2020 - 2029
Honorary Citation by Dr Brian O'Flaherty for Dominic Casey
I’m delighted to welcome Dominic and his wife Eleanor, an accomplished international rowing coach in her own right, and their children, Niamh, Aoife, a double Olympian, Caoimhe, and Dominic Junior.
Dominic’s story is closely intertwined with the history of the Skibbereen Rowing Club. It is remarkable that 50 years ago, the club was a start-up club with a few boats by a ditch under trees. My own rowing club, Lee Rowing Club, brought the first ‘slider boat’ to Skibb. The Irish rowing community has never forgiven us.
Dominic is an overnight success that has taken over four decades to achieve. In the Eighties, he was an accomplished oarsman who represented Ireland internationally and won many championships. This was a remarkable achievement for a young rowing club, and he started a trend they follow today—that is the ‘winning habit’! Skibbereen Rowing Club is comfortably the top-ranked Irish rowing club, with 199 Championships and many more to come.
Dominic turned to coaching with great success. His association with UCC started 25 years ago when Skibb man Eugene Coakley came to UCC to study Engineering and took up the first rowing sports scholarship. Eugene was a trailblazer, becoming a double Olympian and winning numerous international world medals. His brothers, Richard and Timmy Harnedy, followed Eugene, both Olympians. Over the years, Dominic produced talented Olympic-level athletes and handed them to Rowing Ireland High Performance. He was effectively ‘giving the baby up for adoption’.
He got his big break in 2015 when Dominic, as an amateur club coach, was allowed to coach the feisty O’Donovan brothers, Paul and Gary, at the last-chance Olympic Qualifier regatta. Surprisingly, but not a surprise to anyone in West Cork, they qualified for the Rio Olympics.
The rest is history. Paul and Gary captured the imagination of the Irish public by winning the first-ever Irish rowing Olympic silver medal in dramatic style. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child converged on the Fair Field in Skibbereen for a Gala homecoming, and the catchphrase indelibly etched in the nation’s memory is, of course, ' Pull like a dog!’
Dominic moved to a new phase in his coaching career, becoming a professional coach with Rowing Ireland and taking responsibility for the Lightweight programme. In typical fashion, he brought with him his ‘winning habit!’ He coached numerous world and European medal-winning crews. His stellar rise to fame as a coach was acknowledged by World Rowing, which awarded him the World Rowing Coach of the Year award in 2018 and he received the RTE Sports Manager of the Year award in 2021. At the Tokyo Olympics 2021, Paul and Fintan won Gold and Quercus Scholar Emily Hegarty won a bronze medal in the Women’s Four. Who were all UCC students at the time.
This year, Dominic had a memorable year as a coach. Margeret Cremen, a UCC student, won a silver medal at the European Rowing Championships. She teamed up with Dominic's daughter, Aoife Casey, a UCC graduate, and finished a credible 5th Place in the lightweight women’s Double final at the Paris Olympics. UCC Graduates Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy retained the Olympic gold medal, and Paul capped off the season by winning the Lightweight World Single championship. Paul is now acknowledged as the most successful athlete in the History of Irish sport. At the risk of being understated, It was an excellent year for Dominic, his crews, Skibbereen, and UCC Sport.
With all this success, people always wonder how he does it! What is his secret? Dominic would vigorously deny anything special apart from hard work.
It is well known that, over the years, he sought out and learned from the World’s best rowing coaches. Of course, following the Skibbereen code of secrecy, ‘They tell you nothing.’
When you ask his Athletes about Dominic, they have some interesting replies.
Surprisingly, he never raises his voice or gets angry. He is always positive and looks for constructive lessons when things don’t go well.
He is meticulous in planning and does everything for the athletes except maybe brushing their teeth. But he will hand them the toothbrush.
They say he is knowledgeable and an expert. This is interesting as the Latin citation has the phrase ‘tam moribus quam doctrina habile et done’, which means ‘both in character and in learning, he is able and competent’. Dominic is recognised as ‘The World authority in High-performance Lightweight rowing. What is most spectacular is how effective he is in applying his know-how.
Everyone acknowledges his humility and selflessness. He never looks for attention and is happy to stay under the radar. A business phrase comes to mind: to succeed in business, you should ‘undersell and over-perform’. This epitomises Dominic's approach to a tee.
During the last two Olympiads, the Olympic flag flew proudly over the quad. University College Cork became an Olympic Campus. Dominic Casey has the unique distinction of being the most successful coach of UCC students who was never a UCC coach. Tonight, University College Cork is rectifying this, as the University is claiming him as one of it’s own.
On behalf of Irish Rowing for raising the sport's profile to stellar levels, for his exemplary support of Quercus Scholars, for enhancing the reputation of Skibbereen and University College Cork.
For his lifelong and relentless pursuit of excellence. Dominic Casey, Thank you.