‘Field of Dreams’

Kilcullen GAA ‘Field of Dreams’…if we build it….they will play

Kilcullen GAA club has seen huge growth in its membership over the past decade. The membership currently stands at just under 1,100 members, in a town with a population of approximately 3,710.

The club has enjoyed unprecedented success in women’s senior and underage football, which culminated in the senior women’s team winning the division 1 league title in 2022.

The senior men reached an intermediate Leinster final early in 2022. Several seniors and juveniles have also gone on, and continue, to represent Kildare in various intercounty competitions and levels.

Going into 2023 we have at least one if not two girls from our club representing Kildare at county level in each age group. An amazing achievement that we are very proud of.

We want that success to continue and as such the club have embarked on an ambitious redevelopment of their current playing facilities which are at the heart of the community.

In 2019 the club acquired an additional 8 acres  on a long-term lease from Kildare County Council.

In early 2022, we formed a development committee and gave our project a name. The Kilcullen GAA ‘Field of Dreams’.

Throughout 2022, with input from the entire community, we discussed, planned, surveyed, assessed  and in November of the same year planning permission was submitted and fully approved in January 2023.

The full description of the works with full planning approved are:

• Construction of 2 Juvenile grass playing pitches
•  Adult grass playing pitch on lands adjoining to the existing club grounds
• Erection of an all-weather 30m x 15m training area with double sided ball wall with floodlights, the ball wall will be 5metres high and 15 metres wide, with a 5m high perimeter fence with 4nr 13m high lighting columns to all weather pitch.
• Community fitness walkway & cycleway with active travel connections to existing neighbouring active transport nodes to the northwest, east and southeast of the subject lands with associated public lighting.
• Alteration/extension of existing car parking to include additional coach and car parking bays. f) Bicycle parking along with site infrastructure works, landscaping works and all associated site development and facilitating works.

See Fig 1: CGI of Planned Development

 

Works are due to being in February 2023.

 

The projected costs for the project are as below.

As you can see, we have a mountain to Climb in terms fundraising. Our development committee are working with the community of Kilcullen and we have put together some successful fundraisers, with more planned.

• Annual Corporate Golf Classic
• Annual Kildare Club Car draw
• Run Run Rudolph -Christmas 5km run
• The Cill Chuillinn Abu wall plaque buying scheme.

We will also apply for all applicable sports and community walkway grants.

 

How can you support ?

As a business, we are looking for donations and/or sponsorship of the ‘Field of Dreams’. We have put together options for naming rights of pitches/ walkway and options for signage throughout the New development.

If you would like to discuss this, please contact :

kilcullengaafieldofdreams@gmail.com

Martin Murphy -087 6857909

Trevor Schwer – 087  7829965

 

For an anonymous donation, please see our bank details as below:

Account Name Kilcullen GAA Development
IBAN IE62 BOFI 9011 4027 1545 44
BIC BOFIIE2D