Cork Regatta

Jun 24, 2025

Cork Regatta took place over 2 days at the NRC. It was cloudy and humid all weekend, hot on Saturday (with quite a strong tail wind), and cooler on Sunday, but with an even stronger tailwind - strong enough to give our single scullers some difficulty at the stake boats. But the rain held off (mostly). The attendance was huge - every square inch of grass, along the full length of the riverside path between the NRC and the beach where we usually slip, seemed to be occupied by jeeps, trailers, tents or racing shells.

Grand League
Cork Regatta was the final event in the 2025 Grand League, where the Jes crews were competing in races against older crews for points.
Grand league events apply a diminishing point scale to 1st - 18th place, across 2 divisions. Different point scales are used for the 4 categories of boat: single, double/pair, quad/4, and oct/8. The awarded points are accumulated, during the year and a tally is kept by Rowing Ireland. CIRC had not entered many Grand League events this year, so our standing was quite low (26th of 54 clubs), going into this event.
CIRC's J18's were in Division One, racing Senior, Lightweight, Intermediate, and Club 1 crews, and our J16's were in division two, competing against J18B (i.e. J17's), Novice (e.g. University rowers in their 1st year of rowing), and Club 2 crews.
As with all Grand Leagues, heats were raced to determine placement in A or B finals. If, for example, a J16 crew were to qualify for the A final, and all other J16 crews were in the B final, that crew automatically won a medal (as they were the fastest crew in that age category). If other J16 crews made the A final, the fastest J16 crew in that final would receive medals.
This year, the Grand League events were Skibereen Regatta, Dublin Metropolitan Regatta (cancelled), Lough Rinn Regatta, and Cork Regatta. Strong performances in the Cork Regatta made us jump from 26th to 22nd overall, and 3rd among school clubs, behind Methodist College, Belfast (9th overall), and St. Josephs College, Galway (11th overall, and the Division 2 winners), but ahead of CRCC (24th), and Blackrock College (34th). Not bad for a club that didn't attend the Skibereen regatta this year, and sent very few crews to Lough Rinn Regatta.

CIRC celebrated 5 wins at the Cork Regatta:
MJ18 2- Paul Schofield and Oisín Conaire.
WJ16 8 Sophie Ryder (stk), Izzy Howley, Molly Frehill, Aoibhinn Kelly Grace Faherty, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lola-Mae McCormack, Liadán Heffernan (bow), Chloe Burke (cox).
MJ16 4 Eoghan O'Connell, Kenneth Little, Leon Hume, Aidan Clarke, Jim Hearne (cox).
WJ16 4 Molly Frehill (stk), Aoibhinn Kelly, Jacquline Kennedy, Liadán Heffernan (bow), Caoimhe Brennan (cox).
WJ15 4x Lauren Ward (stk), Sophie Ryder, Grace Faherty, Izzy Howley (bow), Ellie Shiel (cox).

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