AS Dalkey Rowing Club celebrates its 80th anniversary we are hoping for another successful year by winning races and increasing our membership, sponsorship and fundraising for a new skiff boat which we hope to have for the next season.
Skiff rowing is one of the oldest traditional sports and we are members of the East Coast Rowing Council along with other East coast rowing clubs.
We are very proud to have re-launched the Dalkey Rowing Club last year and want to build up a successful club for our community. We have members from under 12s to over 18 and all ages and experiences are welcome.
Our Regatta this year was held on Sunday, June 15 at Scotsmans Bay, Sandycove and it was was a huge success.
As it is our 80th anniversary this year, we had some special cups to present on the day including one to the winners of the Senior Ladies race, the
‘Helen Healy Memorial Cup’ that was sponsored by John Healy, an ex-rower, and named in memory of his mother.
Our recent regatta race was held in Stella Maris Rowing Club, Ringsend and we won two gold (novice men and novice ladies crews) and two bronze (mixed crew and novice ladies crews) so the season is definitely going in the right direction.
Skiff rowing in Dalkey was passed down from the hobblers who were men in the 18th and 19th century, who rowed fishing and pilot boats that guided bigger boats to their moorings.
As work started drying up towards the end of the 1800s, instead of racing to the boats they started having races between themselves and this is how it all started.
The tradition is honoured today through the many skiff regattas along the East coast during the summer months.
There is evidence of regattas taking place in Dalkey as early as August 1878. However, the club wasn’t officially started until 1934.
The founding committee included Patrick White, John Doyle, who had the barber shop in Castle Street, Fred Hill, the father of Harry Hill and his brother
‘Gutney’ – both top class footballers, and Tom English of St Patrick’s Road.
The finance to buy the club’s first boat was provided by the owner of a small aircraft that crash landed into the sea just south of Dalkey Island.
The senior crew who were practicing in an old rowing boat called
‘The Sarah’, saw the accident and raced straight over.
They successfully pulled both the pilot and the passenger from the plane uninjured.
In an act of gratitude the owner bought the club’s first boat, which they named
‘Blath na Farraige’ or
‘The Flower of the Sea’.
Their first season was a huge success, with the senior crew winning many of the races and finishing the season as East Coast Champions.
The senior crew was made up of Jim Foran, Mick Lambe, Thady Dowling and the coxswain was Mick Byrne.
In the late 1930s a ladies crew was set up. The crew, which included Gracie Hill, Greta Reilly, and Maggie and Anne Brown won lots of races in 1940 and 1941 in the newly purchased boat – the St Malachy. This name is still used for the club’s boat to this day.
The
‘Golden Era’ for the rowing club really came in the 1970s when several East Coast Championships were won. The key oarsmen of this period were Colm Dermot, Michael Comerford, the Newbank brothers, Pat Dalton, Terence, Seamus and Brian Keogh, Com and Eoin Condon, Michael and Declan Mullen, Ken, Johnny and Gerald Cunningham.
t wasn’t just the men – the women enjoyed lots of successes too. Their key players were Michelle Brady, Eimear Comerford, Christine Walsh, Geraldine Greene, Helen Seix, Ann Golden, Linda Cunningham, Elaine Farrell, Jacinta and Tine Kelly, Carol Condon, Liz Bailey and Yvonne Rooney.
Arguably, one of the club’s greatest achievements came in 1994 when the schoolboys won the All Ireland Championship in Carnlough Regatta.
The winning crew was David Cunningham, Colm Harper, Darren Hughes, Garrett Duffy and cox Frank Duffy.
We would like to thank all the support from the local community of Dalkey and beyond. A special thank you to Dominic Dowling Solicitors; Dalkey Taxis, Hammond and Associates Solicitors, The Corner Note Cafe, The Club bar/restaurant, Berea Construction, Amazing Cakes.ie, Macart (Shay Kennedy), who are sponsoring Dalkey Rowing Club and Rowing crews for 2014 regatta races.
We would also like to mention Eamon Power, (email primecuts1100@gmail.com) who has taken some amazing pictures of our events.