Honorary doctorate for Ireland’s coach Casey

Known for turning the small Irish town of Skibbereen (population 2,000) into a hotbed of rowing champions, Dominic Casey has been awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Education by University College Cork (UCC), Ireland.

Casey, a former national champion rower, moved into coaching more than 40 years ago starting out at his hometown Skibbereen Rowing Club. He has since led the club to 190 national championship titles.

That is just the tip of the iceberg of his coaching success. Since taking over as high performance coach of Rowing Ireland’s lightweight team, he has collected 32 senior international lightweight medals including Ireland’s first ever Olympic medal in rowing.

As the coach of Skibbereen’s lightweight duo, Paul and Gary O’Donovan, Casey took the duo through to a silver at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. He then went a step further by coaching Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan to the nation’s first Olympic rowing gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The crew also set the World Best Time in Tokyo, a time that still stands today.

McCarthy and O’Donovan went on to defend their gold at the Paris Olympics, making Casey one of the most successful Olympic coaches in Irish history.

All of this is done with a calm, understated nature which lends Casey to comment that he’d rather stay in the background than talk about himself.

CEO of Rowing Ireland, Michelle Carpenter noted Casey’s transformational impact: “Dominic Casey has elevated Irish rowing to unprecedented heights. His coaching of the lightweight double sculls and other crews has led to Olympic success, including two gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics. His philosophy centres on athlete empowerment, inspiring a new generation of rowers to achieve greatness.”

Casey was honoured by World Rowing when he was selected at 2018 World Rowing Coach of the Year. On accepting the award Casey said his advice to young rowers was: “Have fun. Keep it simple.”

The phrase “keep it simple” has become synonymous with Casey and it comes across in his easy-going nature that goes with him and his athletes.

“I don’t get too excited,” he says.

It also fits with his understated style and although Casey is not one to talk about himself, luckily others are willing to add their thoughts.

Gary O’Donovan described Casey: “Dominic gets the best out of people, he gets people to do things that they don’t think they can do. He does that with the athletes and he can get the most out of us. When we think we are all done, he will get more out of us. And he will get that out of the people around us because we need people to help us.”

Known for his long hours of commitment to rowing Casey says; “My role is to help them out the best I can. You have to like it to do it, it takes a long time.”