*Tulla GAA Chairman, Cian McInerney. Photograph: Natasha Barton
AN INCREASE IN MEMBERS and volunteers has already been experienced by Tulla GAA Club as a spinoff from their multi-purpose sports and recreational facility constructed earlier this year.
Planning on the new facility at Dr Daly Park began in March 2021 with the finished product unveiled exactly a year later, construction lasting a period of seven months.
Cian McInerney became Chairman of Tulla GAA Club twelve months ago having previously served as Treasurer for a year. Mark Quinn, a lifelong member and the Manging Director of Q CON in the midst of COVID-19 drew up the plans for the impressive viewing stand, gym, meeting rooms, medical treatment room, press box, kitchen/canteen, changing rooms and toilets.
Bringing a greater community presence to Dr Daly Park served as one of their key ambitions. “The whole objective was to get the community more involved in the club, from that came idea of the pavilion to bring the community from the village to the hurling field and have it as focal point of the community. We wanted to try to have a hub of activity there and that has led to East Clare Fitness coming on board as an anchor tenant and use as yoga studios is also going few times a week, there’s the physiotherapy room and the club shop has led to other community events like coffee mornings and different groups using the function room,” Cian explained”.
Coupled with this was a desire to see the venue host high-profile games within the county. “This idea about the stand had been around for a very long time, the idea of the stand had been in progress since the late 70s when Tulla was hosting big Clare inter-county matches. Clare GAA had an extremely successful period of going unbeaten in the 70s, we were the talk of the county really as a stronghold venue. There was talks in place for a long number of years, there was various ideas floating around but it never got off the ground. The previous Executive managed to secure planning permission for a stand about four years ago and then COVID brought an opportunity to have a rethink about the stand which brought the second focus of bringing the community to the field. We wanted to increase volunteerism and membership,” McInerney stated.
He is confident that Dr Daly Park is capable of now serving as a venue for inter-county games once again. “We’re quite ambitious on our plans for our club, there’s a lot more scope to do more, we’ve a good platform, people can now appreciate Tulla as a venue, people have given very positive feedback about Tulla as a venue from hosting senior and intermediate championship games. At the outset, we would have said what could we achieve, there’s other plans in the background to develop further and add to the venue and bring it to a standard to cater for more. We were recently successful in CLÁR funding to improve the car park, that’s the next stage of development to get the car park done and make it nice and comfortable for our visitors”.
To date €350,000 has been spent on the development, this has been covered through a mixture of fundraising, sponsorship and the club’s own finances. Their Seat for Life fundraising venture is still live where supporters can acquire a seat in the stand for €100 and have their names inscribed on a permanent plaque scroll, displayed at the Pavilion. “It was crucial to the success of the development, it was probably going to be the corner stone of the development. We would have targeted selling approximately 600 seats for life, at the moment we’ve just gone over 500 with €60k raised, we’re still short of where we think we can get to. What the last two months has really showcased Dr Daly Park as a magnificent venue, we’re now looking to harness the showcasing from the last two months to try and sell the extra hundred or more seats”.
“We’re already seeing a huge spin off in the club this year, not just in the attendances at games but we’ve seen a big uptake in new memberships and volunteerism, we’ve seen a lot more people coming down willing to give their time and being generous with their time,” the Chairman added. He acknowledged the input of different committees within the club that have “made this dream a reality, that club spirit and volunteerism has drove this to be a success”.
Wing-back on the Tulla side which tasted senior championship glory in 2007, Cian had already his name etched in their history. The past and the iconic hill of Dr Daly Park has been embraced in the development, he flagged, “The beauty of the design is the hill is still there, people can still stand on the hill before they enter the stand which people choose to do on a nice sunny day. It’s a very clever design which Mark has come up with, we’ve seen that with the championship games, people still appreciate standing on the hill. I don’t think we’ve lost it, it’s a very unique part of our heritage, it’s a very famous part of Tulla GAA, we haven’t lost it, we’ve harnessed it and we’re using it to our advantage”.
A member of the senior panel up until 2018, Cian concluded his playing career with their Junior B outfit last season. Getting involved on the administrative side has been a long-term goal of the Ulster Bank employee, “I was always interested in the administrative side of the club, I would have always been an active contributor at club meetings, it was something that appealed to me to get involved with either administration or coaching once I finished playing. I spent 20 years hurling with the club at adult level, I’m very passionate about the club and I was keen to stay involved”.
Tulla is also embracing multiple new housing developments and the facilities the GAA club possess will be sure to entice new members of their community down to Dr Daly Park. “It was one of our two key stated aims at outset to get the community more involved, we could see there was a lot of houses in the planning process for Tulla, a lot of them have come to fruition, people have come from far and wide, there are new families coming in and looking for outlets and pastimes, what better outlet than the great amenities and a great hurling club, we’re delighted to have something unique to offer them now, it’s not just a playing field”.
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