How green funding helped bring one of Ireland’s oldest GAA clubs back to life
One of Ireland’s oldest GAA clubs has undergone a €100,000 transformation, turning the 141-year-old building into a more modern, energy efficient one.
Funding for Round Tower GAA Club in Clondalkin came from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment’s Community Climate Action Programme (CCAP) and was administered by South Dublin County Council (SDCC).
“The GAA club is right in the heart of the village. It’s very important to the community. It was set up in 1884 and it’s a very old building, so it needed a lot of work, from the roof to the lighting,” said Sinéad Curran, a member of the local Tidy Towns group and Round Tower’s Green Club, who worked with SDCC to apply for the funding.
“Clubs like these are self-funded so, in terms of carbon reduction and cost reduction, it was important to take this step to manage our bills and future-proof it,” she said.
“The funding and the work we’ve done has brought business into the community. We now have an e-bike library, and solar panels installed in two buildings. All the pitches had old lighting, but we’ve now retrofitted them with LED lights.
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“All this work is also saving us money from energy costs. It means the club has come back to life.
“Kids are excited to go up there now. Now that winter is coming, the new lights will make all the difference for them when they want to use the pitches.”
The club also worked with local schools to plant orchards and walkways around the pitches, and there are gardens growing vegetables, berries and herbs.
Twenty-eight projects in South Dublin have been awarded funding under the current phase of CCAP, netting over €1.1m in investment for community climate projects.
The club received two grants from CCAP, totalling just under €108,600. Once the funding was approved in August 2024, work that would last 18 months began.
Sinéad Curran said she hopes the club can be a model for other local institutions looking to save money and be more conscious of their environmental impact.
“There was some pushback initially by people in the community who did not understand the need for a lot of change for what is a local institution,” she said. “So a lot of my work was to help people understand and move on from that old way of thinking.
“It helped to have support and constant feedback from SDCC through this. We’ve re-wilded a lot of the club grounds now. People have changed their minds. They now see the solar panels, new lights and pitches.
“It’s more than just a meadow. We’re planting orchards with the children who this club rightfully belongs to.
“It will mean they can use it, and their children after them can use it, for years ahead.”