By Niall McCoy

IN December 2012, the North was facing one of the more volatile post-Good Friday Agreement periods as protests were held against the decision to limit the amount of days the Union Jack was to be flown at Belfast City Hall.

There were disturbances throughout December and January with death threats issues to councillors, petrol bombs thrown at police and, in a striking visual image, City Hall was attacked as it was decided that the flag would no longer be flown every day.

As the world’s news outlets reported on more division, communities elsewhere were preaching unity – and something special was happening at Fort Hill Integrated College in Lisburn, as teacher Stephen McCormick explains.

“During my second year in Fort Hill I discussed Gaelic football with the Head of PE and the possibility of starting a Gaelic football club after school,” he said.

“We knew the demographic of the school community at that time might limit the support or interest from the pupils. Just before Christmas 2012, I placed posters up around the school to enquire about pupils being interested in forming a Gaelic football club that would be a cross-community team.

“The following spring term we held the first session with around eight pupils that I also taught science. For the rest of the school year, we had consistent training of about 10 pupils a week – they were mostly Year 11 at the time.

“It was a difficult time to start as there was a lot of publicity in the media on culture, emblems and sport due to the Belfast City Hall flag protests and I suppose to a lot of students within the school, everything GAA seemed alien to them. There was certainly no opposition, Gaelic just didn’t seem like a choice for them.”

But what was once alien soon became part of life, and now, nearly a decade on, it has been announced that Fort Hill have been admitted by Ulster Schools to take part in full official Gaelic football competitions for the first time in their history.

The honour will fall to the school’s u-16.5 team who will compete in the Bearnageeha Cup after Christmas.

McCormick expanded on how they reached this point after that initial trial run.

“Over the next few years we had mixed success on and off the pitch regarding Gaelic games. We entered a number of blitzes involving integrated schools and had a number of challenge games, winning some and losing some.

“I think the difficulty was that we competed with basketball and soccer within the college and it can be difficult to encourage lads to attend Gaelic when they are fully committed to their soccer.

“We then took part in the Cuchulainn Initiative in 2018 and linked up with St Patrick’s Academy in Lisburn. The PE lead teacher there is Cormac McKenna who is a clubmate of mine from Naomh Padraig, Lisburn. We knew each other from playing together and so worked together for the training and blitz days – we formed a joint team called the Lisburn Cuchulainns.

“There was a good reception within the college, and we were able to win two games at the Cuchulainn blitz. We were also selected for the 2019 programme and had an excellent group of players, but it was curtailed due to the pandemic.

“Based on previous participation, we were chosen by Ulster GAA to reform the Lisburn Cuchulainns in
May 2021 to take part in the All-Britain Competition in London in September 2021.

“The target age group was Year 11, but we also used Year 10s. The pupils trained together with pupils from St Patrick’s Academy between May and August, and from the 50 pupils that started the initiative seven pupils were selected from each school to go to London.

“It was a once in a lifetime trip for them and they all took full advantage of this opportunity. They played well and worked well as a team; getting to the semi-final of the cup competition and only losing to the eventual champions Tara Gaels.

“The coaches, Fionntan O’Dowd, Piece Caherty and Ryan McShane, from Ulster GAA were amazing at working with our boys and really got all of them enthusiastic about Gaelic football.

“Because of the number of pupils that we had training and the skills that they picked up over the initiative, I wanted to test them and get them more involved in Gaelic games. I got in touch with Niall Muldoon from Ulster Schools who was great at pointing me in the right direction.

“We have entered the U16.5 Bearnageeha Cup competition and also intend to enter a Year 11 Gaelfast blitz in Belfast in December.”

McCormick said that the progress wouldn’t be possible without the help of the school’s principal, Colin Millar, while Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council and the Executive Office, along with Martina Madden in O’Neill’s, were key in the school receiving their first set of kits recently.

That made the project feel even more real and for McCormick, the cross-community aspect of something started when tensions were running high all around them is something to be very proud of.

“There are a large number of integrated schools that enter Ulster Schools each year now,” he said.

“Some of them are fledgling like ourselves, such as Parkhall Integrated College from Antrim and Hazelwood from North Belfast, but some are well developed such as Lagan College and Drumragh Integrated College.

“The more schools that enter at each grade the better in my opinion, as it means more potential players playing Gaelic games. We would however be one of a small number of integrated schools that play Gaelic football with our particular demographic.

“Cross-community support is of the utmost importance to our Gaelic panel, in that it couldn’t exist without the boys that are from non-traditional Gaelic football backgrounds.

“Our current u-16.5 panel is made up of around two thirds from non-traditional backgrounds and draws from as far away as Sandy Row in South Belfast to Moira to Ballymacash in Lisburn – definitely not GAA strongholds.

“That is perhaps the importance of integrated schools in this respect, the boys are all good athletes and play other sports such as soccer and rugby which has many transferable skills to Gaelic football. They have been able to learn about Gaelic games in a way that it is just another sport that is on offer within the college, without anything that could be perceived as controversial.

“In my time leading Gaelic games in Fort Hill, over 100 students have represented the college. At least three quarters of those pupils have been from non-traditional backgrounds.

“Integration is something very personal to me as my wife and I are a mixed marriage, and our children are being brought up in both traditions. A long-term aspiration of mine is that the number of people playing Gaelic games from non-traditional backgrounds increases over time. I’d believe in GAA for all and applaud Ulster GAA and clubs across Ulster in their cross-community initiatives.”

MAKING STRIDES…Coaches Stephen McCormick and Jack O’Dolan, who coach with Connor Lenaghan

GETTING REAL….The Fort Hill u-16.5 team receive their new kits as they prepare for their first Ulster School game