Renville Sports Ground Project

Since 2017 the GAA in the Oranmore / Maree area of Galway have been working to implement our vision to develop a state of the art sports facility on the 34 acres of land which we have purchased adjacent to Rinville Park. The three local GAA clubs (Oranmore Maree GAA, Oranmore Maree Camogie & Naomh Mhuire Ladies Football) merged into One Club at the start of 2019 to drive the development of the Renville Sports Grounds.

Our One Club currently has nearly 1800 members in total (over 1000 juveniles) – membership has doubled since we started this project. There are currently 70 registered teams in the club or the equivalent of 100 teams when including the Academy. With these numbers it is a massive struggle to find training and match slots for all the teams in the club in the limited available community owned facilities and therefore the development of the Renville Sports Ground is vital for the ongoing promotion of GAA sports in the area.

In 2019 we submitted an application to the Large Scale Sports Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) for the development of Phase One of the project and was subsequently awarded a grant of €2.1m for Phase I of the project. Unfortunately, at that time there was some objections to our planning application – thankfully in March this year we finally got the planning permission from An Bord Pleanála for this great project. Also, this year we were able to apply for a top-up to the LSSIF grant and were awarded an extra 20% (to account for the increase in construction costs in the last couple of years).

The LSSIF grant will allow us to progress with Phase I of the development, which will be a €3.6m project. This first phase is very much focused on providing pitch facilities, as these are vitally needed. Phase I will deliver the first full sized 4G Astro GAA Pitch in Galway and 3 full sized grass pitches. It is planned that construction of the pitches will be undertaken in 2024, with the 4G Astro pitch ready to use towards the end of 2024 and the grass pitches ready to play on in 2025. Subsequent phases of the project will address other aspects of the project, such as a Club Pavilion.

To date €1m has been raised from the local community and businesses and has been used for land purchase, planning and fundraising costs. To supplement the LSSIF grant, the club will need to raise an additional €1m for Phase I of the project and this will be raised through a combination of other grants, loans and ongoing local fundraising drives. Contributions from all stakeholders will be vital to the success of this state of the art Sports Centre of Excellence and all support is hugely appreciated.