The new International Rugby Experience in Limerick, which will soak up a €30 million investment from the family of the billionaire JP McManus, hopes to do more than cement an association between a sport and a city. For the chief executive Barry Hannon the project is designed to round off the city’s tourism offering and help regenerate a city centre hollowed out by the rise of out-of-town shopping.
It will bring together the McManus family’s “love of sport and love of Limerick”, Hannon says, and as such completes something of a trilogy. McManus has been a long-time sponsor of Limerick GAA, helping to lift the county hurlers from also-rans to superpowers. He also secured the 2027 Ryder Cup for Adare Manor, the family-owned five-star resort in Co Limerick. A nod to rugby was long overdue.
The idea of marking the city’s enduring love affair with the sport probably goes back 20 years, Hannon says. On and off over the past decade the McManuses worked with Munster, Ireland and Lions star Paul O’Connell about developing the project. “It really took off I suppose when Paul retired and had more than time to devote to the project,” Hannon says.
The chief executive says they looked at a traditional rugby style museum, but decided against “dusty boots and mucky balls in a glass cabinet”. There are a lot of very good sports museums, he adds; Limerick wanted to take a different direction.
The inspiration comes more from the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin and the Titanic Experience in Belfast. Event Communications, selected to curate the International Rugby Experience, designed the award-winning Titanic Belfast exhibition, a masterclass in modern digital storytelling which says as much as about the city in the early 1900s as it does about the doomed ship.
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A similar approach will be adopted in Limerick. The International Rugby Experience will not be a history of the game, but an exploration of its values and ethos as it charts the journey of a youngster as he or she travels from grassroots to legend. Space will be devoted to the themes of passion, discipline, integrity, solidarity and respect, and feature some of the sport’s best-known characters such as Dan Carter, Maggie Alphonsi, Willie John McBride, Joy Neville and Nigel Owens.
By focusing on themes rather than teams, Hannon, who has previously worked with Deloitte, GE and the Tipperary co-op, hopes the appeal will be broadened, resonating with visitors who are not rugby fans while also gripping the faithful.
The not-for-profit venture aims to draw 100,000 visitors a year, with an average spend of €20. This will cover annual running costs, including the hiring of 35 permanent staff. Yet the ambition will be to generate more revenues, which will then be reinvested. The goal is to generate repeat visits, and for this, the experience will need to evolve constantly. For example, a shortlist of 30 stories to illustrate leadership was drawn up, and filming will begin shortly on 16 pieces, of which eight will be on display at any one time.
The real purpose is to generate footfall and spending in the city. The belief is that a €2 million spend at the exhibition would be worth €8 million to the local economy.
The vast majority of the €30 million investment will go into the seven-storey building, which is designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects. The top floor will be the Lantern, which will peek out over the parapet on O’Connell Street and offer a 360-degree panoramic view of the city, the Shannon river and estuary, and the rolling countryside. There will be an event space in the basement capable of catering for 120 people, plus a café and retail.
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The attraction is being built on the site of four buildings on the corner of O’Connell Street and Cecil Street, three of which were derelict for three or four years. It would have been cheaper and easier to build on a greenfield site on the city outskirts, Hannon says, yet the intention was always to help regenerate and reinvigorate the heart of the Georgian city centre. It is already having an effect, with a number of buildings on O’Connell Street now being renovated.
The attraction has its work cut out. While high-profile, a 2015 ESRI survey showed that rugby did not feature in the top 15 participation sports in Ireland, below tennis and bowling. Nor is it a game of universal global appeal, being alien to key tourist markets such as America or Germany. Yet Hannon is not discgouraged. When the Guinness Storehouse opened, he says, some feared it might struggle. Guinness was, after all, something of an old man’s drink. Its original target was 100,000 visitors; it welcomed 1.7 million paying customers in 2019, before the pandemic.
“At the end of the day, it’s about having fun,” Hannon says.
