By Shane Stokes
It’s early days yet, but Darach McQuaid is hoping that political change across the border could be good news for professional cycling on this island. McQuaid was heavily involved in bringing the 2014 Giro d’Italia to Ireland, and also ran the Tour of Ireland between 2007 and 2009.
He said both pre- and post-Giro that he hoped the success of that event would pave the way to re-establishing a national tour on these shores.
The intention then was to use that Giro as a springboard for a new North-South Tour of Ireland. Complications meant that never happened but, ten years on from the Giro d’Italia Grande Partenza, he is feeling a little more hopeful.
“I appreciate things have changed for the better, which is great,” he told stickybottle, speaking about the decision of politicians in the north in early February to once again enter government.
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“I’m very happy to see the recent return of the Executive in Northern Ireland and hopefully that will be lead to greater efforts, including from myself, to reboot professional cycling there.
“I think the Executive coming back can provide the hope that Northern Ireland government support for cycling can come on stream again.”
Whatever happened to the Tour of Ireland?
McQuaid was upbeat at the end of the Giro start in 2014. It spent several days in Ireland, with the build-up and the first two stages taking place in the north (via a team time trial and road race stage). The race then journeyed across the border to finish in Dublin on day three.
The atmosphere in both Belfast and Dublin was celebratory.
One of the pitching points was that the event would illustrate that Ireland as an island had healed from the tensions of the Troubles. That certainly was the mood in Belfast, with politicians of all divides embracing the race and the public being very welcoming of the cross-border project.
McQuaid recalls one moment in particular.
“I remember standing in Richhill where some of my cousins live on the day of the stage in Armagh,” he said. “And three, four people came over to me and said, ‘this is the best day in the history of Richhill.’ That’s how positive everything was.”
McQuaid went away from the race intending to work on the North-South Tour of Ireland project, albeit with one change.
Rather than crossing the border again, he decided it should be run entirely in the North. So why was that?
It came down to the extent of cooperation from the authorities. He doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of the details, but the message is clear.
“The situation with organizing the Giro was a lot easier in the North than the South, in terms of both councils and policing,” he explained. “And hence my subsequent efforts to do a Tour of Northern Ireland.”
McQuaid said that discussions were held around 2016 and 2017, and a business case was put together. The reception to that was good.
“At that time the North seemed to be going all guns blazing for the race, everybody in the same direction. So I pitched the Northern Irish Executive a Tour of Northern Ireland, and it was approved.
“Arlene Foster was the First Minister and Martin McGuinness was still alive, and they approved it. The Minister of Finance Simon Hamilton also approved it. And then Stormont collapsed.”
Designed like the Tour Down Under
The Northern Ireland Assembly unravelled after a scandal involving the North’s Renewable Heat Incentive, a green energy scheme previously established by Foster during her time as Minister for Enterprise and Investment.
McGuinness was deputy First Minister and asked Foster to stand aside during investigations, but she refused to do. He duly resigned and the Assembly collapsed.
“They ended up sort of holding any big decisions because Arlene got into trouble and then eventually the executive crashed,” McQuaid explained. “So basically, the political uncertainty set it back from an absolute ‘we are doing this,’ letters from First Minister, Deputy First Minister, a letter from the Minister of Finance, and all the other people I had working in and around it, saying ‘great, this is happening.’
“It would have actually been designed on a similar basis to the Tour Down Under, it would have been Belfast hotels every night and just different stages around Northern Ireland. It would have been pretty cool.”
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While the Executive did eventually return in January 2020, it became bogged down in Brexit matters, collapsed again two years later and wasn’t reformed again until last month.
With McQuaid’s project on hold, he became increasingly involved with the GreenEdge project, which includes the Jayco AlUla men’s and women’s teams. He’s also helping develop a cycling strategy in the AlUla region of Saudi Arabia.
But now, with the Executive back up and running, he indicated he will explore the possibility of a Tour of Northern Ireland once more.
“I will be engaging with them as soon as they have their feet properly under their desks,” he said. “But it is too early to tell if this will
have any short term benefit as they have a lot to sort out with health, education, social services and other aspects needing increased support.
“But the Tour of Northern Ireland found support at the highest levels when I proposed it, and there is no reason why that should not happen again.”
A new Tour de France opportunity?
It wasn’t just this tentative new stage race which was affected by the political freeze in the north. In October 2022 it was announced that Ministers from both sides of the border had established a project group to potentially bid for a Tour de France start in either 2026 or 2027.
In July 2023 the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland told the Irish government that it had decided to cease work on the potential joint bid. The Irish government later followed suit, but at the end of February things suddenly looked a little more hopeful again.
The North's Economy Minister Conor Murphy indicated then the return of the Executive had created a climate where a bid could potentially be considered.
“In July 2023 discussions on a potential all-Ireland bid to host the Tour de France Grand Depart were suspended largely due to the absence of an Executive,” he said during ministerial question time. “Since coming into post I have instructed my officials to reopen that dialogue.”
McQuaid told Stickybottle that he felt there would be a good reaction if a bid was to go ahead.
“The economic returns from these high profile sporting events are proven and I would be confident that an all island bid to host the Tour de France would be well received by the organisers,” he said.
Back in 1998 his brother Pat was heavily involved in bringing the Tour to Ireland back. Darach McQuaid states that nowadays such a bid is much more of a government-led effort, but that he had previously told by a politician in the North that he would be brought on board if the project went ahead.
He said that the Giro Grande Partenza ten years ago shows what a Grand Tour could do for the island.
“I think the politicians all recognized that,” he explained. “Every MLA stood up…I’ve got screengrabs of all of their speeches about a month after the Giro left. Every one of them from every side and every corner of the political spectrum said it was great for Northern Ireland. Even those for whom it didn’t pass through their areas were saying that.”
He says it would be huge for Irish cycling if it did eventually go ahead. “If anything, these starts are getting bigger. Look at Yorkshire, look at Denmark,” he said.
“The Tour and the Giro have a very different vibe these days, in my opinion. They both deliver big returns, but they are a very different experience for the country and for the fans. The look and feel of them is so different. And they’re both fantastic.
“If you look at recent Tour de France big starts, most peripheral – and I use that word with the greatest respect - peripheral countries like Ireland would cut their arm off to host something that big.
“We’ll never we’ll never get the Olympics. We’ll never get the Football World Cup. The Tour de France is the next biggest event and it’s the biggest annual event in the world.
“You don’t have to build a stadium for it. You don’t even have to build a velodrome first. It’s there. As [the journalist] Keith Duggan famously said years ago, the sport goes right past people’s kitchen windows.”
It is not yet certain what the NI Executive will decide, in terms of the cost/benefit analysis of a bid. However McQuaid is hopeful, and said that the 2014 Giro and the 1998 Tour start prove that Ireland is well capable of hosting a Grand Tour start.
“It still holds a real value, I think, for the island of Ireland. Getting the Tour back would be huge.
“It’s been very, very encouraging to see the amount of Irish pros, male and female who are stepping up into the World Tour ranks. So how cool would it be to see all of those riders coming back to start the Tour de France in Ireland? It would be absolutely amazing.”
It would certainly be huge for the sport here. But Tour bid or not, it is conceivable before then that an annual stage race could see top pro riders competing on this island once again.
If that does happen, the reformed Executive in the North will be a big part of making that happen.
