{"id":417441,"date":"2026-02-10T05:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T05:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417441\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T05:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T05:31:12","slug":"belfast-city-council-defers-boucher-road-playing-fields-decision-as-sinn-fein-brands-move-discrimination-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417441\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast City Council defers Boucher\u00a0Road playing fields decision as Sinn F\u00e9in brands move \u2018discrimination\u2019 \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belfast City Council<\/a> has deferred a highly anticipated decision to end concerts at Boucher Road Playing fields<\/a> for use as sports pitches.<\/p>\n

The move had been agreed by the council\u2019s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee last week, but objections were raised at Monday night\u2019s full council meeting.<\/p>\n

If approved, concerts would cease after 2027 with the grounds to be used for two full-size GAA pitches and an intermediate soccer pitch.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the 40,000 capacity space has hosted major festivals including Vital and Emerge, attracting international acts including Bruce Springsteen<\/a> and Ed Sheeran.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"Dozens<\/a>\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

Green Party councillor \u00c1ine Groogan called for the decision to be deferred, claiming the council had \u201cput the cart before the horse\u201d by not having a replacement site in mind to host outdoor concerts.<\/p>\n

Her motion was supported by 30 votes to 28 votes against.<\/p>\n

While supporting the motion to return Boucher for use as playing fields, the DUP\u2019s<\/a> Sarah Bunting complained that Sinn F\u00e9in had prematurely tried to suggest that Casement Park could become a replacement venue for outdoor concerts.<\/p>\n

She called for a \u201cslight pause\u201d in the process, stating her party fully supported returning the use of the grounds for sporting purposes but would not rush the decision \u201cto suit a Sinn F\u00e9in press cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BruceBruce Springsteen in concert at the Boucher Road playing fields. PICTURE: MAL MCCANN <\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Ciaran Beattie later commented: \u201cThere\u2019s one word to describe this and it\u2019s discrimination, and it\u2019s because of what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about 26 sites across Belfast and the only two sites that people have issues with are GAA pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alliance councillor Micky Murray called the committee\u2019s decision \u201cextremely short-sighted,\u201d and said that while he was not opposed to returning Boucher for sport use he said to do so without a replacement plan was premature.<\/p>\n

He also questioned why male-dominated field sports should be priortised above other forms of expression like music.<\/p>\n

The TUV\u2019s Ron McDowell also raised concerns the decision to end concerts at Boucher would cost the city \u00a310m per event weekend while objecting to the GAA\u2019s \u201cinsulting\u201d practice of naming grounds after republican paramilitary figures. <\/p>\n

\"EdEd Sheeran has written a new song for That Christmas starring Brian Cox as Santa (Liam McBurney\/PA) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belfast City Council has deferred a highly anticipated decision to end concerts at Boucher Road Playing fields for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1334,19415,2666,13445,96,59,48375,38057,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-417441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-belfast-city-council","10":"tag-boucher-road","11":"tag-dup","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-gb","14":"tag-green-party","15":"tag-sinn-fein","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}