By Valerie Keating
CARLOW Rowing Club held its 158th annual regatta over the recent bank holiday weekend in pleasant weather.
Carlow Hugo Mead, Callum Kelly, Darren Callanan, Jack Murray amd cox Fionn Heslin on the Barrow Photos: Thomas Nolan Photography
The club welcomed teams from the four provinces and racing on Saturday was mainly junior 18s, club rowers, seniors, masters and recreational rowers. Racing started at 11am and ran right through to 4.20pm, with a total of 78 races.
Tadhg Griffin, Chloe Webster, Gráinne and Clíodhna Nolan
Carlow’s double sculls of Luke Keating and Niall Murphy were beaten by Offaly RC by a half canvas. Niall won the senior sculls beating J Casey from Commercial RC, Dublin in the final. Luke won his heat in the club one single sculls race, but lost the final to another Carlow sculler, Niall O’Brien.
Chloe Broderick and Amanda Sheehan
Niall himself was to have a good day, where he also won in his masters quadruple sculls. The crew of Niall, Anthony Dooley, Paul Gallen and Seamus (Buster) Keating beat a masters crew from Galway.
Seamus ‘Buster’ Keating making some adjustments to a boat
The junior 18 quadruple sculls panel of Andy O’Toole, Dach Murray, Finn McHale, Callum Kelly, Darren Callanan and Hugo Meade rowed in a number of races in the club quad sculls and J18 quad sculls beating crews from Clonmel, St Michael’s (Limerick) and Neptune (Dublin) in their heats and went on to win their finals easily.
Tom Snoddy, Brendan Byrne and Mick Curran
Andy and Dach also went on to win their double sculls event. Both Carlow’s male and female recreational rowers had a good number of races against Phoenix RC and Graiguenamanagh. The male, female and mixed crews had a great day’s racing.
Robin James looking after the silverware at the Carlow Regatta
On Sunday, racing started at 9am and ran right through to 6pm with a total of 131 races and it was the turn of the junior 14, 15, 16s to compete. There were a number of straight finals as junior 14 and 15 age group only rowed over 1000 metres.
Emma Dunne, Sadbh Scully and Ava Kavanagh enjoying the Carlow Regatta
Carlow members won a good number of these races and look forward to the remaining event in the rowing calendar. The regatta also played host to a unique race, where the Carlow captain and president organises an eights fun race between past club members. This year was great fun, with the president’s boat winning by inches and credit must go to Grace James and Robert Williamson who rowed and trained the two crews this year.
Alan Owens, Darren Lewis and Dermot Scully from Carlow Fire Brigade water rescue unit who were on hand to help out
Credit also to the many volunteers who worked tirelessly over the two days umpiring, stewarding, looking after the slip, the race starters and the team at the finish, the boats and also Marie Bolger and Gillian Murphy and all who donated food, the many women, mainly members’ mums, who worked tirelessly over the two days in the shop selling both hot and cold food.
Joseph Kennedy, Niamh Salter, Ronan Blanchfield, Elaine Grant and cox Rachel Roberts
Overall, speaking to members from the different visiting clubs and regatta secretary Michael Curran, the regatta was deemed a great success.
The next regatta is Athlone, which takes place at Coosan point shortly.
