Rockland GAA club members pictured with Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael, Larry McCarthy, at the official opening of their newly constructed ball wall.
By John Harrington
There are few more convincing case-studies about the potential for Gaelic games to flourish outside of Ireland than Rockland GAA club in New York.
Founded in 1972, they’ve always been very progressive and well-run.
Their ambition was writ large in 2000 when 24 local families offered up the deeds of their houses as collateral for a $485,000 bank loan they used to purchase a site that saw Rockland GAA become the first ever club outside of Ireland or England to own their own grounds
A year later they purchased some adjacent land for $100,000 to bring the club’s holding to 11 acres, and within five years they had paid off the entire cost of $585,000 and those house deeds were returned by the bank.
In 2010 they officially opened Phase 1 of their Centre of Excellence development that included one full-size GAA pitch and two juvenile pitches with floodlighting and seating for 1,000 people.
In 2017 they completed Phase 2, a state of the art clubhouse incorporating a viewing stand, gymnasium, playing hall, changing rooms, and a meeting room.
Now they’ve broken more new ground by building a ball wall which as officially opened by GAA President, Larry McCarthy.
Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael, Larry McCarthy, and Rockland GAA club Chairperson, Paul Levins, perform the honours at the opening of the club's new ball wall.
Even in a country where they like to build big, the 12,000 square foot all-weather facility is something really impressive.
We'd been kicking the idea around for years,” says Rockland GAA Chairperson, Paul Levins.
“There was a part of the field that had a big embankment going down it so we spoke about putting up a hurling wall for many years.
“A group of people got together and we drew up a plan to take out the embankment and put in a 60-feet long wall. One thing led to another and a couple of hours later it was 125 feet long and there were two walls. It's a 12,000 square foot installation now with an astro-turf surface.
“When you have a couple of the right people in place it’s possible to make something like this happen. Some contractors stepped in and helped us with machinery and whatever else.
“We had to take out over 250 loads of dirt from the ground and take it away to different facilities. Things just fell into place for us and we were very lucky.
“We budgeted it at around $1.3M but thanks to different companies belonging to club-members stepping in, it all came to a cost of around $700,000 for the club.
“Between men giving us machinery and bringing in concrete pumps and donating their time, and there were many contractors who did that, too many to mention, we were able to save a lot of money.
“It wouldn't have been possible without some key people. We have a development committee who did Trojan work. It's headed up by Joe McGirl and he was assisted by Paul McLoughlin, Tommy Fogarty, Brian Moloney, and Mike Healy.
“The two main men were Tommy Fogarty and Brian Moloney who did an awful lot of work in terms of the construction of the hurling wall.”
Some of Rockland GAA club's younger members making good use of the ball wall.
The ball wall is already being put to good use. The fact that it’s an all-weather facility means the club’s players will always have somewhere to hone their skills.
“When it rains here it really rains and this year we probably had more rain than we've ever had,” says Levins.
“Some other clubs have come up from down in the Bronx to use it. Even some of the men's senior hurling teams would come up here. I was in the Pavilion one evening and Tipperary came up for a session because they were playing in a final and there were 30 guys below at the hurling wall.
“Just to hear 30 men walloping a ball off a concrete wall, and there's a hell of an echo in it, it would just give you goosebumps. It was great.
“Having a facility like this will help us in a lot of ways. Our season starts the Saturday after Easter and because we've got grass fields you have to let the grass grow so we've gone to train in different schools around the area.
“But now that we have this 12,000 square foot area they will be able to go in there in March and start their training rather than renting out gyms and stuff like that. It's going to pay dividends.”
Rockland GAA has a booming club membership that includes around 700 underage players at every age-group from U-6 to U-18, so they clearly invest as heavily in their players as they do their infrastructure.
“We put a huge emphasis on youth development,” says Levins. “We do have a big drop-off after 16/17 years of age because the kids are going to college and could be going anywhere from Texas to California.
“We struggled there for a couple of years with fielding men's seniors teams but they do come back and now we have two men's junior teams this year and we won a League.
“They're all home-grown players who have been here since they were kids. We're very lucky to have great coaches. From U-15 down we have two teams in every age group. At U-7 and U-9 you could have three or four teams.
“We have huge numbers really. Last year for our 50th anniversary we got a new crest so we had to get new jerseys for all our teams. We had 38 teams in the club and we've had two more since, a camogie team and another men's hurling team, so we're up to 40 teams now currently in the club."
Rockland GAA club put a big emphasis on youth development.
Levins puts Rockland’s success down to the fact that they’re such a community-oriented club.
A recent coaching and games initiative for children with additional needs that was a big hit sums up what they’re all about.
New voices are always welcome, which is why the club has the energy and vision to always strive for improvement.
“I think a big part of our success is that we always have a good turn-over of club officers,” says Levins.
“In our 51 years there have been 21 Chairpersons of the club. Everybody comes in and does their two to three years and works as hard as they possibly can, and then they hand the baton over to someone else. There's always new people coming in with new voices and new ideas.
“Everybody has something they want to get done and every Chairperson comes in and wants to bring it to the next level. When you get the backing of the club that's very easily done. Everyone wants to see progress.
“A lot of the Irish people here are involved in contracting or some other commercial business and they give us great support. We have a great community here and we do an awful lot for the community.
“Hopefully it'll be onwards and upwards now. We're all about promoting the games here and keeping them going. You can't take your finger off the pulse at all when you're competing against so many other sports like lacrosse, baseball, soccer, American football.
“School sports are huge here but our kids always keep coming back.”