Central Stadium for Leinster........ Kildare Maybe???

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Leinster Council consider "central stadium"
26 January 2011

Leinster Council will consider the development of a centrally located stadium to become its regional headquarters in the future.

The proposal is part of a new Strategic Vision and Action plan put together by the provincial governing body and released this week.


The Irish Independent reports that the likely venue for the redevelopment work is O'Moore Park in Portlaoise, which could then act as a regional HQ for Leinster Council.

The refurbished venue, which could have a capacity of around 40,000, could then become the home of the Leinster hurling final, which has routinely been played before a half-full Croke Park since the development of GAA HQ in the 1990s.

Yep. on the curragh. Loads of parking, easy to get to. And call it new St. Conleths (too late for biffos bowl).

leinster gaa should buy the land where kildare gaa were going to build the new stadium

Roundabout is in place before Wyeth so road realignment is already started. Would be great to see it. Just off M7/M9. Perfect for everyone....

Big Full Back wrote:

Roundabout is in place before Wyeth so road realignment is already started. Would be great to see it. Just off M7/M9. Perfect for everyone....

Just like o moore park , Just off M7/M8. Perfect for everyone, and with the newly refurbished leinster council office in the same town i would say this would be as far as they would go ,with a revamp of the staduim , the lights are in place , only aspect is to improve parking on match days

The GAA alrady has too many stadia lying idle. We don't need another one.

It's an interesting one alright, the amount of serious stadiums in Kildare that lay idle 90% of the year always amazed me (across all codes). The Curragh Racetrack, Newbridge Dog track, Newbridge Town FC, Punchestown, St. Conleths etc , Athy (dunno the name of the ground) etc etc. The maintenance costs of these must be staggering, its a pity there is not more cross code co-operation. Some of these places are now facing finicial difficulties.

Of course I'll be told that you can't and not physically possible etc etc but is it???

Could Portlaoise GAA Club be set to benefit from this proposed development I wonder ? And in the process extracate themselves from the financial mess they're in. Extra capacity / facilities etc. will surely require extra ground.

Fear An Geata wrote:

Could Portlaoise GAA Club be set to benefit from this proposed development I wonder ? And in the process extracate themselves from the financial mess they're in. Extra capacity / facilities etc. will surely require extra ground.

Thats what I was thinking. Remember the offices are already in Portlaoise and there is a whole development of offices and flats lying idle already beside the ground. Its obviously going to be Portlaoise and probably rightly so in fairness.

Christ, would they stop building new stadia and try upgrading existing stadia and try spending some money on marketing and filling some of these places more than once every few decades!

Better off finishing croke park instead of building 3/4s of a class stadium to suit the dubs.

Anyone know how much debt we're in with the hawkfield project? or more importantly when will we have it paid off so we can then focus our attention on st conleths.

great idea no matter where it goes,but if it came to kildare it be great

One of the main questions here is will it be used for any matches other than the Leinster hurling final? If it's going to be used as a neutral ground for other matches then with the home and away arrangements currently in place, and the first team out of the hat getting home advantage in the qualifiers, the only other games it could get would be All Ireland quarter finals, which would still not guarantee 40,000 strong crowds. Would be an awful lot of work just so the hurling final isn't played in a half empty looking stadium.

As it is now O'Moore park is probably as big as it needs to be, and with redevelopments in Tullamore and Wexford, along with Parnell Park, surely Leinster has enough stadiums to host neutral games in, without building a new one. What other matches aside from the Leinster Final would attract 40,000 people? None I'm guessing.

Like others have said it's money that could be better spent elsewhere, instead of throwing money into something not needed how about dividing the pot between each of the 12 counties, to spend on improvements in their own county grounds?