Boosting the economy by enticing wealthy Americans to come to Ireland under a clever pretext has been a successful tactic on many occasions, including the recent Steelers-Vikings NFL clash, in which the State cleverly kidnapped an existing sporting fixture and put it behind a paywall consisting of Aer Lingus flights, “dynamic” hotel prices and €8 pints.
Such a flytrap is not always ideal for locals who’d like to watch the actual events, though. The first flush of tickets for the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor is now available, in the form of “premium experiences”. They’re selling from €600 a day.
The business end of the competition on Sunday will cost you more than €2,600 a head, while a Trophy Suite package – in a “stylish lounge environment” boasting “private restrooms” and appearances from non-specified “greats of the game” – starts at €13,500 for the full event.
Property-owning Shannonsiders could stand to profit, however: the Ryder Cup operation is seeking pledges of houses to punt on to overseas visitors through its rental programme. Prices are not listed, but they’re asking a €600 fee to manage it for you, so you’d expect the rent to be multiples of that.
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From Clontarf to Ashdod
Budget day is a big one for The Irish Times inbox as various stakeholders consider how their stakes have been affected and, in some cases, sharpen them to jab into the side of the Government.
One unexpected standout email came from sometime Michael Lowry acolyte and Dublin Bay North Independent TD Barry Heneghan. Just before 5pm, Heneghan issued a press release celebrating a €500 million increase in disability funding, claiming a win for his loose collective of now-institutionalised regional mavericks who showed “the strength of independent voices working together for real outcomes”.
What’s notable about this? At the time, Barry was bobbing along the eastern Mediterranean on the Milad, one of nine boats forming a flotilla intended to deliver aid to Gaza. Less than 12 hours later, at around 4.30am, his boat was boarded in international waters by Israeli forces and he, along with four other Irish citizens and 145 others, was detained and brought to port for processing.
His Dáil seat, which is no longer beside Lowry after an earlier crisis of confidence, was empty as Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris updated deputies on the status of the detainees, “including a member of this House”, on Wednesday.
Drone delivery
In an otherwise fairly dull budget, a tax break on uilleann pipes stood out like the inimitable squeal of the bagged instrument itself. People who make or fix uilleann pipes or Irish forms of harp will have an income tax exemption on the first €20,000 of the proceeds from their work through 2028, we learned.
What’s going on there? Thomas Martin, a pipemaker based in Dublin, said the exemption would be a “huge help”.
“In recent years the price of materials that we use has skyrocketed,” he said. “Brass, silver, ebony, rosewood, etc has become terribly expensive.”
Makers have adapted to use native wood such as yew and apple, but despite the instrument enjoying a period of popularity, many craftsmen have put down their tools to seek more stable income, he added.
“The tax exemption would have been a reaction to be able to encourage makers to stay in the profession and it can help to keep the price of uilleann pipes at a reasonable level too.”
Martin Crossin, a Belfast man based in Co Donegal, said pipe-making is a part-time endeavour for him alongside playing and teaching, and “profit margins are typically low for handcrafted instruments”. It’s too early to say if he’ll see a big difference, but he appreciates “the recognition of the enrichment that uilleann pipe- and harp-making brings to our society”.
Space race
On one of our last column encounters with businessman Declan Ganley, he was rallying the troops on the conservative wing of the Catholic Church in Rome during the papal conclave. It turns out he’s nonsectarian in his alliances, however, after hiring former Conservative Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris as a senior adviser.
The former MP for Daventry was not an unmitigated success in Belfast, former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams greeting his departure from the role with a simple “Slán” on Twitter. However, he had previously built some amount of influence in London as chief whip for Boris Johnson and as chair of the notorious Brexit-boosting European Research Group. It is perhaps this Westminster power brokerage that made him an appealing asset for Ganley.
The project is helping his company Rivada progress Outernet, an alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink that would provide fast internet from satellites in orbit.
“Risk to the arteries of the global internet, subsea cables, is extraordinarily high and would have particularly concentrated catastrophic effects on island nations as well as others,” Ganley wrote, addressing the appointment, on (Musk’s) X.
Ireland is an island, Ganley will have no doubt noticed, and so is Britain – which could be where Double H’s influence will come in. He joins Karl Rove, Iraq-era pal of George W Bush, on the lobbying team.
Leo the Lusk
Parishioners in Lusk, Co Dublin, can feel especially holy this Sunday after receiving special blessings from Pope Leo XIV as they celebrate the centenary of St MacCullin’s Church, Irish Times contributor Patsy McGarry tells Overheard.
The papal shout-out follows local man Aidan Arnold, author of St MacCullin’s Church, Lusk: 100 Years and More on the Green, discovering a document from 1884 on the laying of a foundation stone for a belfry, referring to then queen of Britain and Ireland Victoria and then Pope Leo XIII, the last Leo before the current one.
Struck by the link, Mr Arnold and Fr Kevin Moore, parish priest of Lusk, wrote to the 14th Leo outlining the parish’s history and planned centenary celebrations. In a reply on August 26th, the pope extended warm greetings, expressed prayers for “spiritual renewal” among the people of Lusk, and imparted his apostolic blessing on the entire parish community.
Mr Arnold said that “to receive a message from Pope Leo XIV, echoing the words of his predecessor Leo XIII in our parish records gives the celebrations a powerful sense of continuity”.
Nearby Skerries may have been named by an anthropologist in 2023 as the best place in the world to live. But what’s that to the blessing of the Holy Father?
