How the gym became my new 'local'

With its coffee area, newspapers, and friendly chat, Conor Power wonders if the leisure centre has replaced the pub.

I’M not normally given to going to the gym. Perhaps I’m just of a certain generation or I happened to be born in a certain type of Ireland that’s now gone, but the whole gym scene has always seemed to me like a strange fad that was going to disappear back into the ether from whence it came. Unless you were actually intent on training for some sporting event, there didn’t seem to be any point to it.

A Christmas present of a month’s membership of one of my local gyms opened my eyes, however. I was slightly intimidated by the prospect because I figured that the vast majority of people in there would be overwhelmingly young men and women in their twenties wearing enormous ear phones and moving and sweating at a ferocious rate that would make someone like me feel inadequate.