Castleconnell Sprints

May 17, 2025

The Jes Women's crews dominated in the Castleconnell Sprints, this year, producing powerful performances in the bright Limerick sunshine. This is the only sprint regatta the club attends every year and its always a favourite event for many of the crews. This year, the radio had to be turned up in the CIRC bus, on the return journey, to hear over the clink of medals.
In no particular order:
The Jes women accumulated 40 medals in a total of 10 events:
The Women's J15 coxed quad category went to the Jes crew of Izzy Howley, Lola-Mae McCormack, Grace Faherty, Lauren Warde (stroke), and Aoibheann Ní Dhónaill (cox).
Later in the day, the WJ16 coxed quad (Liadan Heffernan, Lola-Mae McCormack, Jacqueline Kennedy, Elise Jaime-Stapleton, and Ellie Shiels [cox]) repeated that achievement.
Not to be outdone, the WJ18 coxed quad (Maeve Guckian, Yike Cai, Molly Frehill, Lauren Ward [stk], and Olivia Finnerty [cox]) also crossed the line first, to complete a CIRC Womens' Quad hat-trick.
Many of the above crew members (namely, Liadán Heffernan, Maeve Guckian, Lola-Mae McCormack, Izzy Howley, Grace Faherty, Molly Frehill, Aobhinn Kelly, Lauren Ward [stk], and Aoibheann Ní Dhónaill [cox]) had also won in the WJ16 8, by a clear margin, earlier in the day.
Grace Faherty and Sophie Ryder comfortably won in their J15 double.
Liadan Heffernan and Jacqueline Kennedy won in a J16 double.
Our women's J14 Oct (crew names to follow) beat Shannon to take gold in Final A.
A number of the CIRC women were entered into single scull races. The two J15 CIRC rowers were in different races, but others were not so lucky. 3 Jes and a Carlow sculler were competing against each other in the J18 1x category. In this exciting race, Yike Cai pulled ahead of Aoibheann Ní Dhónaill and Olivia Finnerty in the second half of the race, to take gold, with the other 2 Jes rowers taking 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.
In WJ16 1x Final A, Jacqueline Kennedy, Molly Frehill, and Liadán Heffernan were all in the same 5-person race, where they were pipped by R. Weldon, from Waterford, to come in 2nd, 3rd and 4th, respectively.
In the following race (WJ16 1x Final B), a similar scenario unfolded - this time with Elisa Jaime-Stapleton and Aoibhinn Kelly, from CIRC, coming in 2nd and 3rd behind another Waterford Rower (M. O'Flynn).
In the J15 single sculls, Grace Faherty and Sophie Ryder both convincingly won their races.
There were also many strong performances from Jes Mens' crews, on the day, but unfortunately a lot of near misses, so fewer first places. However there were wins for Eoghan Volz-O'Dowd (MJ14 1x) and the MJ15 double (names to follow).
Congratulations to all the CIRC rowers on a hugely successful event.

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