€1m grant to make Kerry’s long-awaited centre of excellence a reality

One million euro in grant aid from the Munster Council will help kick-start Kerry GAA’s centre of excellence in 2013, the provincial council have confirmed.

Kerry officials can draw down €400,000 now and a further €600,000 at the end of 2013 to help with their ambitious €2.6m development in Currans, between Castleisland and Farranfore.

The board hope to ink a final agreement on the purchase of around 48 acres of land at Currans before the end of the month. They then plan to start work in the spring on the pitches and ancillary developments and hope to have final construction complete by March 2015.

Kerry are also seeking national funding for the project from Croke Park but, ironically, the dramatic fall in prices has ultimately helped them secure the land for a very competitive price.

The most successful football county in the country has stood indicted for years over a lack of proper training, indoor and physical development facilities.

The county’s senior football team have, on occasions, even had to scrounge a club pitch with floodlights for training. Leading players like Paul Galvin have had reason to bemoan the lack of elite training facilities in the county, saying the Kingdom had fallen behind rival counties.

Kerry chairman Patrick O’Sullivan maintained the project had been delayed through no fault of the county board. He said planning permission was already secured for the works and envisaged no further delays next year.

The grant is part of a half a million euro package for inter-county development announced yesterday by Munster Council chairman Sean Walsh. Another €100,000 will go to the Clare County Board for work on Cusack Park in Ennis.