Home is where
August 09, 2010Friday May 24th 2010 was a landmark date for Connacht GAA as the sod was turned on the provincial council's pioneering new €10m Centre of Excellence development. Association president Christy Cooney was on hand to perform the sod-turning ceremony at the 65-acre site at Cloonacurry, Bekan, near Ballyhaunis, County Mayo
"This is a hugely significant day in the history of the GAA in Connacht. It will be the first provincial Centre of Excellence in the country, which is a real feather in Connacht's cap," he said. "This will be a Centre of Excellence that Connacht can be proud of, and it will serve players, officials and supporters for many years to come."
It is anticipated that the Centre of Excellence (which will feature six floodlit outdoor GAA pitches, a state-of-the-art indoor pitch, gymnasium, and related facilities as well as dining facilities, meeting rooms, hurling wall, cross-country pathway, handball alley, eight dressing-rooms, referees' room, equipment room, and physio and rehab rooms) will be up and running on the Knock-Ballyhaunis Road by 2014.
The Centre will serve as a venue to all county, club and schools teams in Mayo, Sligo, Galway, Roscommon and Leitrim, as well as providing physical and cardiac screening for players. A research and development facility will examine the physiological demands on GAA players. Handball and rounders will be catered for as well. Connacht Council's offices will also be re-located to the new venue.
The main contractor on the current phase of the development is local firm Joe Reilly Plant Hire, a company with strong ties with the local GAA community. Celebrating 50 years in business this year, Joe Reilly Plant Hire has been a limited company since 1979. Originally from Bofeenaun, Lahardane, Ballina, County Mayo, the eponymous Joe started out on his own as a plant hire and land reclamation contractor.
The company - now fronted by sons Colm & Joseph Reilly - has since diversified into plant hire and civil engineering contracts, specialising in a variety of works, including site clearance, roadworks, earth moving, drainage, water schemes, football pitches, car parks and landfill. Joe Reilly Plant Hire boasts specific experience in excavating and road-building through difficult terrain. A family-run business, Joe Reilly Plant Hire has been operating out of new premises at Unit 8, Castlebar Business Park, Breaffy Road, Castlebar, County Mayo since 2003, currently providing gainful employment to a crew of 45 full-time employees - quite a remarkable achievement in the current economic climate.
Though most of the projects undertaken tend to be in the Connacht area, Joe Reilly Plant Hire is available for work nationwide. One of the real strengths of the company is that they have invested heavily in plant and currently carry a wide range of specialist equipment. This includes directional drilling equipment for the installation of water mains; pipe-bursting equipment for the replacement of old water mains; rock-breaking capabilities; low-ground pressure machinery; and long-reach equipment.
To secure the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence contract, Joe Reilly Plant Hire (who had previously completed a considerable amount of pitch work around Mayo) pre-qualified from a panel of 17 applicants before it was deemed that their tender was the most economically advantageous to the client. The contract for Phase One, which will take 13 months to complete, was signed in early April, and Colm Reilly will act as project manager on a project comprising ground works to facilitate the construction of the GAA pitches and associated buildings and car-parking. Thee works include demolition of existing dwelling house and sheds, laying of drainage and ducting, cut and fill to achieve formation level, construction of car-parking, boundary and exclusion fencing and landscaping.
The work will be a true labour of love for Colm being a devout Mayo follower, as the latter confirms: "Indeed, we're huge supporters of Mayo GAA and we have always followed the county team as well as sponsoring various local club teams down through the years. We're extremely patriotic towards our county and our province and we like the fact that this is a local job, generating local employment. In so far as is possible, we always try to source our materials locally and give as much back to the community as possible. All our employees are Connacht people and this development comes as a massive boost to both the GAA and the economy in the province."
Connacht Council secretary John Prenty echoes these sentiments: "The new Centre of Excellence will provide a huge boost to all teams in Connacht - clubs, schools, development squads, county teams etc. - it will be available to everybody. Connacht Council initially came up with this idea about three years ago and we've been working towards it ever since. We identified a real need for a facility like this and we've planned it carefully, so it's great to finally have the sod turned and the work about to commence.
"The site for the Centre is located slap-bang in the middle of the province and we're hoping county teams will avail of it as a training camp. There will be five grass pitches and one synthetic pitch as well as all the other facilities and amenities that one would associate with a top-class centre. We can't wait for this to open in four years' time and I'm confident that Joe Reilly Plant Hire will do an excellent job on the first phase of the development." Tweet
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