After playing football with St Brigid's from an early age, Cathal Kelly's attention is now firmly focussed on building up his consulting engineering firm, Doherty Finegan Kelly. This year one of his major projects is the re-development of his GAA club. Having played with his club for years, St Brigid's clubman Cathal Kelly is, through his consulting engineering company, Doherty Finegan Kelly, in the process of re-development work at the club. Cathal's father Austin has had a long establishment with the Bailieborough club in Cavan. Over the last couple of seasons, Austin Kelly, owner of the Ripley Court hotel in Dublin has been sponsoring the St Brigid's intermediate team. Cathal has now firmly established a city base with his company, and has been involved with the firm since it began two years ago. Emmet Finegan and Cathal's former supervisor Francis Doherty were the others who worked alongside him to set up the company together with two technicians. The firm has made excellent strides over the years specialising in civil and structural engineering work for commercial, residential and industrial properties. Based in Parnell Square, the company is involved in projects consisting of large to medium-sized office blocks, apartment blocks, industrial units, various car parks, numerous residential schemes and house extensions. "It was a good time to start the business though it took a while to get our name established. It wasn't until 2005 that we started doing the bigger projects. The most difficult part I suppose was getting through the planning stage. Certain projects we had been commissioned to work on when we established ourselves are still in the planning process for a variety of reasons," he said. The early stages of developing the company proved challenging. Cathal and his colleagues were writing fifteen to twenty letters a week to clients to try to get the firm off the ground. The company evolved and is now able to seek bigger projects than those ones at the start as a result of their work to date and the competent staff they have employed since it started. "I suppose in hindsight being commissioned to work on an office block within Beacon Court, one of the most prestigious commercial developments in Ireland was an indication of the faith certain developers could see in our practice. "This led to our appointment as consulting engineers in various similar-sized projects. This included an 85,000 square foot office development, an underground car park with a capacity of 255 spaces as part of a very large commercial retail development in the park, Carrickmines on behalf of Park developments. "We are also acting as consulting engineers for an extension to the clubhouse at the K-club which has to be completed in time for the Ryder Cup in September 2006. We have picked up work all over Ireland including various projects in Dublin as well as some in Ballyconnell, Carrickmacross and Athlone. We have also got a substantial amount of work in Louth (where one of the partners, Emmet is from)". GAA commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh is chairperson of the development committee at St Brigid's. As project manager, Cathal is overseeing the redevelopment work. "We are in the process of building an all-weather pitches using sprinturf which would be the first of its kind to be used in Ireland and a pitch that the manufacturers are upgrading intending to use to the market throughout Europe," he says. The development is structured in two separate phases. Phase one will provide a full size floodlit all-weather adult playing pitch. Phase two, meanwhile, will see the construction of extra changing rooms and shower facilities, the expansion of the car-parking area and the upgrading of all pitches. The construction of a new natural grass pitch, a hurling wall, gym, medical treatment room and the upgrading of all the current pitches will comprise phase three. In the final phase the current community facilities will be upgraded. This will include offices, meeting rooms, kitchen, new club shop and function room to cater for all community activities. Cathal's involvement with the St Brigid's club stems back to under ten level. He started playing with the team at that age group and continued playing up until under 21 level. He won leagues with the club every season between under 11 and under 16 level. For a few years, he remained unattached to the club but returned to play junior A football over the last few years. Success has come St Brigid's way over the last few seasons with the club winning the senior league in 2005 and the championship in 2003. The Intermediate team, which was sponsored by the Ripley Court hotel, enjoyed fantastic success in 2005 winning the championship league cup and league final that earned them promotion to the senior league. The junior team won the league cup and were narrowly beaten in the league final to gain promotion to intermediate level. Cathal played his part on that team. Despite his enjoyment in playing Gaelic football, Cathal believes that there is a need for the GAA to look at the manner in which fixtures are compiled. Senior players are playing football the whole year around with fixtures organised in such a manner that games are often played when the weather becomes inclement. "It is hard for players to maintain the interest the whole year around. You need to be giving the senior players a break if they are playing that much. In the summer time the pitches are in great shape and there are no games and then in October matches are played on heavy pitches," he says. With his own playing career now drawing to a close, Cathal can concentrate on giving something back to his own club. The development period can become an exciting period for the clubman. The following is a list of businesses which Doherty/Finegan/Kelly are involved: Mixed development at Ballyconnell, Cavan. Re-development works for St Brigid's GAA club, Dublin 15. Apartment development, Ballyfermot, Dublin. Apartment development, Donore road, Drogheda. Housing development at Duleek road, Drogheda. Development at Benburb Street, Dublin 7. Development at Parnell Street, Bray, Co. Wicklow. Development at Hatch Street, Dublin 2. Development at Meath Street, Dublin 8. Ballyfermot Star Creche office development, Dublin. Dun Laoghaire Office block, Dublin. Lymewood Mews Podium Design, Santry, Dublin. Hotel & Leisure Centre, Ballymore Eustace, Co. Kildare. Block D, Beacon Court, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin. Bedroom Block for sisters of Mercy, Kells, Co. Meath. St Paul's Community Centre, Killiney, Dublin. Gorey Credit Union, Co.Wexford. Apartment Development Maynooth, Co.Kildare. Industrial Unit at Magna Business Park. Basement car park, The Park, Carrickmines, Dublin. Block 80, The Park, Carrickmines, Dublin. Mixed-use development, Coolock, Dublin. Apartment development, Mountmellick, Co. Laois. Housing development at Balbriggan, Dublin. Extension to clubhouse at K-Club, Co. Kildare. Re-development works for Wayside Celtic soccer club, Dublin. Tweet

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