Sean McKenna gets to hold onto his cup for another year because the St Patrick's Day race he won last year, above, has been called off (Photo: Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
With Easter falling unusually early this year and especially coming as close as it does to St Patrick’s Day, the fixture list was always going to be very crammed at that time of year.
However, one race set to take place over the busy two-week period has been taken off the calendar; a direct casualty of the early Easter.
Usher Irish Road Club has announced its event on St Patrick’s Day in Summerhill, Co Meath, has been cancelled.
The club also organises the Gorey Three Day over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, which has grown down the years to be one of the biggest events on the domestic scene.
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And it has said because the Gorey starts just nine days after St Patrick’s Day, it has decided the workload involved in organising both events so close to each other was too much for one group of club volunteers to take on.
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The Dublin-based club confirmed the news this morning, Wednesday, with a message on its Facebook account.
“Usher Irish Road Club regrets to announce the cancellation of its annual St Patricks Day Race scheduled on the Cycling Ireland calendar to take place at Summerhill, Co Meath, as it concentrates on the final preparations for the 50th edition of the Gorey Three Day just nine days later. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
The cancellation of the race is a blow, especially coming so soon after the Ned Flanagan Memorial set for Co Kildare last weekend and the West Coast Wheelers Open Race due to unfold in Galway this weekend were scrapped, though with the promise they would take place at a later date.
Both of those fixtures were postponed on safety grounds.
Usher IRC’s announcing its decision one month before the St Patrick’s Day race was due to take place at least gives everyone a chance to make alternative arrangements.
And with the Gorey falling so soon after the national holiday, and involving so much work to promote, the decision is perhaps understandable.
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