Debate contribution: Sports Museum

Debate contribution by Ms Sian Mulholland on 2 February 2026.

MLA

Ms Sian Mulholland

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

2 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Sports Museum

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5356974

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am not happy to go after "Mr Local Football" when talking about sporting issues. Given its Olympic and Commonwealth medals, its all-Ireland club titles and world-beating motor sport success, I will focus a little on my constituency of North Antrim, which has produced excellence across individual and team sports and across generations and communities. In motor sport, we have the Dunlop dynasty of Joey, Robert and Michael from Ballymoney, who collectively redefined global road racing. We saw the success of the event in Ballymoney to mark the anniversary of Joey's death, with memorabilia being placed in Ballymoney town hall. South Belfast may try to claim her, but our wonderful Dame Mary Peters first moved to Ballymena when she came to Northern Ireland. She is very much a North Antrim product who delivered Olympic and Commonwealth gold. Jack McMillan has represented his country at two Olympic Games and has won one Commonwealth silver medal. In football and rugby, we have Gareth McAuley, who captained Northern Ireland on the international stage, while Ballymena United FC and Ballymena RFC have competed and succeeded at the highest domestic and all-Ireland levels. It would be remiss of me not to mention that North Antrim is also a powerhouse of club hurling, with Dunloy Cuchullains. Loughgiel Shamrocks, Ballycastle Mc Quillans and my own Carey Faughs winning a mix of Antrim, Ulster and all-Ireland honours. In boxing, we have Neil Sinclair, who brought Commonwealth medal success home to Ballymoney.

This story is not just about North Antrim, as much as I would love to stand here and just list the sporting achievements of the constituency. It is about Northern Irish and Irish individual athletes and Paralympians and team sports played in our towns, villages and cities. From grassroots clubs to the highest levels of elite international competition, sport has been a shared source of pride and possibility. Any sports museum must reflect that. It should never elevate one sport or one community over another but recognise the full breadth of sporting excellence across codes, genders and backgrounds and ensure that those stories, particularly at the grassroots level, are not lost. Too often, success is fleetingly celebrated and then quietly archived, but a sports museum could offer something different: a shared space for recognition, learning and inspiration, particularly for young people who may never see themselves reflected in sport because of their background. The motion, rightly, highlights the potential economic benefits, particularly through tourism. We all know somewhere that could benefit from a sports heritage attraction. However, as a member of the Communities Committee, I want to be realistic. We are having this debate at a time when many communities are under real pressure, families are feeling poorer and public services are stretched. People are worried about health, education and the cost of living. The call for a working group therefore makes sense to me. It allows the key stakeholders to explore feasibility and appetite, particularly in the climate that we are in. I think that having a working group would also allow us to look at how we can be smarter with public funds while trying to ensure that the spotlight stays on our local sporting heroes. That would include looking at the use of existing museum spaces and government-owned buildings. We saw in Ballymoney how great it was to utilise existing space. I will say that a non-Belfast-centric approach should be taken, hence why I started with my list of why North Antrim is one of the most wonderful constituencies in Northern Ireland for sport. I will not lie: at the moment, I would rather that, if there is money in the budget, it be spent on our grassroots sporting clubs and codes to ensure that we have the sporting stars of the future, if we have to make that choice. I think that a working group that could look at how we can utilise that, how we can think differently and how we can be creative in how we celebrate our sport would be good, but sport is not separate from the challenges that our communities face. I really recognise the value of celebrating who we are and what we have achieved together as one community. Thank you very much for tabling the motion.

710 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:22 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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