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The Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure in the North, Gregory Campbell made the headlines during the week when he attended the opening of the new St Brigid’s GAC Grounds in Musgrave Park, South Belfast.

St Brigid’s has established itself and grown dramatically by taking advantage of the influx of nouveau riche families to the traditionally posh Malone Road area of Belfast. Many of the ‘blow-ins’ were former members of Queen’s University and the Poly Gaelic Football teams who chose to settle in the area. They include the likes of Joe Brolly , Eunan Conway, Conor McSherry and Dermot Dowling. The club has gone from strength to strength. It made history by providing opposition for the PSNI team playing in their first match.

Years back the thought of a thriving GAA club in the area would have been unthinkable. The parish of St Brigid’s and its original chapel in Derryvolgie was created to provide a place of worship for the catholic servants who worked in the big houses on the neighbouring Malone Road. How times have changed. Talking Balls wishes them all fraternal greetings and congratulations.

Gregory Campbell would not come across as a GAA afficionado by any means. Soccer is Gregory’s sport and his team is Raonaithe Glaschu. To be fair he was happy to attend St Bigid’s event, saying there was “nothing unusual” about his acceptance of an invitation. However, never one to miss a trick Gregory said the GAA as a body still needed to make changes. The details of such changes, he told the News Letter newspaper, he intended to highlight in the near future.

“I said that there were a number of steps the GAA as an organisation have taken which have been quite positive in recent years regarding rule changes and involvement with other sports,” he explained. “But I said that there are a number of other steps that they needed to take and Saturday was not the day to deal with these.”

Mr Campbell said much of the reaction to his acceptance of the invitation from St Brigid’s GAC was “overstated”. He added: “I am not minister of some sports, I am minister of sport, so I don’t think it should be that unusual for me to be invited to a sporting event and to go to it.”

It is understood that Mr Campbell is unable to attend Sunday’s All Ireland Football final but will nevertheless be supporting his fellow Brethren from Ulster in the Final.