St.Brigid’s
Boxing Club Funding
Minister
Brian Lenihan called into St.Brigid’s Community Centre last week
to present a cheque for €5,000 to the local St.Brigid’s Amateur
Boxing club. The very welcome funds will go towards the acquisition
of new premises for the club planned at a new location at Buzzardstown.
Mr. Lenihan said that he was delighted to be able to support such a
positive local endeavour and wished everyone concerned the best with
their future plans.
The club’s head coach, Gerry McDaid, said he was delighted that
this funding had become available and said that it would enable the
club to expand greatly. “We are grateful to have the use of the
facility here but as you can see it is quite small and we have room
for only fifteen or twenty members. When you consider the size of the
area we are talking about, the new facilities should be able to cater
for a few hundred young kids who are interested.”
He is enthusiastic about the benefits of the sport to any young person.
“It might not be as glamorous as GAA for example but team sports
are not for everybody. Sometimes people can feel isolated in those situations.
Boxing lets you do your own thing and gives fitness and discipline to
young people. They are also well mentored here and have positive role
models.
“Boxing probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves for
what it has done socially down the years. Long before the Celtic Tiger
came along boxing was helping to build communities. You only have to
look at the amount of deprived areas where boxing clubs emerged. It
gave young people a focus when they hadn’t much else going for
them.”
The club was founded in 1989 by John Domincan and now meets three times
a week on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sunday mornings under the tutelage
of Gerry McDaid and Assistant Coach Jason Tang. As already mentioned,
the current location for the training is St.Brigid’s community
centre but it is hoped that by the end of the year the new premises
may be up and running.
Central to the new development is Paul Dunne of Knife-Edge Developments
who will build the new premises on council-provided land. Paul says
that as a native of Mulhuddart he is delighted to be involved in a project
which gives young children a focus.
“Being from the area I am aware of the lack of amenities and of
course the drugs problem too. It is well known that an activity such
as boxing steers people aware from destructive lifestyles like that
and the more that can be done the better.”
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