ANTRIM GAA chairman, Ciaran McCavana, performed one of his final tasks on Saturday afternoon by opening of the magnificent High-Performance Centre at Dunsilly.

The facility is another major step forward for Antrim GAA at their Centre of Excellence as it comprises of a gym and meeting rooms that can accommodate players and also be used for County Board meetings.

In total, the impressive new building cost in the region of £500,000 with £85k coming from funding, £25k each form Croke Park and Casement Social Club, £190k raised from the disposal of previously owned grounds at Ballygrooby, while the remainder came through Club Aontroma and the Saffron Business Forum.

The state-of-the-art facility houses a meeting room to accommodate 60 to 70 people for nutrition, a fully fitted kitchen area, interactive TV for video analysis, while this space can also host Count Board meetings.

The air-conditioned gym itself is spacious with 11 racks, bikes and weights to allow upwards of 40 people to train together with additional features including a state-of-the-art continuous LED lighting system, full WiFi accessibility throughout complete music system. There is also a disabled toilet and private physio room and store.

On Saturday, prior to cutting the tape, in a touch of class, Dunloy native Fr PJ McCamphill blessed the new centre.

A glimpse inside the new facility
2Gallery

A glimpse inside the new facility

Antrim Senior and U20 Hurling and Football managers Darren Gleeson, Andy McEntee, Paudie Shivers and Niall Jackman and a host of their panels were in attendance, along with representatives of Club Aontroma, Casement Social Club and Saffron Business Forum.

OB Construction, Portglenone was main contractor with site manager, Damien O’Hagan.
Architect was Lee Doherty with project architect Brian McDowell, the Quantity Surveyor was Dermot Rooney.

Grove Mechanical Electrical and Premier Electrics also played a major part in its construction, while the gym equipment came through Podium 4 Sport’s Paul Stevenson and Paul Mullan.

The project commenced in early May, with the centre now ready for use by Antrim’s teams and its opening has come at exactly the right time with pre-season now underway.

The Antrim Project team is made up of Paul Molloy, Seamus McKillop, Seamus McMullan, Frank Caldwell and Tony Shivers, and Molloy believes having this new facility can help Antrim teams take that next step.

“I’ve been on the committee for seven years and when we came in, Corrigan needed done up. Obviously, there is Casement and hopefully we are getting that across the line now,” he said of the work that has gone on in the county in recent years.

“But we also had the floodlights here (Dunsilly), the pitches themselves, the car park and now this facility with the proximity to the changing rooms is great.

“Antrim GAA is like running Linfield, Glentoran and Cliftonville together - that’s how complex it is.

“People forget we are a dual county. We’re in Division Three football and hopefully, Andy (McEntee) will get us into Division Two. We’re a Division One hurling team and then we have our U20s and U17s.

“This means we can have people coming in here at 6am with a programme from Brendan (Murphy, Head of Athletic Performance) or here at 10pm as they all have their individual programme.

“There important time for it is now, November and December, January and February, as the new season begins.”

Shivers commented at the opening event that Antrim GAA went all out to completely finish the project to the highest standards and to have “a best in class facility”.

Antrim will now be appealing to clubs and businesses to assist with the cost of the High Performance Centre by getting your club or business logo on a specially commissioned plaque to be erected in the foyer of this highly impressive building.