‘It’s hard to survive’ – GAA club fears losing pitch as site goes up for auction

The proposed site at Lands Abbeyview, Castledermot, is located across the road from Castledermot GAA Club.

The 15.24-acre site, which includes a juvenile football pitch and is advertised on Wilsons Auctions, will be auctioned on Wednesday coming, June 14, at 2pm with a starting price of €225,000.

Planning permission has lapsed on the property.

Chairman Dan O’Keeffe said he believes the US investment fund Cerberus currently owns the site.

The club has already placed a bid on the property.

“This is a piece of ground that we have a second pitch on from the previous owners – they gave us permission to put a pitch on it, but they went into liquidation,” he told the Irish Independent.

“We have been trying to purchase the property for a good while and only three weeks ago it changed auctioneer, and it has changed receiver for the property.

“Unfortunately, in the Castledermot area, this is the only piece of ground within the town limits. We have been looking for a piece of ground for 25 years and this is just across the road from us.

“Generally, when land goes up for sale around the likes of Castledermot, some ground last year and the year before made €37,000 per acre and a bit last year made €32,000 per acre.

“So, it goes to high prices. We have been trying to buy it for 25 or 30 years now and we’ve generally been outbid on each occasion.”

Mr O’Keeffe said that on the deeds of the property dated September 16, 2019, a company titled Everyday Finance Designated Activity Company is listed as the owner on the land registry. The company trades as Link Financial with a registered address at 16 Briarhill Business Park, Ballybrit, Co Galway.

“The predicament we’re in at the moment is there is very little information and it’s going to be very hard for the GAA club to buy it,” Mr O’Keeffe said.

“We’d hope not to be moving out of it, we’re there long enough.

“We have some sort of rights on the fact that we’re located there, and we have the bit of land that we developed for a juvenile pitch.

“We’re a very small club and we’ve 29 teams from under six to senior level using the one pitch at present, we’re very much community based.

“We’re finding it very hard to survive or expand our club in any way.

“In the last two years the lady’s part of it has exploded and we’ve big teams coming up. We’d end up renting pitches and borrowing pitches from local teams.

“It makes it quite expensive and we’re a very small town, but we get great support from all the businesses.”

Mr O’Keeffe said the GAA club would love to install a running track on the site if it was able to purchase it successfully.

“It’s really for the benefit of the town as well as the GAA,” he said.

He added that the club has been forced to relinquish home advantage for a number of games as a result of the lack of space and the quality of the main pitch.

Cerberus, Link Financial and Wilsons Auctions were contacted for comment.