LISSYCASEY’s Daniel McCarthy has been honoured for helping to ensure the Mid-West will host the prestigious 2026 European TAFISA Games.
Owner of The Heritage Factory, Daniel has been based in Italy for the past year working on an Olympic and UNESCO backed world traditional sports and games project.
He previously headed up the UNESCO designation of hurling over a seven year period on behalf of the GAA. McCarthy was also the lead campaigner on the government ratification of the UNESCO Declaration on Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2015.
Daniel told The Clare Echo, “An offshoot of that campaign led to the re-structuring of the provincial hurling championships which has brought welcome promotion and boost to the local economy with two guaranteed home games a year in Ennis since 2018 when prior to that there was one provincial hurling match over a near 40 year period”.
A former Clare U21 and junior footballer, he also welcomed the entry of gaelic football into the National Inventory for Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The Shannon Region Conference and Sports Bureau presented awards to fifteen sports ambassadors to acknowledge their efforts in securing valuable international sporting events for the Mid-West region.
Eight major international events scheduled at the University of Limerick in 2025 and 2026 are set to attract thousands of overseas visitors, delivering an estimated €4 million boost to the regional economy. Sports Tourism provides a massive boost to a host city and county. Sports event participants tend to stay on average 5-7 nights and often travel on to other parts of Ireland. Not only do the thousands of additional visitors provide a huge benefit to the local economy, there is also the potential for international broadcasts at some events and millions of social media views, promoting Limerick to visitors around the world.
Daniel was honoured as a sporting and heritage ambassador in UL. TAFISA is the world’s largest Sports For All organisation, based in the Commerzbank in Frankfurt with its world games taking place since 1962 with thousands of athletes and participants at each of the World Games. It also includes the celebration of traditional sports and having led the first Irish and GAA delegations to the Fryslân games of 2018 and Perugia in 2022, he is delighted how the proactive UL, Limerick City and County council and Shannon Region Convention group and driven by the Limerick Sports Partnership worked closely in tandem to win the outright bid. He hopes to see a strong Clare emphasis in part of the schedule roll out in tandem with cultural heritage, maritime events with strong international traditional sports and games focus.
In 2022, Liam Grant of Lahinch received similar recognition for his involvement in bringing the World Masters Ultimate Frisbee Club Championships to UL alongside Barry Walsh.
