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Our Lady’s College is Galway’s newest secondary school and is a merger of  the Presentation and the Mercy School.  Both schools were fully engaged from the start of the programme in Galway.

The programme was embraced by both schools and they happily walked the girls down on a weekly basis to NUIG Boat Club for indoor rowing sessions in the hail, rain and snow throughout the school year.

The programme took particular traction during a “Breakfast Morning Row” that took place in March 2016 to fully engage the girls with the sport of rowing and to set down a clear pathway to joining a club.

The coming together of Club, School and Get Going… Get Rowing has resulted in Our Lady’s College recently affiliating as a Club with Rowing Ireland.  Special mention must go to the tireless efforts of Charlotte Bennett who is the Rowing Co ordinator in Our Lady’s College Galway and who has added extra momentum and endless support to the success of Our Lady’s College as the newest rowing school in Galway.

An Award Ceremony for First Year Students from Our Lady’s College was held on Tuesday 14th March , following their phenomenal success at a Schools Indoor Rowing Relay event in University of Limerick, hosted by Rowing Ireland’s Get Going… Get Rowing Programme.

Twenty of Our Lady’s College 1st year students traveled to Limerick with their TrY rowing coaches and teachers to compete against 600 athletes from around the country. Teams performed very well on the day. The Get Going… Get Rowing programme is  an initiative jointly funded by Rowing Ireland and NUI Galway to encourage schools to engage with both the sport and with NUI Galway as a 1st choice campus option. According to Jen Cunningham, “OLCG are one of the big success stories from the Connacht Get Going… Get Rowing programme!  Great praise and deservedly so – the final relay team from OLCG beat their nearest competitors by 18 seconds – not a bad result for their first event!

Presenting the Trophy to the winning team was Mike Heskin, Director of Sport and Physical Activity at NUI Galway.  In his speech, Heskin referred to the importance of learning how to apply ones self through sport and how this would serve the girls very well into their future lives at third level and beyond.  He pointed out that this very day could mark the first day in the journey of one of these girls becoming a world champion.  He mentioned the many variety of sports on offer at NUI Galway and the intrinsic link between success at sport and academic achievement.  Finally, he acknowledged Our Lady’s College for embracing the Get Going… Get Rowing programme so wholeheartedly and going from strength to strength, resulting in the school formally affiliating as a Our Lady’s Rowing Club with Rowing Ireland. This would not have been possible without the full engagement of local club, Galway Rowing Club, who facilitated Our Lady’s from the very start and opened their doors to the Get Going… Get Rowing Programme.

 

The next part of the school’s rowing journey will take place this weekend when Our Lady’s travel to Neptune and Commercial Regatta to compete against other Junior crews from around the country.  Heskin wished them every success into the future. No doubt, we will hear much more from this exciting new School and Club.

We will be watching this space over the forthcoming regatta season and looking forward to seeing Our ladies compete on the water and wish them every success.