Debate contribution: Sports Museum

Debate contribution by Mr Pádraig Delargy on 2 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Pádraig Delargy

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

2 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Sports Museum

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5356988

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Members for tabling the motion. I welcome it, and there is definitely merit in looking at that, as other Members have said, and exploring the opportunities and seeing what works best. We all know that, right across our society, sports have a huge impact and an ability to inspire. There is obviously real economic and social value to such a museum in supporting tourism, hospitality and regeneration, as Ms Mulholland mentioned, and in creating employment opportunities, not just during the construction stage but in the design and through education, hospitality and so on. Done properly, it could be a huge and lasting benefit in preserving sporting history. As my colleague Mr Gildernew said, there is precedence. What we need to do in any of these situations is to look at best practice and what works well. For instance, the GAA Museum at Croke Park generates €2·3 million in revenue. There are 40 members of staff, and 15 others employed in the museum's skyline tours. Those are the kinds of comparables that we need to be looking at. That needs to be done not in isolation, however, but by looking at the sport environment that we have. That brings me to the history of sport and inclusion. As somebody with a degree in history, for me, it is most important that we look at people who have been written out of history or often overlooked. In museums, that has been the case over recent decades, and, during the past decade in particular, that issue has been looked at and reviewed. A number of Members talked about the inclusion of Paralympians and women in sport, and that is imperative in any conversation. In my constituency, Jason Smyth is a multiple Paralympic gold medalist. We also have Katie Mullan, who made her debut with the Irish national hockey team in 2012 and was appointed captain in 2017. In football, there is the Ryan McBride Stadium, which is now the Derry City Stadium in the Brandywell. From a very local point of view, I say that James McClean has now returned to our club, and hopefully we will see much more success. It is about honouring people from right across the sporting family and ensuring that all their voices are heard. The main point is to honour what they have achieved, but it is about looking to the future as well. What I hear from sports clubs in my constituency — I am sure that other Members hear it as well — is about the need to look at the here and now and to look to the future. This conversation needs to be contextualised within all that. Clubs come to us regularly that are struggling for funding to be able to have the resources and facilities to grow and evolve in the current climate. We therefore need to contextualise the conversation, but I thank the Members who tabled this useful motion for debate.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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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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