Anyone familiar with going to GAA matches knows that when the National Anthem is being played, you turn and face the tricolour flag which will be flapping furiously on a pole somewhere.
That’s really the only place you ever see the green, white and orange at a GAA match.
Unless you head up north.
A local Gaelic football club in Armagh has responded to criticism over installing new nets at their grounds which resemble the tricolour colours.
Lurgan Mail has said that UUP MLA Doug Beattie had hit out at St Paul’s Gaelic Football Club in Lurgan for changing their netting in the goals to “depict the Irish Tricolour” thus “marking out territory”.
“This change has created a permanent depiction of the Irish Tricolour on the main Tandragee Road between central Craigavon and Lurgan and on one of the main routes used by those travelling from Portadown to Lurgan.
“As St Paul’s GAA clearly want to promote a positive image and – like Lurgan Rugby Football Club – breakdown sporting barriers between our communities, I would suggest this decision to have such an overt permanent display is counterproductive.
“Again I have no issue with the GAA, the Irish National flag or any expressions of identity. However, this display by the club does nothing to make me want to engage with or attend any sporting event at the club and that is a shame.
“Therefore I would respectfully ask St Paul’s GAA to reconsider the netting at their ground and return to the previous design that promotes the club and displays the club colours.”
The Chairman of the club has come out and said that the net colours were made in error and that the orange, should be instead yellow which is the club’s colours.
“The last thing we want to do is upset anyone but the nets are in the club’s colours. “There is a big difference between green, white and yellow, and the green, white and orange of the Tricolour,” he concluded.
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