Boyle GAA Blog ...by Tony Conboy

2.30.
Abbey Park Development:
On Sean's realboyle there are pictures of the progress of the substantial new dressing room development. This includes 4 dressingrooms, two large, two smaller, with attendant shower facilities. There is also a referee's room and showers and a large meeting/multi-purpose room. It is a very substantial building and will provide a state of the art facility for teams in the Abbey Park. The Abbey Park is of course one of the loveliest settings for a sports ground to be seen anywhere and this has been much commented on by many visitors down the years. It is fair to say that it holds no inhibitions for visiting club teams from the area playing here. The main pitch is, I suppose of necessity, overused but hopefully when the College field comes on stream this will reduce and the pitch can be used for higher profile games etc and retain its high quality. There are many people who contribute to all of this. The gentleman who has allowed the use of his lands in the Warren demonstrates a great GAA sportsman's spirit in allowing this. It would be great if another field was available in say Felton which would act as a recreational area for the kids of that area be it Gaelic and Soccer. That's for another day. The contractor with the present development is Frank Dwyer a great GAA supporter himself. I remember the glowing terms he was referred to by Frankie Feighan and Sean Daly for his work, years ago, on the Boyle Celtic building. Overseeing the development is Chris O'Dowd a Shannon Gaels stalwart. So there is an alliance at play here. Indeed Boyle Abbey park isn't just a Boyle GAA ground but a local regional ground and I expect this is recognised as such by those clubs. It is a huge undertaking of course and hopefully when fund raisng proper begins it will be supported and we are confident that it will. I imagine that next Easter or so would be a reasonable expectation for the new dressing rooms to be officially opened but that has not been tied down.
The old dressing rooms will be retained, in the short term at least, for whatever general purposes that may obtain.