IT takes a lot of balls to turn around and tell your local community to reign in their expectation around the arrival, on their doorstep, of one of the biggest sporting events in the world in two years time.
But Fianna Fáil councillor Bridie Collins has a driving ambition and she talks sense, lots of it, and when she raised concerns at council level about the air of anticipation around the Ryder Cup in Adare, she was speaking as a disquieted member of her own community.
Collins also has skin in the game, so she knows what she is talking about. You would like to think so, anyway.
A former green keeper at Mount Juliet in Kilkenny, who has attended golf tournaments all over the world, she was disappointed that councillors were only setting eyes upon the Council’s Ryder Cup coordinator for the first time at last month’s meeting of the local authority.
“I would hope this would be a much more frequent event. I didn’t know you in the room although you’ve been in the role for over a year. I find that a wee bit disappointing, particularly since I sit in Adare,” Cllr Collins told Elaine O’Connor, the woman with the best job at City Hall.
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Shur, look, we’ve all heard the stories of homes been rented out for ridiculous money in West Limerick in advance of the pre-eminent golfing spectacle which tees off in Adare Manor in 2027. A staggering €50,000+ one person was asking for their property.
For a wet week in September?
Where would you be going!
I have also heard of people hastily trying to build extensions and granny flats just so they can cash in on the Ryder Cup free-for-all. Granny will most likely be booted out of her converted garage for a whiff of filthy lucre and offered up as a caddie to some minted Yank for the duration.
The poor auld cratur, and she on her last legs, and crook with ingrown toenails and diabetic foot ulcers.
More power to their enterprising undertakings but where will it all end?
With granny in the ditch, possibly, or as councillors so eloquently, warned — in tears. There will definitely be lots of grinding and gnashing of teeth, and not just from the old dears left out on the street.
Listen up people, because the Ryder Cup will not be County Limerick’s answer to the Californian Gold Rush. So, cop yourselves on! Is it mad ye are gone, altogether?
Would someone please think of the old folks!
Cllr Collins certainly was.
“Everybody thinks all their bills are going to be paid and that every single roof is going to be replaced. That expectation is within the village, so if it cannot be met, we need to know that now. Everybody thinks they’re going to gain out of the Ryder Cup, so the reality of the expectation needs to be either tempered or needs to be dealt with, and we all need to be singing off the same hymn sheet,” she insisted.
You can breath easy awhile yet, grandma.
Fine Gael councillor Adam Teskey also saw an opportunity to land a fairway shot, and was quickly singing out of Cllr Collins’ songbook. He too maintains that there’s an unfair expectation that all the bills are going to be paid on the back of the Ryder Cup in Adare.
“That expectation needs to be quashed and brought into the realisation that there isn’t an open cheque book,” he said.
Putting on his best panto dame frock, he hammed it up to the stratosphere as he advised the executive to err on the side of caution when it comes to road infrastructure and forward planning.
“Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. It’s been brought up repeatedly in the Adare-Rathkeale District in relation to the new road and the fact it’s only been semi brought to the old golf club and the link road there. We have requested time and time again that this be re-looked at and brought to Mount Earl so that you have a straight bypass. To me, if that isn’t put in place, we’re going nowhere,” Cllr Teskey warned.
He wasn’t finished yet. In fact, he was only getting into his stride.
No better buachaill!
“A rising tide must lift all boats. As far as I can see, it’s only lifting one here, and there’s quite a few at the docks. I do not want to see a situation where our local authority is landed in a state of debt in relation to this event. We seem to be putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket,” he opined — putting it out there that Foynes, Rathkeale and neighbouring parishes should also see some of the action.
Independent councillor John O’Donoghue admitted he is more of a hurling man himself, but he was well curious to know if anyone from the Council will be going to the Ryder Cup in New York this year, purely on a reconnaissance mission, mind!
“I don’t know a whole pile about golf, but this is going to be huge. is there someone from the Council going over representing to see what the story is?” he asked.
Sinn Féin councillor Sharon Benson had clearly been practicing her swing as she was quick to capsize Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael councillors’ golf carts without fluffing her shot.
“It would be wrong of me not to point out that we can’t have festivals and events without budget, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael cut the budget for festivals and events this year with their amendment. I just want to point that out,” Cllr Benson said — with much flapping in the side aisles
“I will continue to remind you so you don’t make the same mistake again,” she concluded.
There you have it.
Politics, just like golf, drives wedges between one opponent and another.
FORE!
