The Limerick Irish Rugby Experience closure

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Dr Strangelove

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The news broke late last week that the Irish Rugby Experience (basically a museum) in Limerick would close soon after a mere 18 months in existence. It sits in a genuinely attractive new €30m building funded by JP McManus who, if you don't know, is a local man with a lot of money who lives in Switzerland.

The RTÉ story suggests that talks with Limerick City (County?) Council about taking over the Irish Rugby Experience had broken down. Worse-than-expected numbers of paying visitors was given as one of the reasons for its lack of viability.

I listened to the Clare Byrne piece and the whole thing seemed very scripted with a local journalist and a TD both praising McManus and knocking the Council.

McManus himself didn't seem available for comment and the https://www.internationalrugbyexperience.com/news/international-rugby-experience-statement (statement) on the IRE website gave a firm of PR consultants to contact.

It seems odd to put €30m into a building without a solid plan for its future. Or indeed the capacity to fund it on an ongoing basis. There was mention of 50 jobs which seems massive for a small museum in a small city.

Am I very cynical in thinking that maybe people have other ideas in mind for the building?
 
In fairness to JP, he puts a lot of money into things with little or no tangible return from a financial perspective. Limerick GAA being a case in point. You'd be hard pushed to find anyone in Limerick with a bad word to say about him.

To me though, this was always in the wrong location and needed to be out at Thomand park and perhaps linked to a Munster rugby museum as well. That way they'd also get more people on match day.
 
I think jp mcmanus way over estimated the interest in rugby or any sport for that matter to require its own dedicated museum. People that attend museums are very different cohort to those that attend rugby games. Maybe a general museum on limerick and munster history would be more appropriate with a section given over to rugby. Even the Manchester United shop in Dublin at the height of man United uphoria with Roy Keane et al playing also failed. I don't think us tourists visiting that usually goto museums here are that interested in rugby. Jp mcmanus because he is a sporting and betting nut thought lots more were like him, he got that very wrong
 
It might have worked a bit better if it had been attached to the Aviva with a stadium full of potential visitors every match day.

The number of rugby fans willing to travel to Limerick for the sole purpose of visiting the museum was always going to be limited.
 
Salvadore said:
The number of rugby fans willing to travel to Limerick for the sole purpose of visiting the museum was always going to be limited.
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Yes I think it’s a small sport in a small city. 60k visitors in 18 months sounds actually pretty good to me. I don’t think the 100k estimate was really ever plausible.


thedaddyman said:
In fairness to JP, he puts a lot of money into things with little or no tangible return from a financial perspective. Limerick GAA being a case in point. You'd be hard pushed to find anyone in Limerick with a bad word to say about him.
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Simple wrong location.

Limerick is not a tourist city of note. It could never work.

Even in NZ they know the All Black experience would not work in Wellington where the All Blacks HQ is based, but it does work in Sky City in the centre of Auckland as part of an overall tourism offering that includes a casino and the Sky Tower.

I wonder if that local TD and local journalist would think the same if they realised that it would cost every household in Limerick €100-€150 a year increase in property tax just for the upkeep?
 
peemac said:
I wonder if that local TD and local journalist would think the same if they realised that it would cost every household in Limerick €100-€150 a year increase in property tax just for the upkeep?
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I doubt it would be that much.

But fifty staff seems massive given what it is and isn't and I'm not surprised the Council was reluctant to take on such a big ongoing liability.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
I doubt it would be that much.

But fifty staff seems massive given what it is and isn't and I'm not surprised the Council was reluctant to take on such a big ongoing liability.
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Not sure what the employment grade mix would be 50 staff at average wage is €2.2M, €100 per household raises less than €4M. Probably not that far off the mark once you start adding all the other costs.
 
Another failure of our local government system.

Councillors calling for something knowing they wouldn’t have to take ownership of the cost.

This looks like a good decision by Limerick Council, prudent with the tax payers money.
 
I friend of mine from Munster said the same thing.
 
I don't think a museum about sport any sport is a great idea, people that are interested in sport are mainly interested in it for today not for yesterday . Even a club like man utd or Barcelona doesn't generate huge interest for their exploits from 20 years ago. It's how the club is doing today that creates the atmosphere for everything, going to a man utd museum would only depress their current fan base.
Overall it was a ridiculous idea
 
I don't agree with that. I was at the Arsenal museum over the summer on a non-match day and there was plenty of people of all ages at it. There is a guy in Cork who does a travelling GAA museum and he gets huge crowds. Nostalgia is big business.

Issue for Limerick (in my view) is that the museum/experience was badly located and over staffed.
 
That's because arsenal is doing well now so interest in their museum is directly related to their success on the football field today. But also that football has a much bigger international interest than limerick or munster rugby. It was just too local and niche an interest.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
I’m guessing but I’d imagine London gets 100x more tourists annually than Limerick.
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London is by far the most visited city in Europe.

Dr Strangelove said:
Irish rugby is great I’m sure but Arsenal fill a 60,000- seater stadium thirty times a year.
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They have 19 home games a year in the premier league. Do they fill the place another 11 times a year?

Irish Rugby is very well supported. English teams only dream of the sort of Gates that Leinster and Munster get, but building what was billed as a national Rugby experience in a town/city the size of Limerick and expecting 100,000 visitors a year was fanciful at best. Around 600,000 tourists visit Limerick each year. There's no way they were ever going to get those numbers.

The Guinness Storehouse in Dublin is the most visited man made tourist attraction in the country with around 1.5 million visitors a year but it's in a city of over a million people, has one of the most recognisable brands in the world and Diageo spend around €70 million developing it.
 
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Arsenal (like other major PL soccer teams) probably benefits from the fact that there's a high proportion of Arsenal fans who wouldn't be regulars at home games, so they would be more likely to visit a museum as once off.
 
Purple said:
They have 19 home games a year in the premier league. Do they fill the place another 11 times a year?
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FA Cup? Champions League? Is my point invalidated if the true number is 25? They have a big fanbase.

Purple said:
The Guinness Storehouse in Dublin is the most visited man made tourist attraction in the country with around 1.5 million visitors a year but it's in a city of over a million people, has one of the most recognisable brands in the world
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Yeah I think the bigger factor is just tourist footfall which in Limerick has a natural ceiling.

Anyway let’s come back to this thread in two years and see what the building’s use is by then
 
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