Dave Conway is leaving his role as CEO of the National Sports Campus and will take up a new position as CEO of Limerick Twenty Thirty in the middle of next month.
Conway has been a champion of the National Sports Campus, as project manager, director of operations and CEO for over 15 years, watching it grow from green fields covering 520 acres to the World Class facility it is today.
He oversaw the construction and opening of the National Aquatic Centre in 2003, the creation of world class facilities for the GAA and FAI on site, a show jumping arena, the headquarters for the Irish Sports Institute, the headquarters for Special Olympics Ireland, a new Conference Centre which Sport for Business will be using tomorrow for our Partners 17 event and in January of this year the National Indoor Arena providing facilities for multiple sports and with the ability to play host to European and World Championship standard events.
Conway’s role in developing a project that has grown quietly and efficiently into being among the best national sports assets in the world has been immense.
He has made things happen with a light touch masking a fierce sense of duty to getting things done in the right way.
I have had the pleasure of getting tours of the facility at various times during its construction in the trusty ‘Betsy’ a ramshackle old grey land rover that could traverse piles of earth to reveal a vista of what was once a dream and is now a reality.
Conway would always have said that the Campus was a work in progress. Perhaps now is the right time for him to move in a personal capacity, going home to his native Limerick to build from scratch again and regenerate his City in what will be the largest building and investment programme in the country over the next decade outside Dublin.
Time has a way of washing over the traces, of moving us along and always forward. We wish Dave well in his new role even though his easy manner and talent for delivery will be sadly missed.
The Campus remains a work in progress. Rugby and Hockey facilities to match those of the FAI and GAA are planned, as is a second phase of the National Indoor Arena, with full size pitches under cover, and perhaps most excitingly, Ireland’s first indoor velodrome and Badminton Centre.
They all await time and finance but the plans are there. So too is the ambition to build on site accommodation which will further enhance the international reputation and use of a great facility.
Conway will see these grow now from afar. Irish sport’s loss is Limerick’s gain. Here is a taste of what he has left us…
