With the year ticking into 2025, a new racing season in Ireland begins in earnest. Squads up and down the country will be regathering after a Christmas break to sharpen up after the fitness building done between September and December. There are only a few weeks until the important Head of the River races will commence, so now is the perfect time to reflect on who to keep an eye on, as the season builds towards the all-important side-by-side championships in July.
Cork Boat Club
It is hard to look past Cork Boat Club when discussing crews to watch in Ireland for the 2025 season. They became the first County Cork-based club to win The Big Pot, the men’s senior eight championship last July. They also completed the triple of senior sweep championships by winning the coxless four and pair also. Importantly for the club, they have retained the entire 2024 senior eight winning crew for the 2025 season. As often follows success, a variety of rowers have joined the squad. These new additions come from as close as Shandon BC, a few hundred meters upriver, and as far as Imperial College in London.
Cork Boat Club were banging on the door of winning the senior eight for many years, initially forming the ambitious squad in 2018, winning the intermediate eight in 2019 and 2021, and the senior coxless four in 2022. The addition to the squad of Fionnan Tolan last season could be the final ingredient the squad needed to finally get over the line. Tolan, the Irish 2k record holder, adds tremendous power to the middle of the boat, sitting in the 5-seat of the eight and 3-seat of the coxless four. Partnering him in the pair, coxless four, and eight last year was Cork Boat Club homegrown talent Barry O’Flynn. O’Flynn became Cork Boat Club’s most decorated rower after the 2024 championship haul and will surely be hungry to extend his vast tally of pots in 2025.
Undoubtedly, Cork Boat Club will be aspiring to retain all their senior pots in 2025 and improve on the performance of their intermediate rowers from last year. The question of this crew travelling to Henley Royal Regatta in 2025 is unclear, they have raced at the prestigious regatta many times in the recent past but missed the event in 2024 to focus on winning the senior eight. Henley Royal Regatta is unfortunately again only one week before the Irish Championships so the squad will likely decide on travelling depending on their performances against the domestic competition and against the cream of UK club racing as the season progresses.
University College Dublin Boat Club
University College Dublin Boat Club’s dominance over Irish rowing came to an end last July, having won the senior eight championship for four straight championship regattas. 2024 was an inflexion year for UCDBC, following the retirement of long-term coach Martin Feeley and their move away from the Italian training method that was being pushed by the Italian coaching body of Rowing Ireland. UCD moved to a training program inspired by new coach Andrew Goff’s time at Cambridge University. Goff is a UCD alum and was selected to race the Cambridge blue boat for the cancelled 2020 Boat Race. 2024 was also the first year that the senior eight did not contain any athletes from the initial 2019 senior eight championship crew.
Despite all the outlined points above, I believe UCDBC will continue to be a strong contender for senior championships. While there was a lull in their recruitment efforts outside the local Islandbidge clubs for the past few years, UCDBC have recruited some very exciting names to the squad for the coming year. Most notably is Olympic bronze medallist Daire Lynch. Lynch is the recipient of the Graduate Sport Scholarship and will be studying medicine in UCD for the next four years. While Olympic bronze is a unique accolade to possess in a college environment, Lynch is also an alum of the prestigious Yale University. If he can communicate his experiences in the Ivy League rowing world to his new squad members, it could elevate the standard of the UCDBC program to levels unseen in Ireland. Another recruit worth mentioning is Andrew O’Leary of Presentation Brother’s College, Cork. O’Leary represented Ireland at the U23 World Rowing Championships in the coxless four, despite only just finishing his schooling. Should the coaching team in UCDBC be able to harness his potential, he could be a force to be reckoned with in the club.
UCDBC are still a cut above the rest of the universities in Ireland, and they should face no great difficulty in retaining the Gannon Cup and the Wylie Cup. Reclaiming the Big Pot will be the focus of the squad this year, and it will make for some very exciting racing for neutral supporters come July. The question of a Henley appearance will have to be assessed later in the year, as in Cork Boat Club. UCDBC have in the past fielded student and intermediate crews at the competition, to accommodate their large graduate contingent in the club. They will have to make a similar accommodation this year for their Olympian member, complicating matters for the decision-makers of the club.
Commercial Rowing Club
Commercial Rowing Club had a barn-storming start to the season in 2024. They won Erne Head of the River and placed 15th at London Head of the River Race, topping the Irish and Overseas entries. Such was the magnitude of their victory on the Thames, that the rowing community in Ireland had almost written Commercial RC onto the plaque of the senior eight championship in March. Unfortunately for the Dublin-based club, this didn’t transpire by the end of the season. Disputes about selection and coach-athlete relationships degrading derailed Commercial’s senior eight bid. The year was salvaged by an impressive win in the intermediate eight at the championship regatta.
Stand-out athletes in the squad include former Trinity rowers Thomas Stevens and Tadhg McKnight. Their accolades with their alma mater include club eight and intermediate coxed four championships and continued this impressive form when they made the switch to Commercial, winning the intermediate eight and representing Ireland at the Home International Regatta in Strathclyde last year. Stevens also showed his impressive fitness and boatmanship in October, winning the Dublin Sculling Ladder.
Commercial is already showing some of their 2024 speed again, filling the podium for the sweep events at Erne Fours Head of the River. Should they be able to replicate the speed from early 2024 without the mid-year capitulation, Commercial will certainly be in the mix for the senior eight championship. Unlike Cork Boat Club, Commercial also has the benefit of their top eight being eligible for the Thames Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, where they would be weekend standard, all things going well.
Notable Mentions
While I have only mentioned the crews most likely to be fighting for the senior sweep rowing championships in July above, it is worth also making a quick note on some of the crews that make more of a focus on sculling. The number of larger squads that focus on sculling events is far lower than those that focus on sweep events, likely due to the lower number of championships up for grabs. The squads likely to be targeting the senior quad could include Queens University Belfast Boat Club and University of Limerick Rowing Club. Commercial Rowing Club and University of Galway also have some very talented scullers in their ranks, and racing in this event would depend on their focus of the season, as it is difficult to target both sweep and scull wins. Composites are common in this event too, which most likely wouldn’t race before the day of the race, making predicting who will be competitive in this event even more uncertain.
Junior Crews to Watch
Sweep
The men’s junior eight championship has been a two-horse race for the past decade and a half, with Enniskillen Royal Grammer School (formerly Portora Boat Club) and St. Joseph’s Rowing Club (The Bish) taking all the spoils since 2010, barring of course the exceptional 2018 Shandon Boat Club junior eight. The school environment is clearly an excellent place to develop big boat crews, however, it might not be all the way of these crews in 2025. Castleconnell Boat Club have shown some early speed at their own Head of the River, winning it outright, and placed second amongst the junior sweep crews at Erne Fours Head. Neptune Rowing Club were the fastest junior sweep crew that day, who will also be a crew to watch in 2025. Castleconnell BC and Neptune RC placed first and second in the Junior 16 eight respectively at the 2024 National Championships and have shown already in 2025 that they have raised their game to challenge the incumbent Bish crew and the ever-present Enniskillen RBC for the 2025 junior eight championship.
Sculling
Since racing resumed after the pandemic, most of the junior sculling championships have been won between Athlone Boat Club and St. Michael’s Rowing Club. However, with these scullers moving up the age grade to intermediate and senior rowing, there is opportunity for other clubs to strike. The immediately obvious choice for a junior sculling crew to watch in 2025 is Methodist College Rowing Club, having won the Junior 16 coxed quad at the 2024 Championship. Methodist have also been consistently winning their local Head of the Rivers in Belfast and were the fastest junior crew at Erne Fours Head,
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