The men’s senior quad event at the Irish Rowing Championships can often be a dead duck of a race, and it seems, unfortunately, that 2025 is no different. There are only three crews entered, one of which is a national team quad, as University College Cork and Skibbereen, and the other crews are student boats, comprising a University of Galway crew and a composite of Dublin University and Bann Rowing Club.
DUBC/Bann Rowing Club
At first glance, this appears to be a strange composite crew, but after further research, I found that this crew was likely formed by former Bann Rowing Club member and current Trinity rower, Michael Cusick. His former clubmate Zachary Shaw joins him in the stern of this quad. The remaining crewmen are Eoghan Gloster and Pearse Mooney. Cusick and Mooney have been representing Trinity in their senior eight but are changing boat classes now to sculling. With the lack of sculling racing done by universities typically, and the quality of the opposition, it is hard to envision this crew making a serious stab at winning the event.
University College Cork/Skibbereen Rowing Club
This composite crew of national centre-based athletes had the potential to make this event a genuinely good spectacle, had they rowed in stand-alone crews instead of a composite. It is even more frustrating that the two-club composite rule, created to avoid full national team crews, was skirted around when the three-man of the crew, Ronan Byrne, registered for UCC about a month ago, having been representing his club, Shandon Boat Club, to this point of the season. There has to be two other UCC scullers that Adam Murphy and Andrew Sheehan could form a crew with, and the same goes for Skibbereen Rowing Club, who have two senior doubles racing this weekend. Had these athletes split up into three separate crews instead of one composite, this event would probably be one of the standout races of the weekend. But unfortunately for the spectator, this crew will likely win without tremendous difficulty.
University of Galway Boat Club
The strength in depth that the University of Galway has in their sculling squad is nothing short of amazing. Six athletes cannot compete at this championship due to their preparations for the U23 World Rowing Championships, and they can still field a quad of this quality. Rian Claffey, Zach Meegan, and Sean Morris represented Ireland at the U19 World Rowing Championships in the last two years. Claffey and Meegan also have experience winning quad events, having won the junior quad championship for their former club, Athlone Boat Club. The final crewman is Harry Feeney, formerly of Carlow Rowing Club, another well-known club for producing quality scullers. Some of these men will have been disappointed not to have made the U23 team and will be determined to put their best foot forward in this championship event.
Prediction
The University of Galway crew is an exciting crew of up-and-comers. It will be worth keeping an eye on these guys at the senior level of domestic and U23 international rowing going forward. However, I cannot imagine they will have the engine to go the full distance with the composite from UCC/Skibbereen. These are seasoned senior international and Olympic-level oarsmen training full-time in the national rowing centre. It likely won’t be too difficult a race for them once they shake off the UG students. I think the UG men will give all they have up to the 1k post, but the superior Rowing Ireland crew will inevitably be too strong.
