An aerial view of the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence.
By John Harrington
Over 160,000 people used the state-of-the-art facilities at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence in the last 12 months.
The high footfall is in no small part due to the popularity of the University of Galway Connacht GAA Airdome which was only fully open with no Covid-19 restrictions since September 1st last year.
“This is our full year in terms of numbers and since the first of September last year until today we’ve had 161,400 people using the facilities here,” says Kurt Reinhardt, Facilities Manager of the Centre of Excellence.
“We're absolutely delighted with those numbers. We had a three to five-year plan to get up to those numbers, but we've hit them in our first 12-month period of being fully open with no restrictions.
“Prior to the Dome being built we maxed out at 40,000 people per year, so it's been a great success story. We recently had Barcelona FC's facilities team visit here to see how they could replicate what we've done here.
“Just seeing it all come together the way it has, there's a huge level of pride. Now, it's had it's challenges and it will have them in the future, but it's just been a massive success.
“If anyone doubted (Connacht GAA Secretary) John Prenty's vision at the outset, no-one is doubting it now.”
Such is the popularity of the Airdome in particular, that it’s currently booked out until December.
“A lot of it tends to be from nursery teams up to U-15 underage teams from all over the country, they're coming from everywhere,” says Reinhardt. "We must have seven or eight Dublin clubs even booked in between now and November.
“The FBD Connacht Senior Football Leauge in January is always a big draw, and we're also hosting the Ashbourne Cup next year, that's in March.
“We also target a lot of events that we feel are good matches for us, such as education events. The next big one is the Options West event in October which is a careers/college Expo event.”
Dylan Canney, 26, and Patrick Kelly of Galway contest a loose ball with Roscommon goalkeeper Patrick O'Malley and Aengus Lyons of Roscommon during the 2023 Connacht FBD League Final match between Galway and Roscommon at NUI Galway Connacht Air Dome in Bekan, Mayo. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
The success of the Airdome tends to dominate the headlines, but a lot of other infrastructure work has also taken place at the Centre of Excellence in recent times.
“We've installed 1000 solar panels and are the first in the country to start exporting power,” says Reinhardt. “We're able to export enough power for 20 houses per day on top of what we require for our own electrical power.
“The medical centre is fully operational here now too and we have a 10 year deal with UPMC with that. It's a full recovery gym with two full-time physios in there.
“It's part of their supply chain plan where you might go into Santry to get your knee fixed and they get you home as quickly as possible and then you can use a centre like this one here for recovery programmes for the general public in this area.
“We've extended the walkways, we've put in a couple of car-parks, so we've developed the sort of key infrastructure you need to support 160,000 people. We've put in a coffee shop as well, built new sheds, and there's a new pitch programme so the grass pitches are really in the best shape they've ever been in
“This facility has obviously been great for our games, but it has also delivered a host of other positives.
“We have 750,000 living within an hour and a half of us and we estimate that the local economy has benefited by about €10M from people visiting the site.”