GAA Infastructure

The GAA stadium template already exists and is basically: a larger stand of varying quality on one side, a smaller open stand/terrace on the other side (possibly covered in fancier places) and then terracing at either end ranging from a car park area to a grass mound to an open concrete terrace.

Besides Croke Park pretty much every stadium in the country follows this template ranging from higher quality variations like Pairc Ui Chaoimh downwards.

But every county/province will have their own requirements. A Pairc Ui Chaoimh type template is unsuitable pretty much anywhere else. A Tullamore template would not be storable on other places.

Pairc Ui Chaoimh is exceptionally large, but why would Tullamore not provide useful information for other places?

Ya I know all that. But it's still no harm the GAA helping out and also having a say in what a stand should be like.

Not sure what's the point in having shiny new stadiums that cost a fortune all over the country. Most of them have no more than 1 or 2 games of any significance every year, if even that. For example Kerry want to redevelop Fitzgerald's Stadium at the cost of 10s of millions of euro but for what? Waste of money.

Because Of tge amount of rental holiday accommodation in Kerry it makes the stadium fairy viable. It had nearly 50 million lined up through the passport scheme before tge plug was pulled on it. It's taking a court case to get thus reinstated, if it is the stadium will go ahead.

It's about the town having enough hotels to cater for the 1000 people who are going to go to the giant empty stadium that has no neutral venue potential and limited concert potential with 2 well established venues in the area already.

Hasn't the number of beds in Killarney being halved in the last 3 years?

To be honest, I'd much rather see proper investments in clubs grounds than a big county stadium (unless absolutely necessary).

My own county, Kilkenny, for example. It'll probably need to upgrade the stadium in 10 years time, or start to.

But I look at some of the club grounds like Callan, Thomastown (though parking is a nightmare), Danesfort, O'Loughlins, Clara, Freshford or their likes. All relatively central in the county. Good pitches that are usually in good nick.

I'd love to see all of them have a proper cover stand on one side that can hold 3K, a covered terrace on the other side capable of holding 2K (nothing fancy, just basic seating and cover the length of the side of the field), proper match quality floodlights and given the location of them, some small scale windmills to help cover the annual cost of floodlights.

The cheap tickets means we tend to get good crowds in Kilkenny for the county championships, especially with double headers.

The potential for the club scene to have several grounds capable of holding games at any time of the day and share the burden on the grass throughout the wetter parts of the year would be a far better investment in the long run.

If that means a downgrade of Nowlan Park by 4/5k when it's time to upgrade it, then so be it.

Better a small stadium and several comfortable and quality club facilities. Might mean adding €2 to the cost of tickets to club matches, but I think most Kilkenny fans would go along with that for securing 6/7 top quality club grounds in the county.

And I'd imagine a lot of fans in general would feel the same. Would Kerry fans, for example, think they'd be better off with a 27-30K stadium and several high quality club grounds for their club competitions?

The North Stand in Tallaght which has a capacity of around 2,500 cost around €11.5 million when opened this year. Now that includes some other work in the ground but building 3,000 seater covered stand would be to expensive for most clubs.

Micheal Martin has said that Euro 2028 games could go to PUC.

Please stop with this s*yet.

It was not good enough for World Rugby when it was built it's not going to be good enough for UEFA now or anytime soon.

He's just playing to the local audience. Knows full well it's bollox.

If the UK & NI governments dont put anything towards Casement that still leaves 50.million from the irish state and 17 million from GAA HQ. That will leave just under 70 million

Going on the cost of stadium developments around the country it could build for Antrim GAA a good modern stadium to hold 15/20 k with a good modern stand, 3 terraces, and floodlights.

Maybe they should go with something like that to get going and long term when the NI/UK money comes through spread out among the other 5 countys .

They only thing is the money NI/UK promised for casement is that to Antrim County Board or Ulster GAA?

This.

GAA grounds need to be built for the lads who go to every game every year and not the lad who goes to a handful of games every few years because the team is doing well.