“It’s been tough, but somebody has to do it!

In the meantime we grappled with the organisation of various fundraising ventures such as Golf Classics, Advertising Hoardings, Race Nights, etc. At this point, Hon. Treasurer Dermot Barry-Walsh was of great assistance. In the meantime we had received planning permission for the new pitch and all associated works and had to seek and assess tenders and get through a mountain of administration. We now had a clear picture of where we were going and had managed to convince those on the General Committee who were experiencing minor and major coronary disruptions!

We hit paydirt in 2002 when we were successful in our Capital Sports Programme application and received €80,000 from the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism. A grant such as this was an absolute tonic – raising that kind of money would take a lot of begging – the development programme was now really really up and running. We have to acknowledge at this point the guidance and support we had received from Noel Davern, T.D., who has proven to be a great friend of the club.

Now the real physical work had started, with the new pitch being prepared and the services and car park being laid. The place resembled a bomb site. We had also commenced preparing the old car park as the site for the proposed all-weather pitches. Paul Morris gave us the benefit of his engineering expertise (having given us his rugby expertise for years!) while Joe Fields doubled as Quantity Surveyor and “consultant” while also being a good friend to the club. Gerry Burke Plant Hire laid the new pitch and also got involved in much of the civil works and the club premises began to take on a whole new aspect.

Another possible major addition had given birth back in November 2001 when two former military colleagues, J.J. Killian and Terry Gibney (now employed by U.S. MNC, Guidant, adjacent to the club) began feeling out the possibilities of a piece of waste ground owned by Guidant and adjoining the club. This was to prove very fruitful in time. In the meantime we continued with frenzied fundraising to meet liabilities and projected costs. This included going back to our Life members with an appeal to them to dig into their pockets again – this proved to be very successful. In November 2002, after much discussion between J.J. and Terry, Guidant decided to lease the piece of land to the club for twenty years for the nominal sum of €1 per year. It was a massive boost to those who were working so hard and we will be forever grateful to Guidant for their support.

We were now into 2003 and we had received planning permission to build the two all-weather pitches. We had also decided that we would fence, re-lay and put lights up on the Guidant training pitch as it had now become known as. At this point we had put the services and car park in place, had laid the third pitch and had fenced it in addition to erecting additional lighting. The club premises now stood at 11.25 acres. The eastern perimeter fence had been realigned to meeting planning requirements and we set about building the two all-weather pitches. We were now dealing with a large capital outlay and we got into discussions with our bankers who proved to be very supportive. We had also again applied for funding from the 2003 Sports Capital Programme (talk about pushing our luck!) – we needed every penny we could source, as at that time (circa May 2003) our financial situation looked something like this:

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Download the Development Plan 1995 - 2005

Download the Development Plan 2008 - 2012