Finish line in sight for boat club’s impressive new clubhouse

Club launching ‘buy a brick’ fundraiser to help with cost of €750k development

As Athlone Boat Club's new €750,000 clubhouse nears completion, one of its committee members summed up the improvement in facilities which it will bring.

"We will be going from a tin shed to the Hilton hotel!" quipped club PRO Padraig Hegarty.

The two-storey boat house and training facility replaces the old clubhouse on the same town centre site at Elliott Road (formerly Grace Road).

The construction of the building is now "80% complete" and the internal works to get it ready for use are likely to be finished next month. The club is hoping to relocate back to the town centre, from its current home in Coosan, sometime in July.

Padraig explained that, when it opens, the facility will be an impressive long-term base for the club.

"There are some beautiful clubhouses that we would have seen around the country, but this will definitely make Athlone Boat Club one of the most up-to-date and state-of-the-art clubs," he said.

The ground floor of the new building will hold its fleet of boats and there will be a wheelchair-accessible lift to the second floor, which will include a new gym, a kitchenette area, a committee room, an accessible bathroom, and male and female changing rooms.

"The clubhouse that we put in needed to be something that would last the test of time. It's built of mass concrete, and there are steel beams gone down into the bedrock of the Shannon, which is not how the old clubhouse was!" Padraig explained.

The approximate cost of the development, three-quarters of a million euro, has been funded through LEADER and Sports Capital grants, along with €100,000 of fund raising and a further €100,000 in borrowings by the club.

In order to help with the ongoing fundraising effort, the club this week launched a 'buy a brick' campaign, with the aim of encouraging 100 patrons to sponsor a granite brick that will be placed in the new clubhouse.

The initiative will see the bricks being sold at a cost of €200, with four payments over the course of a year or one payment up front, and further details are available on the club's new website (athloneboatclub.ie).

Another major fundraiser, which was already underway, involves the boat in which the O'Donovan brothers from Cork won silver at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. That piece of Irish rowing history is now owned by Athlone Boat Club and it's currently selling €20 tickets for the 'naming rights' to the boat. The club draw and an additional 'bonus ball' draw are also ongoing as part of the fundraising drive.

Padraig said the club had been looking to redevelop its facilities for more than 20 years and that the work of members like Paul Gallen and Eamon Fahy had been instrumental in making this aspiration a reality.

"We also can't forget 'Boxer' Moran, who has been a massive supporter of the club down through the years and, as Minister, was a trojan worker for the club in securing funding and supporting it in every way that he could," added Padraig.

He also pointed out that the new facilities had been designed to be accessible to people with mobility difficulties, and said the club would be looking to introduce adaptive rowing for wheelchair users and others with disabilities.

"Before this, if you had a mobility issue, you wouldn't really have been able to get access to our club," he commented.

Rowing practice resumed earlier this month in Coosan and, while the sport's summer schedule is still somewhat up in the air, Padraig said the junior rowers were delighted to be back at it.

"All of our juniors that were with us pre-Covid are still with us. No-one has dropped off - they're all eager to get back," he said.

In addition to its new home, the club has also been adding to its fleet recently, by purchasing five new boats - 2 new Double sculls, 2 new Quad sculls and 1 new Eight.