Westmeath GAA officials say the impending purchase of over 48 acres of land from the Health Service Executive (HSE) for a new centre of excellence in Mullingar is a significant boost for the county and will help their teams to flourish in the years to come.
Last Thursday, GAA clubs in the county gave their approval for the first phase of development of top-class facilities to proceed.
The centre of excellence had been planned for some time but progress was slow in the purchasing of the site, which is located directly behind St Loman’s Hospital.
The board will now present the purchase proposal to Croke Park for approval.
Initial plans reveal that six new pitches will be completed as part of the phased development, along with facilities like gyms, office units, dressing rooms, meeting rooms, halls and physio rooms.
It is understood that the purchase price of the land is €1,050,000, with the project set to take some years to complete at an estimated overall cost of between €10 and €15m.
Westmeath will hope to receive central funding for the development but plan on their own fundraising ventures in the coming years.
A recent proposal from The Downs club to put the €1m donation from JP McManus towards the project was rejected due to guidelines that that money should go directly to clubs.
"This plan has been a long time churning," says Westmeath’s head of operations, Patrick Doherty,
"Our chairperson Frank Mescall has been the real driving force with this development and has worked tirelessly to get it to the stage we are at now.
"For five years, discussions were ongoing, but thanks to the work of Frank and others we have the site now and we can look forward to a bright future.
"We spent so long begging and borrowing from our clubs looking for venues for our county teams to train on Tuesday nights so it’s great that we will have our own facility in the years to come.
"We had an excellent relationship with TUS, who helped us with training venues and that relationship will continue with the sports science and expertise that they have.
"But for the past few years our county senior hurlers trained once a week in Abbotstown [Sport Ireland campus], meaning that people had to travel from Westmeath to Dublin to train and we knew this project was one that was badly needed.
"It is still down the line in time but at least we will have it to look forward to."
Doherty says the centre of excellence would be for the entire GAA family in Westmeath and that the board would proceed carefully from a financial perspective.
"At national level we are on the path to integration, under Mary McAleese’s chair, but here in Westmeath we made a commitment to our sister organisations that this centre will be as much a home for them as it will be for the boys and the men in the county.
"As for finances, there has to be concern about finances when you are trying to develop a project like this where there is massive expense.
"There has not been any major fundraising in our county over the years. Club IarmhÍ, our wonderful supporters club, have run draws over the years, but now we are really thinking about a major project and we will look at the success that our neighbours, Roscommon, had with a couple of house draws and as recently as last week when Clare held one too.
"Unquestionably, we will look at serious fundraising over the years. But this project will be a wonderful resource and facility for everyone in the county and it will give all of our teams a home and help them in their preparations."
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