Páirc Uí Chaoimh
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Páirc Uí Chaoimh |
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| Location | ||
| Area: | Cork City | |
| County: | County Cork | |
| Country: | Ireland | |
| Facility Statistics | ||
| Broke Ground: | 1974 | |
| Opened: | 1976 | |
| Surface: | Grass | |
| Owner: | Cork GAA | |
| Original construction cost: | IR£ 2million | |
| Capacity: | 43,500 | |
| Dimensions: | 144 m x 88 m | |
Páirc Uí Chaoimh is a Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in the Ballintemple area of Cork in Ireland, where major hurling and Gaelic football matches are played. It is the home of Cork GAA. The stadium had an original capacity of about 50,000, however, this capacity has been progressively reduced because of safety regulations to the current figure of 43,500.
The stadium annually hosts the finals of the Cork senior hurling and senior football championships. It also frequently hosts games in the National Hurling League, National Football League, Munster Hurling Championship and Munster Football Championship.
Behind Croke Park, Semple Stadium and the Gaelic Grounds, Páirc Uí Chaoimh has the largest capacity of any Gaelic Games stadium.
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[edit] History
[edit] New Stadium
Sports meetings were frequently held on the area now occupied by Páirc Uí Chaoimh even before the establishment of the Gaelic Athletic Association. By the late 1890s the Cork County Board were allowed by the Cork Agricultural Company, the leaseholders of the land, to enclose a portion of the site for the playing of Gaelic Games. The county board built their own stadium on the land. The Cork Athletic Grounds opened in 1904 and hosted All-Ireland finals, Munster finals and National League games. Some developments took place over the years, however, by the 1970s the Athletic Grounds were in poor condition and a new plan was drawn up. In 1974 the ground was completely demolished to make way for a totally new stadium to. It was an ambitious plan, one that the GAA had never embarked on before. Páirc Uí Chaoimh was to be the new name for the GAA’s first custom-built stadium. The modern bowl-shaped stadium features one covered stand, an open-air stand and two terraces behind each goalpost. The main stand is named after Sean Mac Carthaigh, Cork's second president of the GAA. The stadium itself is named after Pádraig Ó Caoimh, general-secretary of the association from 1929 until 1964 and a native of Cork. Páirc Uí Chaoimh was officially opened on June 6, 1976 by Con Murphy, then president of the GAA. On the opening day the Cork hurlers played Kilkenny while the Cork footballers took on Kerry.
[edit] Criticism
In 2005 the Cork County Board took the decision to replace all wood bench seats with plastic bucket seats in both the covered and open stands. Due to the shape of the new bucket seats, overall legroom has been reduced substantially with many complaining of being unable to sit in the seat enitrely. In response, the Cork County Board went ahead with cutting the tops off the back of each seat to marginally improve the legroom.
[edit] Future Proposals
In October 2007 the Cork County Boards announced plans to redevelop Páirc Uí Chaoimh into a state-of-the-art 60,000-seat sports and concert venue in conjunction with the Cork Docklands redevelopment. If these plans get the go-ahead, Cork would have the second largest stadium in the country behind Croke Park, which has a capacity of 82,000. The Cork stadium would be bigger than the redeveloped Lansdowne Road (50,000), while also outstripping other Munster GAA venues. If approved by the city council’s planners and leaders, Páirc Uí Chaoimh will also get an ancillary all-weather pitch as well as a 400-space car park and a dining facility. To accommodate the county board’s plans and the docklands redevelopment, Cork city council has acquired 22 acres of nearby land following a compulsory purchase order.
[edit] Records
The record attendance at Páirc Uí Chaoimh was 49,961 for the 1985 Munster Final between Cork and Tipperary.
[edit] See also
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Cork GAA
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