CONNACHT GAA SECRETARY John Prenty is hopeful the province’s Air Dome in Mayo will be rebuilt by September.

The €3.1 million facility, which opened in 2022, was destroyed by the high winds during Storm Éowyn recently.

However the complex has reopened with pitches at the Centre of Excellence ‘back up and running’, as it is in the midst of hosting a series of high-profile GAA third-level finals this week.

The Ashbourne Cup in camogie was held at the Bekan venue over the weekend as UL completed back-to-back success after edging out UCC by two points in yesterday’s final. It will also host the Sigerson Cup final in football on Wednesday evening where last year’s finalists UCD will take on DCU, and the Fitzgibbon Cup final in hurling this Saturday afternoon.

“It’s the exterior, the canvas basically that’s been damaged,” Prenty explains.

“We have another inspection today. All the pitches are fine. We’re just checking on all the bases and the structures to make sure there’s no damage. We don’t think there is but the engineers are here and we’ll know when we have an inspection.

“There was a lot of damage done to our other astro turf pitch with the flying debris from the dome. There were lights taken maybe 260 metres from where they were hanging in the dome, the full length of the pitch. They were found on the other astro turf pitch and we have that back in action as well.

“We have everything cleared off the astro pitch and it was playable for yesterday and the day before. We’re still working down there as I speak, so it’s completely safe.”

TG4 will provide live coverage of the Sigerson Cup and Fitzgibbon Cup deciders which Prenty assures the venue is fit to accommodate. There is, however, no phone or internet coverage at the Centre of Excellence which may pose some challenges for streaming purposes.

“We have no internet or phone coverage at the minute. We need it asp to give you more confidence from the streaming side of things. But we’ll make sure the broadcast for TG4 will be fine.”

Prenty says the Connacht GAA staff were confident the structure would survive the storm after taken all necessary precautions. They were receiving pressure readings on their phone as the weather deteriorated, but knew the dome had been destroyed as the night progressed.

“When there was no movement on the pressure, we knew there was no dome,” he adds.

Looking toward the reconstruction of the dome, he says they are hopeful the project will be completed by September but cautions that it could take longer.

“That might be a month optimistic. A new canvas has to be manufactured which is the slow part. The actual erection isn’t a long process.

“One of the difficulties we had is that we couldn’t fold the dome because the lights were hanging from the roof. So, we’re now in negotiations to have the lights mounted on the ground and if that happens, we can let the dome down safely.”