Rebuilding Air Dome may not be a wise idea

The destruction of the Connacht GAA Air Dome during Storm Éowyn is a devastating blow and it’s impossible not to feel deep sympathy for John Prenty in particular, the man who made the impossible possible.

That he was at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence until 2.30am on Friday, January 24, anticipating – and worrying about – the arrival of Storm Éowyn says a lot about just how closely attached the provincial secretary has been to the incredible indoor facility that came into being in 2020. Playing indoor GAA games – from full inter-county fixtures right down to Cumann na mBunscol blitzes – made Connacht GAA the envy not just of every sporting body here in Ireland but of organisations right across the globe. And none of it would have happened without John Prenty’s foresight and inner belief nor without his powers of persuasion.

Those powers will surely be tested to their absolute limit, however, if he is to deliver on the promise he has made to rebuild the Air Dome which was Gone with the Wind by about 4.15am.

“When we opened this place in July 2020 nobody believed even five hours before it went up that it would happen. But it did happen, and it will happen again,” John Prenty told RTÉ who had arrived in Bekan hours after Storm Éowyn had passed through to record the extent of the damage.

You’d have expected nothing less from John; it was such bullishness and ambition that helped him and some dedicated followers to get the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence built in the first place. The problem, however, is that storms will also happen again – and with greater regularity and perhaps strength too, if the climate experts are to be believed.

So, while the Air Dome – which cost more than €3.5 million to construct – might have been fully insured, how easy, and at what cost, will it be to secure similar cover next time? And what about those who designed and installed it? They will surely have believed their creation would be robust enough to withstand even the worst Irish weather. Would they have the same confidence in replacing it?

John Prenty, of course, was right on the money in highlighting that, most importantly, nobody was hurt during the Air Dome’s demise.

“[The good thing is] that we were gone when it [collapsed] because we'd have been found today dead, simple as that. We'd have had no way of getting out, we'd have been killed stone dead.” 

Which brings me back to almost a year to the day when things at the Dome could have been much uglier. The date was Sunday, January 21, 2024, and a game between Mayo and Meath due to take place in Ballina in the first round of LGFA National League Division 1 was moved to the Air Dome on account of the weather forecasted for that day. But not just any weather. A storm. Called Isha.

Such were the expected “severe and destructive gusts” that Met Éireann issued a red warning for Mayo from 5pm that Sunday. Even if the timings were going to be right, it smacked of total inconsideration – possibly even recklessness – by the LGFA that the teams and spectators would be travelling home in the midst of the highest weather alert that Met Éireann can issue. To be fair, it probably wasn’t the greatest call either by Connacht GAA to even make their facilities available.

I was among the several hundred in the Air Dome that day and, as I wrote in these pages afterwards, it was a terrifying experience.

“If anyone doubted the Status Red warning that had been issued for Co Mayo that same afternoon, the sight of a bent and buckled floodlight (and this was indoors, remember) being ripped from its anchor during the second half, as the lung-like Air Dome heaved, hooed, exhaled, inhaled, moaned and groaned under the stress of the storm-force gales outside, was all the evidence needed to know the car journey home, nor the evening ahead, wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.” 

The Air Dome was closed for repairs for several days afterwards. Something just didn’t feel right inside there that January afternoon.

To paraphrase John Prenty, had it come down we’d have been found stone dead.

It’s a terrible shame what has happened but Bill Shankly was wrong: football is not as serious as life and death.