Hopes for Tall Ships Race in Galway scuttled

City Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath has told councillors that race organisers had decided that the European host ports would all be in Scandinavia.

Regardless, he explained, Galway Port is not big enough to host such an event.

Last year, Councillor Padraig Conneely, Chair of the Council’s Strategic Policy Committee for Economic Development, spearheaded a campaign to bring the Tall Ships event to Galway – and potentially more than one million visitors.

Local authority officials had assessed the possibility of bidding to become a host port in 2019.

Cllr Conneely expressed disappointment at this week’s Council meeting.

Mr McGrath said he understood the disappointment.

“2019 was a possible date, but Sail Training international have decided on holding it in the Baltics [sic],” the Chief Executive said.

The race organisers announced recently that the four European ports would be in Scandinavia – two in Denmark and two in Norway.

“Cost issues aside, it would involve 70-plus sailing vessels and there isn’t sufficient room for a regatta in the Harbour.

“We don’t have the river length and the quays where they could berth for the public,” said Mr McGrath.

A previous Tall Ships event in Dublin in 2012 attracted more than one million visitors, and in 2011, more than 500,000 people to Waterford.

According to Cllr Conneely, the event could have generated between €30m and €50m for the economy of the region, and would have brought 3,000 crew members alone, as well as ships from all over the world.