We currently have 7,500 registered racing members in over 100 clubs and universities around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our funding derives primarily from Sport Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland grants, with core funding related to numbers participating and high-performance funding based on the potential for Olympic and World Championship placement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the work of Rowing Ireland is done by volunteers in the clubs and on Rowing Ireland committees and working groups. We have a small team based in the National Rowing Centre in Farran Wood, Co. Cork. We also have a small team based at the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rowing Ireland\u2019s role is to lead and encourage interest and participation in competitive and recreational rowing. We have two disciplines Flatwater and Coastal; which are suitable for people of all ages and abilities. We promote excellence in competitive high-performance river rowing to elite international, World Championship and Olympic medal-winning level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ireland has enjoyed considerable success at the World Rowing Championships and more recently at Olympic level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carlow and Neptune man Sean Drea was the first Irish rower to win a World Championship medal, securing silver in the men\u2019s single sculls in 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our first World Championship gold medal was won by Niall O\u2019Toole of Commercial Rowing Club in 1991, while Neptune rowers Neville Maxwell and Tony O\u2019Connor won bronze in the men\u2019s lightweight pairs in 1994, silver in 1996 and 1997, and bronze in 1999. Success continued at the 1999 World Championships as Neal Byrne, James Lindsay-Finn, Noel Monahan and Gearoid Towey won bronze in St. Catherines, Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sam Lynch won silver in the men\u2019s lightweight sculls and Sinead Jennings took bronze in the women\u2019s lightweight sculls in 2000, building toward 2001 which became the first bumper year for Rowing Ireland. In 2001 Sam Lynch, Sinead Jennings, Tony O\u2019Connor and Gearoid Towey (lightweight men\u2019s coxless pair) all won gold at the World Rowing Championships in Lucerne, Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sam Lynch went on to retain his World Championship title in 2002. Sam and Sinead Jennings married a few years later, with both rowers studying to become qualified doctors. Sinead returned to rowing in 2008 to win silver in the lightweight single sculls, and again in 2015 to qualify for the Rio Olympics, just months after the birth of her third child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016 Irish rowing was thrust into the global spotlight when brothers Paul and Gary O\u2019Donovan, of Skibbereen Rowing Club, won silver at the Rio Olympics in the lightweight men\u2019s double sculls. Shortly after, Claire Lambe and Sinead Jennings placed sixth in the lightweight women\u2019s double sculls, becoming the first Irish women\u2019s rowing crew to qualify for an Olympic A final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just a week after the Olympics, Paul O\u2019Donovan went on to win gold at the 2016 World Rowing Championships in Rotterdam \u2013 the only rower to go from medaling in Rio to medaling in Rotterdam. Paul retained his World Championship title in Sarasota the following year, making him the first Irish competitor to win two consecutive World Championships. Mark O\u2019Donovan and Shane O\u2019Driscoll also powered across the line in the lightweight men\u2019s pair, at a phenomenal rate of more than 40 strokes per minute, to win gold in the 2017 World Championship in Sarasota, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the 2018 World Rowing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Sanita Puspure won gold in the women\u2019s single scull, with Paul and Gary O\u2019Donovan winning gold in the lightweight men\u2019s double sculls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2019 World Rowing Championships was the most successful World Championships in Ireland\u2019s history. Sanita Puspure continued her success by defending her World Championship in the women\u2019s single scull, winning gold in a dominating performance. Sanita qualified the women\u2019s single scull on the way to her gold medal. Paul O\u2019Donovan and Fintan McCarthy won gold in the lightweight men\u2019s double scull, after already qualifying the boat in the A\/B Semi-Final; this was Paul\u2019s fourth consecutive World Championships, cementing him as one of the greatest Irish sportspeople of all time. Philip Doyle and Ronan Byrne won silver in the men\u2019s double and qualified for the 2020 Olympics. Katie O\u2019Brien won bronze in the PR2 women\u2019s Single. The women\u2019s Pair of Aileen Crowley and Monika Dukarska qualified Ireland\u2019s fourth boat for the 2020 Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After no racing during the 2020 season, Irish crews returned to the water at the Junior, U23 and Senior 2020 European Championships. The Junior Men’s four scooped a medal in Belgrade, our U23’s won five medals in Duisburg U23 (two gold, one silver, and two bronze), and a further five by the Senior team in Poznan; including a gold medal from Sanita Puspure in the women’s single, and three bronze in the men’s lightweight single, men’s double, and women’s four. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These outstanding podium successes, combined with our athletes\u2019 engaging interviews, captivating personalities, hard work and sheer dedication have boosted Rowing Ireland\u2019s national and international profile. Rowing is experiencing substantial growth across Ireland, through clubs, universities and schools. Irish rowing is expected to retain huge national and international public interest as our athletes row towards selection for the Tokyo 2020\/21 Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a return to rowing underway in 2021 after a difficult 12 months, Ireland saw success as six crews qualified for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, two of those taking home medals – Bronze and gold. Throughout the year, Ireland continued to prove itself as one of the world’s strongest rowing teams, taking home five medals at the World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne, while the U23 team achieved two silver medals at the World Rowing U23 Championships in Racice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rowing Ireland sent its largest-ever Olympic team to the 2024 Paris Olympics, with seven boats and 16 athletes. Four crews reached the A final, doubling our result from Tokyo, while all boats finished in the top 10 of the regatta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul O\u2019Donovan and Fintan McCarthy secured back-to-back gold in the lightweight men\u2019s double, while Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch made history by winning Ireland\u2019s first-ever heavyweight men\u2019s medal in the double sculls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Katie O\u2019Brien and Tiarnan O\u2019Donnell also marked a milestone, bringing Irish Para rowing back to the Paralympic Games for the first time since London 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the year, Irish athletes claimed a total of 14 international medals, including nine from the World Cup series, one from the European Championships, two from the World Championships, two from the U23 World Championships. and a gold medal at the World Coastal Championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We currently have 7,500 registered racing members in over 100 clubs and universities around the country. Our funding derives primarily from Sport Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland grants, with core funding related to numbers participating and high-performance funding based on the potential for Olympic and World Championship placement. Most of the work of Rowing Ireland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3558,"parent":36,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"standard-content-page.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3544","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3544\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rowingireland.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}