We may have spent the night consulting structural engineers about the feasibility of such a project, but it appears that Joe Kernan's dream of building a roof over Croker are dead in the water already.
Last Sunday's weather blighted All-Ireland final inspired Joe to fly a kite in the Irish Examiner arguing that it was time a retractable roof was put over Croke Park.
Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna today rained cold water down on Kernan's suggestion.
Sounding intimidatingly well briefed, he pretty demolishes Kernan's proposal as thoroughly impractical. Essentially, the stand in Croke Park is so big, a retractable roof would not be a roof but a bridge. That would require long stations to be built underneath and there are serious doubts whether the room for these is there on the Hogan Stand side.
Needless to say, the cost would be astronomical. He spoke to the Examiner.
It has never been raised in discussion. The issue is that because the stand in Croke Park is so big, this is not putting on a roof, this is building a bridge.
You would need a bridge to cover the span. That requires fairly long stanchions to go inside and whether we technically have the room on the Hogan Stand side of the stadium to put down that level of support structure is questionable.
And the cost then is another substantial issue. Ballpark, it would be into the hundreds of millions. It is the cost of a bridge.
The final difficulty we have is the configuration of Hill 16 and the way that presents itself to the railway. Putting in a roof would not be feasible with current engineering techniques.
He dismisses the comparison with the Millennium Stadium, as Croke Park is much wider than the Cardiff venue.
The Millennium Stadium, which has a roof, is a lot narrower than Croke Park. Croke Park is one of the widest stadiums in the world, the width of our pitch is almost the length of the Millennium.
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