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Grants scheme offers more than £100,000 to Orange hall applicants

Ranken Memorial Orange Hall at Ballygawley on the outskirts of Garvagh Co Derry. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Ranken Memorial Orange Hall at Ballygawley on the outskirts of Garvagh Co Derry. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Ranken Memorial Orange Hall at Ballygawley on the outskirts of Garvagh Co Derry. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

A CONTROVERSIAL Stormont grant scheme has pledged more than £104,000 to upgrade Orange halls after applications for the cash were made by other organisations.  

Details provided by the Department for Communities has revealed that five Orange halls across the north are set to benefit from the ‘community hall’ scheme after grant applications were made by several groups describing themselves as Ulster Scots, cultural, educational and historical.

The scheme has been criticised by nationalists after it emerged that dozens of loyal order and band halls were offered grants of up to £25,000.

In total 90 groups were offered cash through the scheme which had an original budget of £500,000 which has since quadrupled to £1.9m.

The five halls are located across four different counties and have been offered grants ranging from more than £7,900 to the maximum £25,000.

They include applications by Sheepbridge Heritage and Culture Society, located at Sheepbridge Orange Hall near Newry in Co Down, which has been offered £25,000.

A spokesman for the society said it currently has a 50 year lease on the hall.

Other beneficiaries include Ranken Culture and Historical Society, located at Ballygawley Orange Hall, near Garvagh in Co Derry, which has been offered £21,250.

Artnagullion Rural Educational and Cultural Society, located in Artnagullion Orange Hall, Parkgate Road, Kells in Co Antrim has been promised over £7,939.

Cavanpole Historical and Cultural Group, which leases a hall at near Tynan in Co Armagh from the local Orange lodge has been offered £24,876.

The department has also promised £25,000 to Co Antrim based Randalstown Ulster Scots Cultural Society.

The Irish News revealed last week that an address given for the group, 'Number 10 Portglenone Road, Randalstown', is not listed on Royal Mail’s “postal address file”.

The Ulster Scots Agency, which funds projects linked to its work, has also said that it “has never provided Randalstown Ulster-Scots Cultural Society with any funding”.

The Orange Order said the cultural society “currently holds the lease for Randalstown Memorial Orange Hall” while the Department for Communities said “it can confirm a hall does exist at this address, with the applicant being the Randalstown Ulster Scots Cultural Society, who have been awarded a grant under the Community Halls Capital Programme”.

The cultural society is one of 90 organisations across the north to have been offered grants of up to £25,000 to renovate and upgrade community halls.

Applicants to the scheme must own the hall or hold a long term lease for the hall and be the organisation responsible for operating it.

If the property is held in trust, trustees must consent to the proposed works.

A spokesman for the Orange Order said: “Across Northern Ireland, our network of Orange halls are regularly utilised by a variety of constituted community groups. In some instances, these groups are the registered lease holders of the property."

East Derry SDLP assembly election candidate John Dallat said he has concerns about the scheme.

“It certainly adds to the anger over as to how public money is being spent and what avenues were being used to draw it down,” he said.

“It probably calls for a much clearer explanation from the Orange order as to why they don’t apply upfront themselves, like everyone else has to do when applying for government grants, rather than use a surrogate.”