Repairs get underway to repair the flood-damaged grounds of Cork GAA club

WORK has commenced on a major project to restore facilities at a Cork GAA club whose grounds were left badly damaged by Storm Babet last October..

Sarsfields GAA Club in Glanmire suffered significant damage during the storm in October 2023 after a decision was made to allow the pitch to be turned into a “flood plain” to minimise flood damage to nearby homes and businesses.

The club, which had won a county championship just the weekend before, was praised by the wider community and in the Dáil for their heroic actions in deciding to flood their pitch.

Writing on Facebook at the time of the devastation left behind by the storm, the club said: “We won a county, lost a pitch but hopefully saved a part of the Glanmire community.”

The club has now confirmed that work has commenced on the restoration of their pitch and club facilities, though the chairman Keith Mulcahy told The Echo that it will be a long time before all the work is complete.

Mr Mulcahy explained: “On October 18 we got very badly flooded, our complex premises was underwater for a number of hours, our all-weather astro pitch, hurling wall, gym, and spinning room spent some time underwater.

“Work has started now, we’re in the process of rebuilding the complex — it’s been a difficult couple of months, very frustrating for members when they don’t see any work getting on.”

He said that they are still awaiting funding and are in talks with their insurance company, adding that their loss adjustment assessor and Hourihan’s, who are working on the pitch, “have been excellent”.

Mr Mulcahy  added: “We’ve had to start some work because we don’t have anywhere to go pitch-wise.

“We do have one training ground but it wouldn’t be adequate for what we need, and the longer we leave it to start the work, the longer we’re going to be out of the place.”

Mr Mulcahy said the restoration is “very dependent on the weather” and the long-term plan is to get grass growing on the pitch once again.

While he admitted “we won’t be playing any matches there this year”, he said, there is great positivity around the works.

“There was a nice bit of positivity around the place this weekend after the work started, we’ve got great feedback from the community and good support from outside it too, GAA clubs have been very good to us.”

Mulcahy said both Bishopstown and Midleton clubs in particular have given them great support and let them borrow pitches, adding that “the GAA community has always been very good”.