh village of Belcoo, just a few minutes’ walk from neighbouring Blacklion in Co Cavan, the financier is passionate about the sport.

“I played my whole life and travelled up and down to Fermanagh to train in a two-hour round trip.

“If you’d told me a few years ago that a someone like me from a Border village would be training in police grounds and lifting a cup with East Belfast on it, I would never have believed it.

“But it shows how great sport is in bringing people together. Long may it continue.”