The University of Galway Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence Airdome has been completely destroyed as a result of winds brought by Storm Éowyn.
Photographs show the structure, which was the largest indoor sports dome in the world, collapsed during hurricane force winds in the early hours of Friday. It was 150 metres long, 100 metres wide and 26 metres high with capacity for 600 spectators.
The €3.1 million dome opened to much fanfare in 2020 and is located at Bekan near Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo.
Since it opened it has been used extensively by country, club, schools and third level institutions across the province.
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Connacht GAA secretary John Prenty said the dome has “gone, it’s just ripped apart”.
He said it had been a “huge success” since it opened and was due to host Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cup matches. He told RTÉ's Claire Byrne Show the site will be cleaned up next week and the dome rebuilt.
The West of Ireland has experienced the highest winds connected to Storm Éowyn. Met Éireann said the record for the strongest gust of wind detected in Ireland was provisionally broken overnight, with a gust speed of 183km/h recorded at Mace Head in Carna, Co Galway. The previous record, 182km/h, was recorded in Limerick in 1945. A mean wind speed of 130km/h was also recorded in Carna, which is classed as hurricane force and is also provisionally a record.
At 6am, Knock airport recorded its joint highest wind speed since records began of 155km/h. Athenry recorded a gust speed of 139km/h, but it and the weather station in Belmullet, Co Mayo are no longer transmitting data because of the storm.
A small number of passengers arrived to Shannon Airport this morning awaiting flights out of the country but gusts of 137km/h have meant that many departures have been cancelled or delayed.
A red Met Éireann warning came into force at 6am and expired at 11am, with gale to storm force winds and extreme gusts in excess of 130km/h forecast. Most of the country was then under a nationwide orange wind warning until noon, when a less severe yellow warning kicked in until 4pm on Friday.
In Co Galway, most of the Connemara area is without electricity following the storm. Hundreds of trees have fallen with many roads blocked, but the full extent of the damage caused will not be assessed until later in the day.
Matthew Cunningham, the ESB’s Galway area manager, said there were power outages throughout the county and it could take days before power is restored to everyone.
The mobile phone network has also been impacted, while local radio station Galway Bay FM is operating online after the main mast at its headquarters on Sandy Road in the city fell.
Traffic lights are not working in Galway city and throughout the county with agencies urging the public not to travel unless it is absolutely essential.
Coastal flooding has been reported throughout south Connemara and in Salthill in the city. A video shared to X by Galway Atlantaquaria showed flooding along Seapoint Promenade. The aquarium said it is some of the worst they have seen.
Local authorities in Galway and Mayo believe it will take most of the weekend just to assess the damage caused by Storm Éowyn and that it will be at least a week before the bulk of the work will be carried out to restore services.
The repair work, especially to thousands of houses without electricity, has been hampered by dozens of roads in Galway and Mayo being impassable because of fallen trees.
In many cases the trees knocked down electricity wires making the recovery work and travel in the area hazardous.
A status red warning elapsed at 11am on Friday morning, allowing rescue workers the first opportunity to go out and assess the damage.
By then they knew the scale of the problem was unprecedented with boundary walls, garden sheds and furniture, gates and roof tiles on houses suffering large scale damage.
Some public transport resumed but there was continued disruption to rail services from Galway, Westport and Sligo with most unlikely to return before Saturday at the earliest.
Traffic lights throughout Galway city, in particular, were affected, making already hazardous conditions even more dangerous for those who had to go out.
Communications were also affected with mobile phone coverage down in some areas, while local radio station Galway Bay FM could only operate on its website and app after the main mast at its headquarters at Sandy Row in Galway city was blown down in the early hours of Friday morning.
In Co Limerick, a section of a stand at Kilmallock GAA Club was destroyed after the wind lifted off a large section of its roof. Part of the sportsground’s roof appeared to be hanging dangerously close to homes located behind the GAA club.
Some 70,000 homes and businesses across the midwest were without power on Friday morning.
There is going to be a risk of flooding into Saturday due to heavy rainfall overnight, but no serious tidal issues were reported. All flood barriers remained in place in Limerick city and at Foynes Port and sandbags were being used to protect vulnerable properties in lowland areas near water in Askeaton.
Limerick City and County Council said its crews would “mobilise after the red weather warning has expired and once conditions are deemed safe”.
In Co Mayo, forecasting gales and storms has been the business of the Sweeney family of Blacksod Lighthouse for generations. So when Fergus Sweeney says that Storm Éowyn “has definitely been the worst storm in years” he knows what he is talking about.
Indeed, the link to the weather station at the lighthouse was severed during the high winds in the early hours of Friday morning. This is the famous station where his late grandmother changed the course of the second World War with a forecast that caused the deferral of D-Day.
“Thankfully, on this occasion, while the seas were big, it was the high winds that caused the main impact. They reached 85mph (136kph) around 5am. There is widespread damage with roofs gone and electricity cables down all over the Mullet peninsula and Erris,” Sweeney said.
Down the Co Mayo coast in the relative shelter of Clew Bay, Pat Aylward was well prepared for the storm as his family home is right on the edge of the ocean, 8km from Westport. He said that the detail of the Met Éireann forecasts was really helpful.
“These winds were the strongest we’ve ever experienced here. We lost electricity during the night but it was restored on Friday morning,” Aylward said.
However, he witnessed widespread damage when he travelled into Westport to check the family’s guest house in the early afternoon. “There were lots of trees and fencing down and ridge tiles blown off houses. Signage and bottle banks were blown around the place at Westport harbour with one boat blown off its cradle,” he said.
Meanwhile, across the bay, Clare islanders are counting the cost of the storm, with structural damage to houses. With all ferry services suspended, and boats sheltering at a safe harbour in Achill, any telephone communication to the island was negligible on Friday.
The main mainland harbour, at Roonagh, near Louisburgh, is notorious for its monstrous swells. On this occasion, it was the high winds that inflicted damage on a number of cars owned by islanders.
Clare Island ferry operator, Charles O’Malley, said: “This storm was one of the most severe we have ever experienced. We had to move our boats to Achill and Westport and our crews were checking and monitoring them since 5am this morning.
“As well as the damage to islanders’ cars in Roonagh, our cargo storage building lost its roof and is now a shell.”
In Kerry, 40,000 houses were without power at 9am on Friday morning and not all of them will have their power restored by tonight, said Séan Scannell, the area manager for ESB Networks.
Roofs of buildings were damaged in several areas across the county from Dingle in the West to Killorglin in mid-Kerry to Muckross in Killarney. Houses along the coast in north Kerry were also damaged, with trees down on almost every road.
At least two houses had to be abandoned during the night after storm damage to their roofs.
West of Dingle, a photographer and his wife had a lucky escape after they awoke to find part of the gable wall over the bedroom of their house collapsing in the early hours.
Jaro Fagan of Kerry Views, which specialises in scenic shots of Kerry, said he and his wife Ingrid were woken at about 3am by a loud noise.
The couple live some distance from the coast and were asleep in the bungalow in the room at the gable side when they were woken by a gust.
“It all happened in a second,” said Jaro, who is originally from Slovakia but has been living in Ireland for over 20 years.
The wall plate at the top of the gable went as well as part of the roof, he said.
Although they are not on the seafront, they live in a valley and the wind ran through it from Mount Eagle/Sliabh an Iolair.
Advised to leave their house for safety in the early hours, with their two dogs, they could see power lines down and slates coming off buildings on the church road near Ventry as they travelled to stay with friends.
In Killorglin, slates came off the town centre Garda station.
McKenzie’s cafe in New Street Killarney was one of only a handful of premises open in the morning in the town. Tourists were dropping in and describing their experiences.
One couple from Tipperary were “on a break to shorten the winter”. They heard nothing of the storm while sleeping in their room in the International Hotel.
“All we noticed was the television signal was not great last night,” they said.
Three young men from Cork also braved the conditions to travel to Killarney for the snooker championship taking place in the Gleneagle Hotel.
A couple from Dublin were due to travel home after a break in the Gleneagle but got to the train station to discover that all the trains were cancelled.
They had to book into a town centre B&B near the train station.
In Dingle town harbour, the wind reached 163km/h. On Green Street in Dingle an ancient elm tree, thought to be 200 years old, came down and blocked the street.
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