Successful season for Offaly Rowing Club

The 2023-2024 regatta season was an overall very successful one for the junior women of Offaly rowing club. 

Our season began in November of 2023 where the club attended the Provincial Indoor Rowing Championships in the University of Limerick. We had representation from 4 of our junior women. Racing in the junior 18 events were Róisín Byrne coming 3rd in the 2000m and 2nd in the 1000m, Sam Walsh coming 11th in the 2000m and 10th in the 500m, Racing in the junior 16 events were Sadhbh Keohane coming 9th in the 2000m and 3rd in the 500m and Emily Byrne coming 26th in the 2000m and 23rd in the 500m.The girls also took part in the relay where they came 3rd.

We then move to January where our rowers returned to Limerick for the National Indoor Rowing Championships, where once again our j18 women of Róisín Byrne, Sadhbh Keohane, Sam Walsh and Emily Byrne took the stage again, first competing to the 2000m where they came 7th, 34th, 55th and 58th respectively.

Sadhbh, Emily and Sam followed on into the 500m coming 2nd, 14th and 21st respectively and Róisín competed in the 1000m coming 1st. The girls also raced in a relay where they performed well to come in 2nd place.

March arrived bringing Galway Head of the River and some brutal weather. The crew of Sam walsh, Róisín Byrne, Sadhbh Keohane and Emily Byrne raced in the women's j18 coxless quad coming 5th behind 3 very strong Galway crews who train on the same stretch of river and a Garda Boat Club crew. 

The regatta season was delayed slightly due to bad weather where both Neptune and Commercial regatta were cancelled in April. 

After the inconvenient weather passed, the rowers were back to Limerick for a third time for Limerick Regatta where sadly all the single races were cancelled so they turned their attention to the coxless quad where in an amazing final saw the Offaly women faced off against CRCC (Galway): with only 0.5 of a second between the crews, Offaly came out on top in a hard fought final which saw them behind for almost the whole race. 

The start of May brought Lough Rynn regatta where our j18 women had a rough day but many lessons were learned. The quad started the day where the j18 4x- came 4th. Later in the day the women's j18 doubles had their debut for this season, Offaly A Sadhbh Keohane and Róisín Byrne and Offaly B Emily Byrne and Sam Walsh. After an unpleasant heat, Offaly A made it to the A final coming 4th and Offaly B winning the B final and coming 7th overall. 

Once again due to weather Dublin Metropolitan Regatta was cancelled but was soon followed by Munster Branch Regatta in the National Rowing Centre Co.Cork where once again our women's j18 coxless quad came 4th in their final. Later in the day Sadhbh Keohane and Róisín Byrne took to the water in their double where in an exhilarating race where they led from the start right to the line, they beat Skibbereen RC by less than a second.

After a few hard weeks of training the pairing of Sadhbh Keohane and Róisín Byrne took the short trip over to Athlone where they once again completed in their double, coming 2nd which was a good result considering both girls took ill a few days before the race. Athlone also brought both of the girls first single races of the season with Sadhbh coming 1st in her final and Róisín coming 2nd in hers.

Numbers reduced again with the arrival of Cork Regatta which saw only Róisín Byrne racing in her single where she was competing for a spot on the home International team. Even though she had a technically well executed race it was only enough to get 11th place, 6 seconds off the last spot on the team, a disappointing result but a lot could be learned from the race. 

The final regatta of the season, the highly anticipated National Rowing Championships welcomed the arrival of 2 of our junior 16 rowers Blaithin Clarke and Nicole Duke who took to the water in their singles coming 30th and 26th respectively and then followed on that impressive performance with their double coming 19th. 

All of our j18 women returned to the water once again where Sam Walsh, Sadhbh Keohane and Róisín Byrne all showed strong performances coming 32nd, 23rd and 9th respectively in their singles. They then took to the water in their doubles where the pairing of Sadhbh Keohane and Róisín Byrne came 10th, only 4 seconds off the final and the pairing of Sam Walsh and Emily Byrne came 30th. On the final day of the championships the girls joined forces for one last hurrah in the coxless quad coming 12th in a very strong field just 6 seconds off the final. 

Overall this season for Offaly rowing club has had both ups and downs and many lessons have been learned. Needless to say we are excited to return to the water to do it all again next season.