PETITION TO QUEEN:RESIDENTS LIVING next to Croke Park have written to the Queen ahead of her visit, asking her to intervene in a long-running dispute over the GAA's plans to redevelop a local community and handball centre.
The letter, addressed to “Her Majesty”, notes she would be visiting the community shortly, and it offers a short history of the nationalist history of the association. The GAA, it notes, was set up “with the goal of energising local communities and helping the fight against landlordism at a time when convictions were commonplace”.
It then refers the Queen to a solicitor’s letter on behalf of Croke Park to the secretary of the Irish Handball Centre to immediately vacate the premises.
The letter states: “…as an association up until recently, the GAA would have been unlikely to have extended to a member of the British Royal family a warm welcome on visiting their headquarters in Croke Park. However, in these changing times in the relationship between our peoples we now believe that your majesty is regarded with deep affection by many in GAA headquarters, unlike their attitude to our local community.”
The handball centre on St Joseph’s Avenue, Dublin 3, has been located there since 1970. Croke Park lodged a planning application with Dublin City Council to demolish and replace the existing three-storey handball sports facility and other works last year. However the application was declared invalid.
Chairman of local committees Eamon O’Brien said he never thought he would see the day where the neighbours of Croke Park would be asking the Queen to fight their corner.