Thousands head to Cork town for annual rowing regatta

Thousands of people flocked to Fermoy Regatta last Sunday, with families and friends gathering by the River Blackwater for one of the biggest days in North Cork’s sporting and social calendars.

The Fermoy Concert Band played in the shade while local people watched the races along the river.

Fermoy Regatta this year saw 25 clubs compete in nearly 200 races, bringing with them 500 boats, more than 1,000 young athletes and several thousand spectators. The event has been running annually since 1962, but it has missed several years recently, not all of them due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Officially founded in 1884, Fermoy Rowing Club traces its roots back to four decades earlier, when the Robert Emmet Brotherhood took to the water in opposition to British Army officers, Oxford oarsmen, rowing the Blackwater by the promenade downstream and to the east of what is now Kent Bridge.

The rowing club’s training grounds are upstream and to the west of the Kent Bridge, extending, when water levels allow, as far as Castlehyde House, the historical family home of Ireland’s first president, Dubhghlas de hÍde, and sometimes residence of Chicago-born dancer Michael Flatley.

Across the river from the Barnane club-house is a two-metre-deep stripe of exposed riverbank, showing how water levels have changed since a 2019 breach in the millrace wall of Fermoy’s historic weir.

That event saw an entire section of the already damaged weir - a listed, protected structure - east of the Kent Bridge wash away, costing the rowing club much of its training grounds upstream and west of the bridge.

Last year, Cork County Council, which owns the weir, secured planning permission to refurbish it, and says funding for that repair is in place.

However, Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) – as is its remit – is prioritising fish passage, and has insisted on the installation of a separate fish bypass on the north-western bank, to run parallel to the river, as a condition of any restoration.

FISH PASS

Costs for the fish pass will run to millions of euro, and no timeframe or suggestion of a funding source has been forthcoming from the council.

Frank O’Flynn, Fianna Fáil councillor and mayor of the Fermoy municipal district said the council was in discussions with consultants on its planned repair of the weir, and said he expected an update on funding for the fish pass.

Asked whether the work would be completed by 2030, Mr O’Flynn said: “I see no reason why not”.

That claim was met with some scepticism from members of the rowing club, who noted that no work could be done on the weir without IFI sign-off, which will not come without funding of a fish pass.

Regatta secretary Paul Kavanagh said the club had been forced to put four floating pontoons on the river just to get boats on the water.

“It’s taken for granted by Cork County Council that we can run our regatta every year, but river levels are at an all-time low."

“We were at the verge of cancellation this week, and will possibly have to move our date next year.

“We just have enough water for three-lane races this week, but any lower, and it wouldn’t have been feasible.”

He added that the club had been fighting for its survival for several years, and would keep fighting.

Cork County Council was asked for comment.