*Doonbeg is ready to tee off for The Irish Open.
EXCITEMENT has hit fever pitch in Doonbeg with the arrival of the Amgen Irish Open to West Clare, capping off a twelve month build-up.
Buildings have been painted and refreshed all over the village of Doonbeg as the area puts its best foot forward to impress on the global audience as West Clare tries to showcase what it has to offer.
Chairperson of Doonbeg Community Development, Willie Hanrahan outlined, “there’s great excitement in the village, I was driving through this week and the whole place is painted, everywhere looks very well and all we need now is the weather to show it off properly. We have The Yard for anyone that wants to stop for a coffee and see what Doonbeg has to offer because this is a marvelous occasion for West Clare”.
According to the former Chairman of Clare IFA, “it is a fantastic opportunity for all the local crafts, shops and businesses to highlight and promote what they have, it is a marvelous opportunity, it is almost as good as the Ploughing Championships”.
He continued, “the whole thing is about promoting Co Clare and West Clare. For a while Clare was second fiddle to Kerry and the rest of the country but this is putting us on the map, we’ve lots to offer and even the improvement of our roads in the last six months for this has been phenomenal”.
Though it is not his first stint as Chairperson of Doonbeg Community Development, Willie’s latest run has lasted three years. The organisation has been “long standing since 1984, we are very active in the community, we were instrumental in 1999 and 2000 to get permission for a golf course to be built on the sand dunes, up till then it was used for transporting cattle and it has been transformed into one of the best golf courses in the country”.
His previous stint as Chair was in 2014 when the Trump family acquired the West Clare resort. At some stage or another, all of his five children have worked at Trump Doonbeg. He acknowledged that there will likely be protests against the presence of the US President, Donald Trump. “The President is coming on Saturday and will be here on Sunday, the level of security will be heightened and it will put some restrictions on everyone’s movements, it does put a different perspective on it and it attracts the attention of world media but all publicity is good publicity. He’s been here twice, he’ll come and go, there will be some element of protest, some are planned, we don’t really know where Trump will fly into so a protest in Shannon Airport might be futile, people can protest whenever and wherever they want but hopefully they won’t go too close to the golf course”.
Doonbeg is “top of the world”, this week, Willie felt. “We have the tourism in West Clare with the walks and the beaches, we have the accommodation, we have the restaurants, it is top of the world stuff, you couldn’t buy this publicity. The best golfers are here, we have the world media here so everyone is looking at West Clare and Doonbeg”.
His own golf game has waned due to issues with his knees but he described the sport as “a great way of relaxing for a few hours”.
On Thursday last the community hall in Doonbeg was full where stakeholders involved in the Irish Open briefed locals on plans for the tournament. “The Superintendent was there and he made it very clear he can’t discuss security issues but he briefed us on the planned road closures and what will happen, the road from the village to the golf course will close from Friday to Sunday but the rest of the village will be open for business, local people will have passes to travel freely for the weekend”.
