Dear Cuala Member,

We are writing to inform you that the decision has been taken to terminate negotiations between Cuala and Blackrock College Rugby Club to enter into a ground sharing agreement. There are many reasons for this decision but both parties concluded that the proposed contract structure would not be workable. We had reached advanced agreement with Blackrock but ultimately the deal was not possible due to the complexity of the agreement, the timescales involved and the requirements of both Cuala and BRFC.

As a club, much has been achieved over the past year including raising over €1.1m in donations and pledges and obtaining Revenue tax approval. We’d like to thank everyone in Cuala who worked on this project and we’d also like to thank the Blackrock team who worked with us over the past year.

The Cuala Coiste has long recognised that the continued success of our club teams into the future requires top-class facilities. 2014 was a fantastic year for Cuala with both hurling and football senior teams in Division 1. The Coiste had already been working on other options alongside the Stradbrook project which now take on an added importance. These include :-

• Working with Dun Laoghaire County Council on additional facilities and upgrading of existing allocations, pitches and facilities
• Working with other sporting facilities to get additional playing facilities

We want to sincerely thank all those who donated and pledged to support the Stradbrook project. We had very wide support and every donation from €25 to €100,000 was greatly appreciated.  We will be in contact with everyone who donated or pledged to make arrangements (see our FAQ below). To hit our fundraising target of €1.1m was an incredible achievement for Cuala and it was fantastic to see the huge support and generosity shown by all our donors.

Many thanks to the various teams who worked over the past months to get the project going; special thanks to the fundraising team who enabled us to reach our €1.1m goal in a very short time.
Despite this project not proceeding it has been a positive exercise and as mentioned above we fully expect to have an alternative proposal in the near future. We will be in touch with members in the first few months of 2015 with further information.