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#Rowing: Castleconnell won the award as best junior club at Ghent International Regatta today. Their boys and girls reeled off a set of impressive results over the two days: on Sunday, the women’s junior pair won, while there were second places for the junior men’s four, pair and double and the junior women’s quadruple, which took on international-class Belgian opposition. The women’s under-23 double also won.  

 Saturday had been good for a number of Ireland clubs. Forty-one crews competed in the men’s junior single sculls – and Irish crews filled the first two places. Jack Butler of King’s Hospital won, with Rory O’Neill of Castleconnell just two seconds slower. The Castleconnell junior men’s four won and their women’s junior double of Niamh Kiely and Lauren O’Brien took second amongst 51 crews which competed.  

 Over the two days, other Irish crews to record wins included Skibbereen – which won both the women’s senior pair and the men’s junior 16 quadruple – and Commercial, which on Saturday won the junior women’s pair through Aoife Molony and Grace Healy and the junior women’s eight.

 At Lee Regatta on Saturday, Shandon won the junior men’s 18 eight and Cork the women’s junior 18 eights.

Ghent International May Regatta (Irish interest, selected results)

Saturday

­Men

Four – Junior: 1 Castleconnell.

Pair – Jun: 2 Castleconnell (J O’Donovan, C Mulready); 3 Castleconnell (B Frohburg, D Ryan)

Sculling, Quadruple – Jun 18: 3 Skibbereen (D Kavanagh, E O’Connor, F O’Reilly, F O’Regan). Jun 16: 1 Skibbereen (Kavanagh, O’Connor, O’Reilly, Regan).

Single – Jun: 1 King’s Hospital (J Butler), 2 Castleconnell (R O’Neill).

Women

Eight – Jun: 1 Commercial, 2 Carlow. Pair – Jun: 1 Commercial (A Molony, G Healy).

Sculling, Quadruple – Jun: 2 Castleconnell (N Kiely, L O’Brien, N Silke, S Byrnes).

Single – Under-23: 3 Castleconnell (P Silke).

Double – Jun: 3 Castleconnell (N Kiely, L O’Brien).

Single – Under-23: 2 Castleconnell (C O’Brien). Lightweight Single – Sen: 3 Skibbereen (O Hayes).  

Sunday

Men

Four – Jun: 2 Castleconnell (B Frohburg, J O’Donovan, C Mulready, D Ryan)

Pair – Jun 18: 2 Castleconnell (O’Donovan, Mulready), 3 Castleconnell (Frohburg, Mulready), 3

Sculling

Double – Jun: 2 Castleconnell (J Desmond, R O’Neill). Jun 16: 3 Skibbereen (E O’Connor, F O’Reilly)

Women

Eight: 2 Commercial, 3 Carlow.

Pair – Sen: 1 Skibbereen (A McCarthy, N Casey), 2 Commercial (H O’Neill, R Morris). Jun: 1 Castleconnell (N Silke, S Byrnes); 3 Commercial (A Moloney, G Healy).

Sculling, Quadruple: 2 Castleconnell.

Double – U-23: 2 Castleconnell (C O’Brien, S Gilmore). Jun 16: 2 Carlow (S Scully, K Egan).

Single – Lightweight: 3 Skibbereen (O Hayes).

Published in Rowing

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)