Galway Rowing Club starting to make waves again

One of the highlights of rowing in Galway this year was the performance of Galway Rowing Club at the National Championships in Cork in July. In all, the club captured eight national titles at the prestigious event, underlining that it is, once again, becoming a major force in the sport.

Having resided in the shadows of rowing superpowers NUI Galway and The Tribesmen – and, indeed, a number of other crews locally, such as Coláiste Iognáid (The Jes) and St Joseph’s (The Bish) – Galway Rowing Club looks to be finally establishing a foothold on the podium after a decade or so of mediocrity.

To the fore in the revival has been the club’s Vice President and one of its many coaches, Rory O’Brien, a Limerick City native who moved to the banks of the Corrib approximately 30 years ago. It was not until the late 1990s, though – when one of his daughters took up the sport – that he re-entered the world of rowing and pledged his allegiance to Galway RC.

“For the last 10 years, I have competed with veteran crews, while, for the last two years, I have been coaching women’s junior crews,” explained the former St Michael’s (Limerick) rower. “We had an eight [crew] and we broke it up into everything we could, such as two quads and doubles.

“There was also another lady coaching with me, Sara Brennan. She coached the younger ones – new beginners – and I coached the older ones. Then we combined the entire squad and we came up with this eight, which is unbeaten this year.”

Indeed, the resurgence of the club is very much reflected – and in some ways inspired by – the feats of the J16 women’s eights this year. Having shown well in a number of Head of the River events – such as Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon – early in the year, they subsequently went on to power to victories at a plethora of regattas, including Limerick and Galway.

The highlight of the year, though, was in July when that crew stormed to victory in both the WJ16 eights and the novice disciplines. The most significant was the latter. Leading the field after the first 500 metres, Galway Rowing Club stormed to a three-length win to become champions of Ireland.

That winning crew consisted of Cox Afric O’Regan, Stroke Fiona Murtagh, Meagan Donnelly, Cara Cunningham, Kellie Wade, Meabh O’Brien, Ruth Cummins, Femhe Caffrey and Claire Elwood. Two of these, Wade and Murtagh, subsequently went on to guide Ireland’s junior four to gold at the Home Internationals at Strathclyde in Scotland.

In addition to the eights win, a number of these young rowers also swelled their individual medal hauls by claiming wins in the WJ16 fours and the WJ15 fours, while Donnelly and another rising star, Claire Caulfield, took home goal in the WJ15 and WJ14 single sculls respectively.

Crowning Galway Rowing Club’s visit to the National Championships were the performances of the young men’s teams, which won both the J16 eights and J16 quads events. Tutored by Paul Thornton, that eights crew comprised Cox Ross Madden, Stroke Nathan Collins, Alan Murtagh, triplets David, Martin and Chris Laffey, Michael Flaherty, Gary Cooney and Conor Curran.

It was the J16 fours victory, in particular, that provided the sweetest success, with the Galway crew out-rowing rivals Tribesmen in the last 300 metres to take gold. “That junior 16 quad was a phenomenal win,” noted O’Brien, as was the performances of his junior women.

“If you look at that junior 16 eights,” continued the Limerick man, “two of them were 14, three of them were 15 and the rest were 16 years old. However, in the novice eights championship, they beat two university crews – NUIG and Queens – and a number of other club crews. There could be five years or more in the age difference and, indeed, some of the other rowers could have been 23 or 24!”

The recent success of Galway Rowing Club he believed came down to both good coaching and a superbly dedicated and talented team of rowers.

“For example, Sara [Brennan] and I coached the junior women. Sara was very strong on the gym stuff and I was very strong on the water stuff, although both of us would be on the water with them all the time. Sara would then see something or I would see something and we would pull them over and try to get it right. In the end, it just seemed to click.

“I mean, technically, these girls were phenomenal and they gelled very well as a crew and a group of buddies. If one went to the pictures, they all went to the pictures. They were very close friends and still are.”

It was O’Brien’s hope that he could keep this talented bunch intact; perhaps even race them at intermediate level in the coming season. 

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.