*Photograph: Brian Arthur
A COMMUNITY FESTIVAL is to be held in Newmarket-on-Fergus when it hosts the Women’s Irish Open for the second year in a row.
Dromoland Castle’s 18 hole championship course will stage the KPMG Women’s Irish Open for the second time from August 31st to September 3rd. Europe’s leading professional female golfers will be battling it out for a total prize fund of €400,000 in Co Clare.
Over 25,000 people attended the 2022 event. Among the changes for this year include moving the Spectators Village to behind the 18th hole to ensure all visitors can stay close to the action on the course.
Extra efforts will be made to try give Newmarket-on-Fergus more of an economic bounce from hosting the event this year.
Chief Executive of Clare County Council, Pat Dowling said the local authority is keen that the village has more of a financial benefit this year. Local businesses did not see as much of an economic spin-off with the bulk of activity last year staying within the confines of the Dromoland estate.
Speaking at the July meeting of the Council, Dowling confirmed that a community festival is to be held in Newmarket-on-Fergus over the weekend of the Irish Open with officials in the Shannon Municipal District working with community groups to facilitate it.
Further details on this were provided by senior executive officer of the Shannon Municipal District, Anne Griffin. “The Women’s Irish Open gave a great boost locally and we really want to have an impact in Newmarket-on-Fergus and that Newmarket-on-Fergus would benefit from this event”.
She outlined that the festival would take place in The Green outside Our Lady of the Rosary church on Saturday and Sunday of the tournament with road closures to be in operation. There will be free live music and events suitable for all age-groups with street entertainment and face painting. “There will be shuttle buses from Dromoland as parking is limited,” she added while noting a full programme of events will be put together.
Newmarket-on-Fergus representative, Cllr Pat McMahon (FF) highlighted that he has had “seven or eight motions on footpaths leading into Dromoland” with works ongoing in the vicinity over recent weeks. “We only have two five star hotels in Co Clare, we’ve one in Dromoland and another in Doonbeg, in the last two years there has been a huge amount of work and in last six months it has been ongoing as you can all see with your own eyes. There is a huge amount of people of the village using the footpath”.
Cllr McMahon said there are plenty fond memories of Lahinch hosting The Irish Open in 2019 and he was hopeful Newmarket could try replicate this atmosphere. “The Irish Open was a huge success last year and it will be even better this year, it was a Castle event last year and this year it will be the whole area, it will be more family friendly, the great plus for golfing people is Ms Donegan from Ennis who is still an amateur who gave a brilliant account of herself in the US Open and will be a huge draw. The staff of Dromoland told me that the golfers were highly praiseworthy of the venue compared with other venues they played with on the European circuit”.
