GAA club turns into family refuge and office as thousands remain without power

A GAA club threw opens its doors to local people to offer hot drinks, showers, warm food and somewhere to charge a mobile phone after thousands were left without electricity and water.

St Brigid’s Club in Kiltoom, Co Roscommon, has become a place of refuge, offering families a place to cook a hot meal, while remote workers huddled over laptops on bar tables.

Club members welcome new faces to the building, showing them around their recently upgraded facilities.

Locals who arrive with a towel under their arm are handed a hot cup of tea and home-baked scones with butter and jam.

Alan MacNeice, chair of the Kiltoom club, near Lough Ree, is one of thousands of people in Co Roscommon who have been without power for almost a week.

He has been told by ESB that it could be Saturday or longer before the power in his home returns.

After power returned to the club house on Friday night, Alan and the club executive decided to open up their doors.

“We’ve opened it up so people can charge phones, charge devices, we have a full working kitchen, so we could give people a hot water for flasks,” he told the PA news agency.

“We’ve been able to provide showers to people and, over the weekend, we opened up the community room to kids so they could watch movies and get them out of the suffering of cabin fever in their homes.”

“The community have been tremendous here, particularly volunteers at the club.

“They’ve all rallied in with ideas, like the movie day for the kids. Everybody, without a grand plan has turned up, making soup for people, spreading the word among people who aren’t members of the club.

“We’ve had folks from around the other side of town who don’t have power, coming and having showers. Even those people who don’t have a GAA connection, but they know somebody at the club, came and were very grateful.

“We’ve had a lot of elderly folk who maybe haven’t been involved in the club coming here. People can come and get into a warm room and that’s been fabulous for a lot of people.

“After a day or two, no matter how well heated your house was, the heat is out and the house very cold. It’s been like a refuge, a respite.

“It’s an exemplar of what a GAA club is for its community and what it can do for its community.

“I think when this is all over, people will look at clubs and realise that they can really serve the country and the community very, very well at difficult times.

“With climate change coming, frankly, we’re going to see a lot more of this.

“Perhaps, the Government should be thinking of this, by building resilience into the infrastructure of GAA clubs. It could be part of the National Framework Plan, and after this weekend, it looks like a very obvious thing for to do.”

He said that further funding is needed to go into communities to help build a support network and enable clubs to provide facilities and resources quickly.

Kieran Kilkenny, who trains an underage team at the GAA club, has been using the facilities as a makeshift office since last Friday.

The dad-of-three lost power in his home in the early hours of last Friday.

He said the last few days have been a struggle in finding ways to feed his children, keep them warm and entertained.

“Losing power has made things very awkward up in the house. We’re one of a few that have an open fire in the sitting room, so we’re able to keep the keep the one room in the house warm,” he said.

“But, in regards to trying to get hot food, keep the kids occupied, trying to keep water, all of that kind of stuff is really impacted.

“Being able to come down (to the club) and use the showers has been great. On Sunday, we brought the kids down and set up a kids’ movie and, after that, they played with a few of their friends on the sports hall. We also put on the Roscommon match for everyone to watch.

“People have also been coming with frozen food that was about to go off, and were able to cook up a meal.

“We have had food for anybody that wants it. The community aspect of helping others and talk to others has been great. Everyone realised that we were all there together to support each other.”

He added: “The biggest difficulties (are) feeding and keeping clean, washing and keeping the kids occupied, particularly in the winter time when it’s dark early.

“While being without phones and tablets can be frustrating for kids, it will also do them no harm.”