By Wayne Higgins

One of the Country's most progressive GAA clubs Parnell's of Dublin opened their new state of the art facilities in the heart of Coolock village this week.

The club which was was formed in 1893 and has Dublin and Leinster senior football titles to its name is now set to progress even further with facilities to match any sport in the country including three floodlit playing pitches: made up of two all weather pitches and one full sized sand-based grass pitch, A fully equipped gym with a sports therapy centre and changing rooms, new modern Clubhouse which will include a reception area, a bar/lounge, games room and large function room as well as meeting rooms and ample car parking space.
The development came about after the club sold their land near Dublin Airport for over 22 million euros.

Along with the facilities the club have lined up a flagship senior team with home-grown talent such as Dublin's All-Ireland winning free taker Stephen Cluxton been joined by a variety of inter county stars from across the country including Mayo's Conor Mortimer, Laois duo Colm Begley and MJ Tierney and Armagh's Johnny Murtagh.

Parnell's have received some criticism for the moves by these stars to Dublin but all have been employed by the club including Mortimer who is the manager of the new gym and Begley who is working as a games promotion officer for the club in local schools.

Mortimer admits that had he not been given the chance to come to work and play in Dublin he would likely have had to emigrate, "it's a different environment for me, I played my first club championship game for Parnell's last week and I found that it is a very tough physical game at club level in Dublin, the club as you can see is really progressive, the coaches we have in place are brought up on hurling and football, moving forward I have seen a lot of facilities around the world for all sports and what we have here at Parnell's wouldn't be out of place in a premiership soccer club in the UK, they have invested the money very wisely and they are staring off the right way working from the underage teams up. I was unemployed and it was likely I would have had to move away from Ireland and not play for Mayo if I hadn't have got this chance with Parnell's."

Chairman Frank Glesson says he is hopeful that the club can become the home of all GAA fans and clubs who visit Dublin, "We want all GAA people who come to Dublin to watch, play or socialise in the GAA to visit Dublin and we are also discussing with some county boards about having their Dublin based stars training in our facilities which as you can see are world class, also for teams coming to play in Croke park, we have a croke park size pitch in St David's and two all weather pitches here within 2 miles of Croke park as well as facilities for catering and conditioning training in our gym."

Parnell's looked at the likes of Nemo Rangers and Mallow to see their facilities which are considered some of the best in the country and they developed a strategic plan working on the plan they put in place when they sold their lands at the airport.

The club has a huge catchment area were it is based for both playing and non playing members and this is evident in the way they have worked with schools in the area, 10 primary and 4 secondary schools have benefited over the last three years from coaching from the club which encourages children ideally to come to the club and become members and playing either hurling or football.

"schools are delighted, essentially they have had cutbacks so they need all the help they can get, they get consistent free coaching and we also give them use of our bus for school matches they would be playing in, there are demands on the children and we are competing against soccer a lot but with the numbers growing at juvenile level we are fielding two teams in a lot of age bands in this age bracket" Said Glesson.

With Mayo not due in action until June 24th Mortimer is concentrating on club duties for Parnell's and after a successful league campaign were the Westerners made the league final before losing to Cork, Mortimer is feeling fit and strong after missing action last year due to a cruciate injury.

"The knee is fine now, I was back after five months, I did a lot of work on my own and that is usually the way it is when you do injure your cruciate, I feel good, played the league well and I am looking forward to playing the championship now" said Mayos all time record scorer.

Like Glesson, Mortimer is hopeful that the club can develop the skills of the local youngsters,

Glesson admits he is aware of the criticism that the club got for encouraging players to come and play in Dublin but he says that like Mortimer it would be such a shame if these players had to leave the country if they didn't get the jobs that Parnells were able to provide them with and doing this type of activity helps make Parnells strong in the long term and would ideally in the future mean that all the top players on the senior teams were locals and are playing inter county hurling and football for Dublin. Tweet

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